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Updated: May 31, 2025
Fausch, whose day's work was done, put his short pipe between his teeth, and wandered along the road toward Waltheim, through the sunshine, stretching out his bare, black arms before him, he bathed them in the light, and enjoyed seeing how every motion he made broke some of the golden threads. Just then he saw the little boy, Cain, coming out of the woods through the beautiful shadows.
It was the evening of the day when the landlord had scolded his daughter on Cain's account. Simmen looked very much displeased. Fausch had come just as he was, dirty, and leaning a little forward, as if he had to thrust his great head through a wall.
And now another thought forced itself upon him: "If he is to stay here, you will have to sing small, Stephen Fausch, you will have to take back half your life and say, I am sorry that it was all wrong!" He breathed heavily, as if he were lifting an enormous weight that was almost too much for human strength. Then he seemed once more to see Cain and Vincenza walking side by side.
"We had a fight," he began in a breathless tone, as if he had but just shaken off a couple of his enemies. "And then I stayed in the woods a long time." Katharine stood in the doorway, leaning forward to hear what would happen next. Fausch looked sharply at the boy. "Tell me about it," said he. As he spoke, it seemed as if Cain's appearance caught his eye more than ever.
"But it is a good business all the same," continued the talkative trader, stroking his thin pointed beard. "May be a better place than you have here." At this point Fausch stopped working. "Where is it then?" he asked slowly. "The smith at the hospice among the mountains over toward Italy is dead," the trader answered. "The landlord is not satisfied with the apprentice whom the smith left behind.
Then again the other power would struggle with this one, the thought: "Is it the boy's fault? You have branded him, and he didn't deserve it!" And his affection for Cain was there, no matter how he tried to argue it down. The inner conflict, that Stephen Fausch carried about with him, was increasing. And withal time still came and went. One year followed the others and another followed that.
He wants to rent the blacksmith shop again. One can make good money up there." Fausch did not wait to hear the end of the sentence. He heated the tire and hammered it till the sparks flew. But his thoughts were working harder than his hammer. At the same time he saw how the trader turned from him to the boy, with whom he began to talk.
"Then I will wait," said he. In the passageway he turned to Katharine, who stepped out of the room with him. "What is it, what is the matter with my father?" he asked. Poor old Katharine was silent and thoughtful. "He is not easy to make out, the master," said she. But after this conversation, Stephen Fausch passed a long, anxious, sleepless night.
The figures of the man and the boy made a striking contrast. When he was near the boy, Fausch looked still heavier, stouter and darker than usual. The light of the forge fire shone on his brown face and showed the charcoal streaks on it and the dust in his thick, tangled, black beard. The sparks flew from his heavy blows, but they flew in short spurts, as straight as an arrow to the ground.
After the teacher's failure, one and another tried to make Fausch change his mind, a good-natured old man who was a member of the school board, the village constable, whose opinion of himself was only equalled by his great stature, and finally a couple of sympathetic women. Fausch let them all chatter, gave them no answer, and only ran away, when they went a little too far.
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