nature that was very little
understood, by some few perhaps, in a way, but even by them not
adequately. The result was that when he believed he had found sympathy,
he poured himself out so unrestrainedly that people laughed at him. If
he were in company he drank, or rather was made to drink, until he was
tipsy, and so let his untamable nature take the bit in its teeth. Do
you know--yes, I must tell you this. At a party a lady (she is now
married to the captain here) set to work to draw him out for the
amusement of the others. She was very bright and witty; she appeared to
be entirely carried away by him, so that she could not listen to him
enough, could not question him enough, and all the while poured more
and more wine into his glass. She drank with him; she made all the
others drink with him."

"Good heavens, mother!"

"Do you know where it all ended? In the cowhouse. They locked him into
the cowhouse by himself. His frenzy of rage brought on a nervous
attack. She it was whom he saw from the window as he stood on the
platform that day. It was then he became sober."

The mother and daughter walked on in silence.

"You knew nothing of all this at that time, did you, mother?--not until
later?"

"No; if I had known it, I believe I should have gone straight up to
him, taken him by the hand, and greeted him with all my heart."

"I should too, mother!"

"Since my life with him I have thought a great deal. Do you know, I
believe geniuses have this characteristic of confiding impulsiveness,
and therefore the people and conditions that surround them are of all
the greater importance. But most important of all is it that they
should have a woman's help. And, according to the nature of that help,
so things go with them. Karl Mander had got into the habit of speaking
in monologues. He got on best among peasants. They disturbed him least.
Books, meditations, farming, bathing, and now and then an orgie, a
speech, or, for preference, one on top of the other--that had been his
life up to then."

"But he didn't drink, mother? There was no need for him to drink, was
there?"

"No more need than for you or for me. It was simply an outburst of mere
high spirits, or repressed longing for happiness. So the last time----"

"Yes, that time! Oh, why were you not there?"

"You had come to us then, my child, and I could not; I was nursing you
at my breast. The whole thing would have gone off happily, if some one
at the banquet af