"How do you know …?"
And when Christophe told them that Gottfried was his uncle, they were all greatly excited. The blind girl got up; her ball of wool rolled across the room; she stopped her work and took Christophe's hands and said in a great state of emotion:
"You are his nephew?"
They all talked at once. Christophe asked:
"But how … how do you come to know him?" The man replied:
"It was here that he died."
They sat down again, and when the excitement had gone down a little, the mother told, as she went on with her work, that Gottfried used to go to the house for many years; he always used to stay there on his way to and fro from his journeys. The last time he came—(it was in last July)—he seemed very tired, and when he took off his pack it was some time before he could speak a word, but they did not take any notice of it because they were used to seeing him like that when he arrived and knew that he was short of breath. He did not complain either. He never used to complain; he always used to find some happiness in the most unpleasant things. When he was doing some exhausting work he used to be glad thinking how good it would be in bed at night, and when he was ill he used to say how good it would be when he was not ill any longer….
"And, sir, it is wrong to be always content," added the woman, "for if you axe not sorry for yourself, nobody will pity you. I always complain…."
Well, nobody had paid any attention to him. They had even chaffed him about looking so well and Modesta—(that was the blind girl's name)—who had just relieved him of his pack had asked him if he was never going to be tired of running like a young man. He smiled in reply, for he could not speak. He sat on the seat by the door. Everybody went about their work, the men to the fields, the woman to her cooking. Modesta went near the seat, she stood leaning against the door with her knitting in her hands and talked to Gottfried. He did not reply; she did not ask him for any reply and told him everything that had happened since his last visit. He breathed with difficulty and she heard him trying hard to speak. Instead of being anxious about him she said:
"Don't speak. Just rest. You shall talk presently…. How can people tire themselves out like that!…"