Her even breathing, her regular features, seemed to answer him.
"Hey-dey, my boy, we shall be merry for a thousand years! Better
sleep now, you will need sleep if you mean to try which of us is
the stronger."
The next day their marriage was the marvel of the town and
neighbourhood.
"Just like his mother!" people exclaimed; "what promise there was
in her! She might have chosen so as to have been now in one of the
best positions in the country--when, lo and behold! she went and
made the most idiotic marriage. The most idiotic? No, the son's is
more idiotic still." And so on and so forth.
Most people seem naturally impelled to exalt the hero of the hour
higher than they themselves intend, and when a reaction comes, to
decry him in an equal degree. Few people see with their own eyes,
and on special occasions even magnifying or diminishing glasses
are called into play with most amusing results.
"Rafael Kaas a handsome fellow?--well, yes, but too big, too fair,
no repose, altogether too restless. Rich? He? He has not a stiver!
The savings eaten up long ago, nothing coming in, they have been
encroaching on their capital for some time; and the beds of cement
stone--who the deuce would join with him in any large undertaking?
They talk about his gifts, his genius even; but IS he very highly
gifted? Is it anything more than what he has acquired? The saving
of motive power at the factory? Was that anything more than a mere
repetition of what he had done before?--and that, of course, only
what he had seen elsewhere.
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