“You are my brother,” said he to me. “Is my father with you?”
I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the ground, but said nothing.
He understood me, and bared his head. Then he flung his arms about me and kissed my forehead according to Erewhonian custom. I was a little surprised at his saying nothing to me about the way in which he had disappointed me on the preceding day; I resolved, however, to wait for the explanation that I felt sure he would give me presently.
CHAPTER XXVIII: GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER AT THE STATUES, AND THEN PART—I REACH HOME—POSTSCRIPT
I have said on an earlier page that George gained an immediate ascendancy over me, but ascendancy is not the word—he took me by storm; how, or why, I neither know nor want to know, but before I had been with him more than a few minutes I felt as though I had known and loved him all my life. And the dog fawned upon him as though he felt just as I did.
“Come to the statues,” said he, as soon as he had somewhat recovered from the shock of the news I had given him. “We can sit down there on the very stone on which our father and I sat a year ago. I have brought a basket, which my mother packed for—for—him and me. Did he talk to you about me?”
“He talked of nothing so much, and he thought of nothing so much. He had your boots put where he could see them from his bed until he died.”
Then followed the explanation about these boots, of which the reader has already been told. This made us both laugh, and from that moment we were cheerful.
I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram had provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about my father, and all the additional information that I got from him—(many a point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)—I should fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one. Luncheon being over I said—
“And are you married?”