The older and more reasonable he grew, the deeper, too, grew his understanding of the mismanagement which his father had allowed to prevail, and often a deep sigh came from his breast: “Oh, if I were only big already!” The fear of his father’s wrath did not let him express his anxieties, and if ever he dared to speak his mind to his mother, she looked with fearful eyes all around the room, and said, anxiously, “Be quiet.”
And yet his father saw very well whither his son’s thoughts tended. He had given him the nickname of “Cotquean,” and jeered at him whenever he saw him. That naturally was in his good moments; in his bad ones he thrashed him with the yard measure, with the handle of the whip, with the straps of the harness—with whatever was nearest his hand. Paul feared his hand itself most of all, the blows of which hurt more than all the sticks in the world. His father had a strange manner of boxing his ears. He flung his hand into his face with the knuckles outward, so that the nails and joints left bruises on his cheeks. This kind of blow he called his “cheek-comforter,” and when he intended beating Paul he called out to him in the most affable tone, “Come here, my son, I want to comfort you.”
When he had received his beating he used to run out trembling onto the heath in shame and pain, and while he made faces and drummed with his fists, to choke down his tears, he whistled.
In whistling he manifested not only all his longings, his childish dreams, but also his anger and indignation. The feelings for which his uncouth mind did not find any expression, for which he lacked words or even thoughts, he dared in this loneliness to pour forth unchecked by means of whistling. So his depressed, timid soul found an outlet. Whole symphonies he executed, shrill and harsh at the beginning, growing softer and softer, and at last melting away in sadness and resignation.
Nobody guessed the art he practised by himself, and how much consolation and exultation he owed to that same art—not even his mother.
Since he had seen her break into tears, one winter’s night, as he, without heeding her, had softly whistled to himself—since that time he left off as soon as she came near him; he thought it hurt her. What power was given him in those sounds he little knew.
Only at times he was proud—looking towards the White House—that he had after all learned to whistle; and when some melody seemed to him especially good, he thought within himself, “Who knows if you would laugh at me if you were to hear this?”
But never had he met any of them again.