Young Ulwing had a feeling that he was treated with great injustice. Was not his father responsible for everything? He had made him a man. And now he was discontented with his achievement. In an instant, like lightning, it all flashed across his mind. His childhood, his years in the technical school, much timid fluttering, nameless bitterness, cowardly compromise. And those times, when he still had a will to will, when he wanted to love and choose: it was crushed by his father. His father chose someone else. A poor sempstress was not what Ulwing the builder wanted. He wanted the daughter of Ulrich Jörg. She was all right. She was rich. It lasted a short time. Christina Jörg died. But even then he was not allowed to think of another woman, a new life. “The children!” his father said, and he resigned himself because Christopher Ulwing was the stronger and could hold his own more vehemently. Unwonted defiance mounted into his head. For a moment he rose as if to accuse, his jaw turned slightly sideways.
The old man saw his own image in him. He looked intently as if he wanted to fix forever that beam of energy now flashing up in his son’s eye. He had often longed for it vainly, and now it had come unexpectedly, produced by causes he could not understand.
But slowly it all died away in John Hubert’s eyes. Christopher Ulwing bowed his head.
“Go,” he said harshly, “now I am really tired.” In that moment he looked like a weary old woodcutter. His eyelids fell, his big bony hands hung heavily out of his sleeves.
A door closed quietly in the corridor with a spasmodic creaking. Ulwing the builder would have liked it better if it had been slammed. But his son shut every door so carefully. He could not say why. “What is going to happen when I don’t stand by his side?” he shuddered. His vitality was so inexhaustible that the idea of death always struck him as something strange, antagonistic. “What is going to happen?” The question died away, he gave it no further thought. He stepped towards the next room ... his grandchildren! They would continue what the great carpenter began. They would be strong. He opened the door. He crossed the dining room. He smelt apples and bread in the dark. One more room, and beyond that the children.
The air was warm. A night-light burned on the top of a chest of drawers. Miss Tini had fallen asleep sitting beside it with her shabby prayer book on her knees. The shadow of her nightcap rose like a black trowel on the wall. In the deep recess of the earthen-ware stove water was warming in a blue jug. From the little beds the soft breathing of children was audible.
Ulwing leaned carefully over one of the beds. The boy slept there. His small body was curled up under the blankets as if seeking shelter in his sleep from something that came with night and prowled around his bed.
The old man bent over him and kissed his forehead. The boy moaned, stared for a second, frightened, into the air, then hid trembling in his pillows.
Mamsell Tini woke, but dared not move. The master builder stood so humbly before the child, that it did not become a salaried person to see such a thing. She turned her head away and listened thus to her master’s voice.
“I didn’t mean to. Now, don’t be afraid, little Christopher. It is I.”