steaming
platter before them. At the head of the table sat the smith, in a
strong chair with hard wooden arms, which creaked whenever Stephen
moved, for he was as heavy as lead. His tall form, as strong as oak,
was surmounted by a head covered with crisp curling black hair. His
chin was framed by a short, thick, woolly beard, and his eyebrows and
moustache stood out from his face like black tufts of hair. The skin on
his face was red as if it had been toughened by fire, and it was
furrowed by wrinkles and scars. His forehead, which seemed like a rock,
was more marked by wrinkles than his cheeks by scars; a red streak ran
across his blunt, thick nose. One eye was black and most unfriendly
looking, while the other eye was lacking; the half-closed eyelid hung
over the empty, inflamed socket.

[Illustration: ERNST ZAHN]

The smith sat erect, and his hairy right hand lay on the well-worn old
Bible, from which he read every evening before supper. His two
companions at table sat with strange humility at each side of the
smith. Even now when the maid had left the room, all was still, as if
no one could breathe. At last Ludwig, the smith's brother, pushed his
chair back angrily and started to rise from the table.

"I will not sit here any longer," he exclaimed. His face was fair and
young by contrast with the other, his figure slenderer, and more
supple, and his ways more refined, such as one brings back from foreign
lands. But his features resembled Stephen's, and his hair and beard
were thick and wavy like the other's, only they were blond, beautiful
silvery blond.

"Of course you will stay," said the smith in a low tone, but shortly,
and gloomily, and as he raised his heavy arm to draw his brother back
into the chair, the latter sat down again. He sat there as before,
stooping over and staring at his plate. So too, sat Maria gazing into
her plate. Yet her graceful blond head rose erect from her black neck
frill, and her throat, which was of a strange, transparent, blue-white
tint, showed a beautiful, upward curve; so that her depression only
showed in the timid droop of her eyelids.

The smith took up the Bible. "And you are going to read too!" said the
blond brother breathlessly, turning toward him suddenly, and once more
half rising from his chair.

Stephen seized him by the wrist. "I shall do the same as every day.
When you have eaten your supper, you may go, and not before!"

Ludwig sank back again. There was no