Fausch was going to ask who told him about it, but Hallheimer immediately came into his head, and he began to wonder that the story of Cain and his name had not found its way to the mountain long ago. He did not answer the landlord, but gazed steadily into his glass, emptied it at one draught, muttered something which Simmen did not understand, and took himself off. A while afterward he went back to the shop, where Cain was still at work. He said nothing, but wandered aimlessly back and forth a moment, looking fixedly at his workbench, as if he were searching for something. Then he said impatiently to Cain, as if he had already sent him out: "Go along, then!"
"Where to?"
"Can't you pile the wood that was unloaded yesterday?" he growled. Cain immediately turned and went out.
Stephen Fausch stood for a moment looking toward the back door, by which the boy had gone out; then he sat down on his anvil, with his elbows on his knees, and stared at the ground, with bowed head. A band of light that came through the great doorway fell upon him and threw the man and the anvil into striking relief against the surrounding darkness. He sat there so motionless and was so dark a shape, from his clumsy shoes to his black, woolly head, that it was not easy to distinguish where the iron of the anvil ended and the living man began, or whether the whole was not an iron statue. Moreover, no one could have seen that within him all was turmoil and struggle and strife.
But Stephen Fausch was thinking. All the way over the long road from Waltheim the slander had followed them, which they had come so far to avoid. And this gossip and scandal could follow Cain through the whole world just as easily as it had come here. There was no avoiding it! And it is your fault, Stephen Fausch, that the boy must be pursued by scandal his whole life long. But ha ha, it is fair, perfectly fair! No one asked you how you liked it, when Maria was--ha ha! So he must bear it too, the child of sin, the sinner's name! He must bear it!
It was the old struggle between defiance and obstinacy, and that other feeling of pity for the boy, that arose once more in Fausch. Only the battle had never been so fierce before. The two forces wrestled together and shook the powerful man back and forth like a reed, even although outwardly he sat so still. Then too, other thoughts came to him. He wanted to go away, the boy! All alone! They must part! Yes, yes, of course, if he were alone, the boy might more easily pass unnoticed through the world. Yes, of course! But to part!
Fausch shuddered. No longer to have the boy with him, no longer to see him--in whom--Maria still seemed to live!--He could not sit still any longer. He got up and walked back and forth. To give him up--the boy!--The thought awoke once more his strange hunger for Cain. It drove him to the door, to see him.
Over by the stable door the boy was piling up heavy logs of wood, which lay in a confused heap on the ground. He was working diligently and without looking about him.
Just then Vincenza came across the open space from the tavern. The smith involuntarily stepped behind the wall by the door, so that she would not see him. From there he continued to watch Cain.
Vincenza timidly came near, looked about to see if anyone was by, then, before he was aware of her approach, she stepped up behind the boy, who was so absorbed in his work.