Mr. Delrick now stepped up to him.
“Mr. Lesa,” he said, striking a match and offering the light to his host, “you are not in a good humor, or you would not let your pipe go out. Here, light it again.”
“Humor, you say, humor!” Lesa repeated grimly. “If one’s field is spoilt by hail, one can always hope that it will bring good fruit next year. But when a man’s only son goes from bad to worse, no hope is left him. From worse he can only go to worst, and then I suppose he can’t go any further.”
“As far as I can judge you have a very upright, well-mannered son,” said Mr. Delrick deliberately.
“Yes, he is. I don’t complain of that,” retorted Lesa. “It’s something else. What help is there when everything has been done to make him happy and he does not see it or know what is best for him. He only hankers after childish rubbish! I won’t give in till he comes to reason, even if I should have to send him across the ocean. I know of a place, though, which is quite near, where he couldn’t find any chance to keep up his foolish fancies.”
“I suppose you mean by that your son’s passion for music and his desire to devote himself to it. There might be more in it than foolish fancies, though; it might be very serious on his part,” said Mr. Delrick.
“Something serious in it!” replied the father in agitation. “It is just play, like any other. I have nothing against it, if young boys sing jolly songs in the evenings. But that is not the way he does. He sits and stares and neither sees nor hears anything, but thinks about his foolish piping. Once I found a whole heap of pipes he had carved. How could that be other than childish rubbish? And the idea of putting your thoughts on such a thing!”
“That shows that there is something serious in it,” answered Mr. Delrick. “If it were only play like any other, he would have exchanged it for something else long ago, the way boys are apt to do. His whole thinking and wishing then would not always go to the same object. His persistence in trying to make a better instrument for himself, shows how great his zeal for the matter really is. I am perfectly convinced that it is not play, but serious work with him.”
“Work! the idea of calling that work!”
To express his indignation, Vinzenz Lesa blew unusually thick clouds of smoke from his pipe.