“Sivert!”
“Or perhaps God doesn’t trouble about things as much as people say.”
“Sivert, now be a good child, do. Do you think God doesn’t trouble about us? Why, look, what a lovely boy He’s given us now....” Fru Egholm lifted the coverlet aside, to show the baby’s face. “Isn’t he sweet? And so healthy he looks. I think he’ll be fair haired.”
“But you promised me I was to be the only fair-haired boy?”
“I’d like to have as many of them as I can. They’re the best sort. And, you know, Abel was fair haired, but Cain was dark.”
“Just like Father!”
“Oh, child, how can you say such a thing!” Fru Egholm chattered on to cover her confusion. What a head the child had, to be sure.
The little one in the cradle awoke, and set up a faint cry like the bleating of a lamb. His mother took him up to her breast.
Sivert looked on with an expression of intense disgust.
“That’s enough—that’s enough,” he said again and again, his eyes straining awry in consuming envy.