And through the excuses rang their pride in the strong son whom they handled as cautiously as though he would fall to pieces if they took firm hold of him ... their joyous dread of the greatness that awaited him.
Finn understood them and was touched by them. He sang his friend’s praises and prophesied a preposterous success for him and was happy to read the gladness in the little parents’ eyes.
And, while he was deep in conversation with them and amused at Hans, who was utterly confused that his friend should see the adoration of which he was the object, the picture of his own parents suddenly rose before his thoughts like great black silhouettes against the light background.
He stopped talking and then they all became silent and it was not pleasant in the room.
Afterwards, he stood with Hans and looked through the open window.
His eyes roamed over the hundreds of roofs. The sun shone on the slates and the red tiles and lit up the telephone-wires. Little garret-windows stuck out on every side ... with chintz curtains, with wall-flowers and geraniums and pelargoniums and yellow birds in white cages.
In one place there hung an elegantly-painted wooden box with ferns, which were quite brown, but stood proud and stiff, and a little fir-tree in the middle. In another, the curtain fluttered right out into the air and waved and flapped like a flag. Here, two sparrows hopped about in the gutter ... there, a caged bird was singing, shrilly and sweetly.
“How charming this is!” he said.
Hans did not exactly think so.
But, at that moment, Finn set eyes on a window a little to one side and so near that he felt as if he could reach across to it.