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."
Just the same with the hints which he had given. "Merely close personal observation; for it must be admitted that he had more of that than most people; but as for ingenuity! Well, he could make out a good case for himself, but that was about the extent of his ingenuity."
"His earlier articles, as well as those which had recently appeared on the use of electricity in baking and tanning—could you call those discoveries? Let us see what he will invent now that he has come home, and cannot get ideas from reading and from seeing people."
Rafael noticed this change—first among the ladies, who all seemed to have been suddenly blown away, with a few exceptions, who did not respect a marriage like his, and who would not give in.
His relations, also, held somewhat aloof. "It was not thus that he showed himself a true Ravn. He was so in temperament and disposition, perhaps, but it was just his defect that he was only a half-breed."
The change of front was complete: he noticed it on all hands. But he was man enough, and had sufficient obstinacy as well, to let himself be urged on by this to hard work, and in his wife there was still more of the same feeling.
He had a sense of elevation in having done his duty, and as long as this tension lasted it kept him up to the mark. On the day of his marriage (from early in the morning until the time when the ceremony took place) he employed himself in writing to his mother; a wonderful, a solemn letter in the sight of the All-Knowing,—the cry of a tortured soul in utmost peril.
It depended on his mother whether she would receive them and let their life become all that was now possible. Angelika—their business, manager, housekeeper, chief. He—devoted to his experiments. She—the tender mother, the guide of both.
It seemed to him that their future depended on this letter and the answer to it, and he wrote in that spirit. Never had he so fully depicted himself, so fully searched his own heart.