His Wife.
Oh, perhaps I am worrying a little; but, none the less, I feel sure that our boy will recover.
The Man.
Ah, how you hearten my spirits, as always you have done! How you charm away my sorrows with your sincerity and goodness! O little armour-bearer, the never-failing keeper of my faltering sword, thy old knight is in pitiful case now—his trembling hand can scarce hold his weapon. But what see I here? My son's old toys! Who put them there?
His Wife.
My dear one, you forget. You yourself put them there, long ago; for you said that you could work better if those innocent, childish toys lay beside you.
The Man.
Yes, yes, I was forgetting. Yet I lean scarcely bear to look upon them now; even as a condemned criminal cannot bear to look upon the instruments of torture and death. When a son is dying his toys become things of horror to the father who is to be left behind. Wife, wife, I cannot bear to see them!
His Wife.
Ah, it was in the far-off, early days when we were poor—as poor as we are now—that we bought them for him. I too feel hurt to see them there—poor darling little toys!