“Why dost thou not sleep, Sigmund? Art thou not well?”
“No, I am not well,” he answered; but with an expression of double meaning. “Mir ist’s nicht wohl.”
“What ails thee?”
“If you know what ails him, you know what ails me.”
“Do you not know yourself?” I asked.
“No,” said Sigmund, with a short sob. “He says he can not tell me.”
I slipped upon my knees beside the little bed, and paused a moment. I am not ashamed to say that I prayed to something which in my mind existed outside all earthly things—perhaps to the “Freude” which Schiller sung and Beethoven composed to—for help in the hardest task of my life.
“Can not tell me.” No wonder he could not tell that soft-eyed, clinging warmth; that subtle mixture of fire and softness, spirit and gentleness—that spirit which in the years of trouble they had passed together had grown part of his very nature—that they must part! No wonder that the father, upon whom the child built his every idea of what was great and good, beautiful, right and true in every shape and form, could not say, “You shall not stay with me; you shall be thrust forth to strangers; and, moreover, I will not see you nor speak to you, nor shall you hear my name; and this I will do without telling you why”—that he could not say this—what had the man been who could have said it?
As I knelt in the darkness by Sigmund’s little bed, and felt his pillow wet with his silent tears, and his hot cheek touching my hand, I knew it all. I believe I felt for once as a man who has begotten a child and must hurt it, repulse it, part from it, feels.
“No, my child, he can not tell thee, because he loves thee so dearly,” said I. “But I can tell thee; I have his leave to tell thee, Sigmund.”