ead
their documents, which were left to us--there they are in the
box--then you will know that they are just the same material as we
are. Their way of thinking was the same as ours and so were their
desires, their wills, their lives, and deaths. We had among them
soldiers, clergymen, scientists, but not even one great, celebrated
man, although their talent, their strength almost tore them asunder.

"'In every one of them the family curse took root: not one of them
could be a great man, neither my father nor yours.'

"Then I felt as if something horrible was coming from his lips. My
breath almost ceased. Father did not finish what he was going to say,
but stopped and listened for a minute.

"'I was my father's only hope,' he went on after a while; 'I too was
born talented and prepared for great things, but the Orzos' destiny
overtook me, and you see now what became of me. I looked into the
tower-room. You know what it contains? You know what the name of our
secret is? He who saw this secret lost faith in himself. For him it
would have been better not to have come into this world at all. But I
loved to live and did not want to abandon all my hopes. I married your
mother; she consoled me until you were born, and then I regained my
delight in life. I knew what I had to keep before my eyes to bring up
my son to be such a man as his father could not be.

"'I acquiesced when you left for the foreign countries; then your
letters came. I made a special study of every sentence and of every
word of it, for I did not want to trust my reason. I thought the first
time that the fault was in me; that I saw unnecessary phantoms. But it
wasn't so, for what I read out of your words was our destiny, the
curse of the Orzos; from the way of your thinking, I found out that
everything is in vain; you too turned your head backward, you too
looked into yourself and noticed there the thing that makes the
perceiver sterile forever. You did not even notice what you have done;
you could not grasp it with your reason, but the poison is already
within you.'

"'It cannot be, father!' I broke out, terrified.

"But he sadly shook his head. 'I am old; I cannot believe in anything
now. I wish you were right, and would never come to know what I know.
God bless you, my son; it is getting late, and I am getting tired.'

"It struck me that he was trying to cover his disbelief with sarcasm.
Both of us were without sleep that night. At dawn there was sil