him, he too would secretly marvel at his face, every feature of which
was like a work of art. His mouth had kept the same shape that it had
had when he was a baby; it was like a delicate flower whose calyx is
just opening. His chin and nose, his cheeks and brow were very
clear-cut, while his eyes were large and of a dark steel gray color.
They had a strange radiance that was especially striking when the child
looked up suddenly and raised his long lashes. His hair was bright
golden, like his mother's, and Katharine let it grow long and hang over
his shoulders. Therefore Fausch also, upon whom all beauty had its
effect, often paused in his work and gloated over the child's
loveliness, although he was short and abrupt with him, as with every
one else, so that even their talk in the workshop was of a difficult
and fragmentary sort. If the maid or any stranger came in, Fausch would
speak to the boy in a harsher and more commanding tone, would push him
roughly to one side and would call him by his name in a loud and
purposely distinct tone. Thus he seemed to seize little Cain, as it
were, in his two hands and hold him up to show him to people; "Look at
him! I have branded him with the wrong and the shame that they have put
upon me!" There was nothing mean or hateful in this action; he merely
chose to show that he was man enough to conceal nothing of the disgrace
that had been forced on him, and also to exact retribution, without
asking whether others liked it or not.

The boy bore this frequent change in his father's bearing, to which he
had soon become accustomed, with singular ease. He never cried, but
looked at Stephen sometimes, when he blustered, with big astonished
eyes, and sometimes he twitched crossly away from Stephen's grasp, when
the smith started to push him aside.

Meanwhile the time came when little Cain Fausch must be sent to school.
Katharine took him to the village the first time he was to go. But the
very next day he no longer needed her, and soon felt at home in
Waltheim. Because he looked a little different from the others, a
little _finer_, as it were, and wore his hair in long curls, the
village children at first stared at him in astonishment; but since he
was a lively little chap, he soon found playmates among them, and they
grew accustomed to him, because he became used to them.

Now that the boy was but little with him, the smith seemed to neglect
him and to forget him, as of old. Only some weeks