ck that was already
packed, slung it on a stick, and shouldered it. Then he walked out with
a long, firm stride, exactly like his brother Stephen's. The smith
followed the younger man down the steps of the house and as far as the
workshop, into which he stepped for a moment. When he had fumbled about
among his tools and came back to the threshold, he was carrying his
heavy sledge hammer in his right hand, from long habit. He stood
leaning on the blackened handle, the heavy head of the hammer buried in
the snow, and looked after his brother, who was walking along the road
northward, toward the wood. Above this wood a sharp, orange red streak
now seemed to slash through the monotony of the landscape like a gaping
wound. The sun was sinking. The dark, still and motionless wood seemed
to keep watch and ward over the young man's path, above this the flame
colored band, against which the separate treetops were outlined as if a
fret-saw had cut them out of the brilliant background. A yellow tint
lay also upon the road, and Ludwig's figure, the only living thing in
sight, looked taller and sharply outlined. He now stood still, looked
about him and threw the sack from his shoulder onto the snow. When
Stephen saw this, he stepped out into the road and planted himself
firmly there, as if he were asking: What's this? What now? The brothers
stood thus for several minutes, and it was strange to see the two men
standing in the middle of the road, burly and motionless as if defying
each other: "You can't make me stir from this spot." Finally Ludwig
took up his bundle, strode off with rapid steps, soon reached the wood
and disappeared. Then Stephen Fausch also left the road. He busied
himself in the workshop for a while, and then went back to his wife.

Maria seemed to have been whispering with the maid in the kitchen. As
she heard his step on the landing, she slipped back into the living
room, and as he entered, she seemed undecided what to busy herself
with, and afraid that he might notice her confusion. Since she found
nothing to her purpose, she turned at the window and faced him,
supporting herself with trembling hands on the window-sill. The waning
light streamed over her blond head, her slender shoulders, and her
delicate, long neck. Her face was almost as white as her throat, her
eyebrows were light and glistened against her brow like gold. Her blue
eyes were big and dark with fear.

Stephen walked up to her and placed a chair