The wind from the valley was swaying the red beech to and fro; the fountain swelled and roared while its waters glistened in the broad moonlight. All this to be seen again and again, and yet--"daily suicide"--
"What are you saying, father? What do you mean by those words?" asked Richard.
It was not until then that I became aware of my having uttered them.
For Ernst, for my poor child, no day would ever more begin with the love of life. "Daily suicide"--in this phrase his deed and its consequences seemed to concentrate themselves. I was obliged to sit clown on the steps, and not until then was I able to shed tears.
How often Ernst had run up and down there! I could yet remember the first time that he climbed those steps on all fours, turning his pretty head with its light curls towards me when I called out to him, and waiting quietly until I would come and take him up in my arms!
But now he had conjured up a restless demon whom no cry or supplication could exorcise.
At this very moment I can distinctly remember how I wished that all the sorrow and pain might descend on my own head and be gathered up into my own heart, in order that I might bear them for others.
"Master, why are you sitting at your own threshold like a strange beggar?" were the words with which Rothfuss surprised me. "I have already heard what our madcap Ernst has done; do not let that grieve you to death--that will do you no good. In this world, every one must carry his own hide to market. It is bad enough in all conscience, but there is courage in it for all. There are hundreds and thousands of them who would like to do what he has done; but they follow the drum with its rat-tat-tat, and put on airs into the bargain. Do you know what I think of this matter?--Do not interrupt me, Heir Professor; I know what I am talking about--I say that every large family must have its black sheep, and I would rather a thousand times have a good-for-nothing than an idiot, the very sight of whom makes one's hair stand on end.
"Yes, indeed; my mother was right. Her favorite maxim was: 'Better sour than rotten,' and 'To be hard of hearing is not half so bad as to have poor eyes.'
"In every family there is something; or, as the poor woman once said: 'There is something everywhere,--except in my lard-pot, where there is nothing at all.'"