The
clothes which he had worn the day before lay on a chair beside the
bed, miserably threadbare, foul with dirt, sweat, and tobacco, and
stinking like everything else. His mouth was distorted, his hands
tightly clenched; he had died of a stroke.
And how forlorn and desolate was all around him! Why had his son
never noticed this before? Why had he never felt that his father
was lonely and forsaken? To how great an extent no words could
express.
Rafael burst into tears; louder and louder grew his sobbing, until
it sounded through all the rooms. The people from the estate came
in one by one. They wished to satisfy their curiosity.
The boy's crying, unconsciously to himself, influenced them all:
they saw everything in a new light. How unfortunate, how desolate,
how helpless had he been who now lay there. Lord, have mercy on us
all!
When the corpse of Harald Kaas had been laid out, the face shaved,
and the eyes closed, the distortion was less apparent. They could
trace signs of suffering, but the expression was still virile. It
seemed a handsome face to them now
CHAPTER 2
Within a few days of the funeral mother and son were in England.
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