“Will you try if you can be his friend?”
Hans was quite willing.
Cordt looked at him and gauged his strength. He looked round in the little low-ceilinged room which contained nothing but what served Hans in his work. He looked out of the window, where the roofs intersected one another, dirty and grey against the sky: smoke rose from hundreds of chimneys, the noise of the courtyard and the street filled the room, the window was broken and pasted up with paper.
Then he again turned his eyes to the man who sat amidst these mean surroundings and grew up strong. And Cordt knew that he was not standing here as his benefactor and his father’s employer, who was opening his rich house to him. He stood here as one who could beg and nothing more.
“You know you used to play together as children,” he said.
And, when he had said that, he was overcome with emotion, because he remembered that Finn had never played. Hans thought the same thing, but could not find the words that should be spoken on this occasion and the silence became heavy and painful to both of them.
To say something at all costs, Hans asked if Finn was ill.
Then Cordt understood that Hans must long since have pronounced his judgment on the pale, silent heir of the house and that the judgment could not be good.
He rose, tired of seeking for guarded phrases. He laid his hands on Hans’ shoulders and looked at him in such a way that Hans never forgot it:
“Do you be David,” he said. “Come to us with your harp. And come of your own accord and come when we send for you.”