Then he sprang up and stood in front of Finn with blazing eyes:
“If it’s your mother who paralyzes your will, then fly from her, hate her, thrust her from you....”
“Father ... father....”
“Hate her, I say. She was smitten with the pestilence from her youth. She understood everything ... like you. To her nothing was small or great, nothing near or far. Her will was gone, like yours. She knew where the glory lay, if she could reach it, but she could not. She hearkened to the times and the times made her their own. She was always sick ... sick unto death.”
He crossed the room and said nothing more.
They were both of them very pale and both longed to be alone. They had nothing more to say to each other.
And Finn was not angry on his mother’s account. He thought only of the one thing, that he could not do what Cordt wanted and could not appease his sorrow ... could not even tell him that he loved him. And then he longed to sit still ... in the old room ... with his mother, who was so pretty and whom he had never offended:
“Are you angry with me, father?”
Cordt looked at him long and intently. Then he said:
“Yes.”