‘Come now,’ said Herr Pauer, shifting his seat on the table and turning to face the lad, ‘you shall not take that tone. I tell you you shall not take it, because it is a wrong and dangerous tone. You have done things that you are ashamed of. You shall have the goodness to be ashamed of them like a man, and not like a fool. Now, what are you going to do?’
‘I can earn a living,’ Paul answered. ‘I’ve got a trade between my fingers.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m a compositor. I can do a man’s work, if I can only earn two-thirds of a man’s wages.’
‘That is all very well. But it’s not quite what I mean. You have a home?’
Paul laid his face in his hands and groaned. He was so ashamed at this that he had no courage to undo his own act. He sat with his face still hidden.
‘You will go straight home to-morrow,’ said Herr Pauer, rising from the table. The culprit shook his head. ‘Tomorrow,’ Herr Pauer reiterated. The culprit shook his head again. ‘They will kill the fatted calf,’ said Herr Pauer.
‘Oh, no, they won’t,’ said Paul
His father might be moved to do it, but not the rest. Oh, no, not the rest. And on the whole he would rather not have the fatted calf. He would prefer any desolation to forgiveness. Forgiveness must be preceded by knowledge, and the thought of that was unendurable.
‘Do you reckon,’ asked Herr Pauer, ‘that you are ever going to see your folks again?’