The
dimensions of things had shrunk not a little for these two. A bushel
of corn was much to them now. It hit them hard if their potato-patch
yielded a couple of measures less than they had reckoned on. But the
housewives from the farms near by would often look in on Merle to see
how bright and clean she kept her little house; and now that she had
no one to help her, she found time herself to teach the peasant girls
something of cooking and sewing.
But one habit had grown upon her. She would stand long and long by the
window looking down the valley to where the hills closed it in. It
was as if she were looking constantly for something to come in sight,
something that should bring them better days. It was a kind of Sunday
for her to stand there and look and wait.
And the time went on.
Chapter VII
DEAR KLAUS BROCK,
I write to tell you of what has lately happened to us here, chiefly in
the hope that it may be some comfort to yourself. For I have discovered,
dear friend, that this world-sorrow of ours is something a man can get
over, if only he will learn to see with his own eyes and not with those
of others.
Most men would say things have steadily gone from bad to worse with
me, and certainly I shall not pretend to feel any love for suffering
in itself. On the contrary, it hurts. It does not ennoble. It rather
brutalises, unless it becomes so great that it embraces all things. I
was once Engineer in charge at the First Cataract--now I am a blacksmith
in a country parish.
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