“Why, my child?”
It was a long earnest look that the child gave the man. Eugen had said to me some few days before, and I had fully agreed with him:
“That child’s life is one strife after the beautiful in art, and nature, and life—how will he succeed in the search?”
I thought of this—it flashed subtly through my mind as Sigmund gazed at his father with a childish adoration—then, suddenly springing round his neck, said, passionately:
“Thou art so beautiful—so beautiful! I must be like thee.”
Eugen bit his lip momentarily, saying to me in English:
“I am his God, you see, Friedel. What will he do when he finds out what a common clay figure it was he worshiped?”
But he had not the heart to banter the child; only held the little clinging figure to his breast; the breast which Sigmund recognized as his heaven.
It was after this that Eugen said to me when we were alone: