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Updated: May 31, 2025
Only then did the rumor that he had heard occur to Hallheimer: the rumor that the smith's wife had been over-intimate with her husband's brother. At the top of the stone steps of the house there now appeared a woman who looked very stout, because she wore so many petticoats. With an important and mysterious look, she nodded to the smith. "It has come, Stephen Fausch. You have a boy.
"If only it is a boy, to carry on your name, Stephen Fausch ..." The smith muttered something to himself, which his companion could not understand. "The first child! What a pleasure it will be to you," the trader went on eagerly. "It isn't mine," said Stephen Fausch gruffly. With his one eye he glared at the man, so that his words stuck in his throat.
He sat there so motionless and was so dark a shape, from his clumsy shoes to his black, woolly head, that it was not easy to distinguish where the iron of the anvil ended and the living man began, or whether the whole was not an iron statue. Moreover, no one could have seen that within him all was turmoil and struggle and strife. But Stephen Fausch was thinking.
"It is beautiful here," said he. And Stephen Fausch did the same, only he did not speak; his words were too costly. Then they went into the house together. From this morning on they began to feel at home without the least difficulty. Fausch found plenty of work.
Stephen Fausch was far from regarding his boy as an angel, but when the child was not looking at him, he too would secretly marvel at his face, every feature of which was like a work of art. His mouth had kept the same shape that it had had when he was a baby; it was like a delicate flower whose calyx is just opening.
Along the pale colored road, in the dazzling light went the heavy wagon, the smith marching stolidly behind it. He now fell back a few steps. As he did so Katharine laid her trembling hand on Cain's. "I must tell you," she began mysteriously, and looking back at Fausch, as if he might hear her. "Yes?" asked Cain.
He now closed the door again carefully. Katharine involuntarily stepped back into her room, out of sight. She heard Fausch pass, taking care to tread softly, and go downstairs again. He went into the living room, and then she plainly heard him go into the next room. The thumping of her heart, that had almost taken away her breath subsided.
She could now see him plainly, framed by Cain's doorway. A pale gray light filled the room. Her heart beat. What was the Master going to do? Surely he would not Had he a grudge against the boy, on account of the fight? Fausch looked over to the boy's bed. Then he drew a long breath. The lad was asleep. The smith had thought that Cain might still be crying. That was why he had come upstairs.
The rumbling of the wagon awoke the prying eyes of Waltheim. Each one beckoned or called to the others. It was as if the little group were running the gauntlet. Fausch and Cain walked with lowered heads, the smith, because it was his surly fashion, the boy, through bashfulness, because he knew that now all eyes and tongues were busy with him once more.
"And and you must leave the boy," the thought came over him again. "And you needn't deny it you miss him whenever he is away from you. Since since Maria gave you up for the other you have had no other joy in your life like him it isn't so easy to leave him for always, you needn't pretend, Stephen Fausch!" The smith rose and laid his hands on the window-sill.
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