Absaloms Hair | Page 8

now he had paid no
special heed to it.
It was on a Friday that this great impression had been made on him,
and on the following Thursday morning he awoke to see his mother
standing over him with her most wondering expression. Her hair still as
she had plaited it for the night; one plait had touched him on the nose
and awoke him before she spoke. She stood bending over him, in her
long white nightgown with its dainty lace trimming, and with bare feet.
She would never have come in like that if something terrible had not
happened. Why did she not speak? only look and look--or was she
really frightened?
"Mother!" he cried, sitting up.
Then she bent close down to him. "THE MAN IS DEAD," she
whispered. It was his father whom she called "the man," she never
spoke of him otherwise.
Rafael did not comprehend what she said, or perhaps it paralysed him.
She repeated it again louder and louder, "The man is dead, the man is
dead."
Then she stood upright, and putting out her bare feet from under her
nightgown, she began to dance--only a few steps; and then she slipped
away through the door which stood half open. He jumped up and ran

after her; there she lay on the sofa, sobbing. She felt that he was behind
her, she raised herself quickly, and, still sobbing, pressed him to her
heart.
Even when they stood together beside the body, the hand which he had
in his shook so that he threw his arms round her, thinking that she
would fall.
Later in life, when he recalled this, he understood what she had silently
endured, what an unbending will she had brought to the struggle, but
also what it had cost her.
At the time he did not in the least comprehend it. He imagined that she
suffered from the horror of the moment as he himself did.
There lay the giant, in wretchedness and squalor! He who had once
boasted of his cleanliness, and expected the like in others, lay there,
dirty and unshaven, under dirty bed clothes, in linen so ragged and
filthy that no workman on the estate had worse. The clothes which he
had worn the day before lay on a chair beside the bed, miserably
threadbare, foul with dirt, sweat, and tobacco, and stinking like
everything else. His mouth was distorted, his hands tightly clenched; he
had died of a stroke.
And how forlorn and desolate was all around him! Why had his son
never noticed this before? Why had he never felt that his father was
lonely and forsaken? To how great an extent no words could express.
Rafael burst into tears; louder and louder grew his sobbing, until it
sounded through all the rooms. The people from the estate came in one
by one. They wished to satisfy their curiosity.
The boy's crying, unconsciously to himself, influenced them all: they
saw everything in a new light. How unfortunate, how desolate, how
helpless had he been who now lay there. Lord, have mercy on us all!
When the corpse of Harald Kaas had been laid out, the face shaved, and
the eyes closed, the distortion was less apparent. They could trace signs

of suffering, but the expression was still virile. It seemed a handsome
face to them now

CHAPTER 2
Within a few days of the funeral mother and son were in England.
Rafael was now to enter upon a long course of study, for which, by his
earlier education, his mother had prepared him, and for which, by
painful privations, she had saved up sufficient money.
The property was to the last degree impoverished, and burdened with
mortgages, and the timber only fit for fuel.
Their neighbour the Dean, a clear-headed and practical man, took upon
himself the management of affairs; as money was needed the work of
devastation must begin at once. The mother and son did not wish to
witness it.
They came to England like two fugitives who, after many and great
trials, for affection's sake seek a new home and a new country.
Rafael was then twelve years old.
They were inseparable, and in the shiftless life that they led in their
new surroundings they became, if possible, more closely attached to
each other.
Yet not long afterwards they had their first disagreement.
He had gone to school, had begun to learn the language and to make
friends, and had developed a great desire to show off.
He was very tall and slender and was anxious to be athletic. He took an
active part in the play-ground, but here he achieved no great success.
On the other hand, thanks to his mother, he was better informed than
his comrades, and he contrived