"Speak, William," coldly replied M. Van Amberg.
"Karl, you treat Annunciata very harshly. God commands you to protect her, and you allow her to suffer, perhaps to die, before your eyes, without caring for her fate. The strong should sustain the weak. In our native land, we owe kindness to the stranger who cometh from afar. The husband owes protection to her he has chosen for his wife. For all these reasons, brother, I say you treat Annunciata ill."
"Does she complain?" said M. Van Amberg, filling his glass.
"No, brother; only the strong resist and complain. A tree falls with a crash, the reed bends noiselessly to the ground. No, she does not complain, save by silence and suffering, by constant and passive obedience, like that of a soulless automaton. You have deprived her of life, the poor woman! One day she will cease to move and breathe; she has long ceased to live!"
"Brother, there are words that should not be inconsiderately spoken, judgments that should not be hastily passed, for fear of injustice."
"Do I not know your whole life, Karl, as well as my own, and can I not therefore speak confidently, as one well informed?"
M. Van Amberg inhaled the smoke of his pipe, threw himself back in his arm-chair, and made no reply.
"I know you as I know myself," resumed William, gently, "although our hearts were made to love and not to resemble each other. When you found our father's humble dwelling too small, I said nothing; you were ambitious; when a man is born with that misfortune or blessing, he must do like the birds, who have wings to soar; he must strive to rise. You departed; I pressed your hand, and reproached you not; it is right that each man should be happy his own way. You gained much gold, and gave me more than I needed. You returned married, and I did not approve your marriage. It is wiser to seek a companion in the land where one's days are to end; it is something to love the same places and things, and then it is only generous to leave one's wife a family, friends, well-known objects to gaze upon. It is counting greatly on one's-self to take sole charge of her happiness. Happiness sometimes consists of so many things! Often an imperceptible atom serves as base to its vast structure: for my part I do not like presumptuous experiments on the hearts of others. In short, you married a foreigner, who perishes with cold in this country, and sighs, amidst our fogs, for the sun of Spain. You committed a still greater fault—Forgive me, brother; I speak plainly, in order not to return to this subject."
"I am attending to you, William; you are my elder brother."