away together, I and Barnabas, who knew nothing about it all at first, and was always in a fever for some explanation, always the same, for he realised well enough that the carefree years that others of his age looked forward to were now out of the question for him, so we used to put our heads together, K., just like us two now, and forget that it was night, and that morning had come again. Our mother was the feeblest of us all, probably because she had not only endured our common sorrows but the private sorrow of each of us, and so we were horrified to see changes in her which, as we guessed, lay in wait for all of us. Her favourite seat was the corner of the sofa, it’s long since we parted with it, it stands now in Brunswick’s big living-room, well, there she sat and—we couldn’t tell exactly what was wrong—used to doze or carry on long conversations with herself, we guessed it from the moving of her lips. It was so natural for us to be always discussing the letter, to be always turning it over in all its known details and unknown potentialities, and to be always outdoing each other in thinking out plans for restoring our fortunes; it was natural and unavoidable, but not good, we only plunged deeper and deeper into what we wanted to escape from. And what good were these inspirations, however brilliant? None of them could be acted on without Amalia, they were all tentative, and quite useless because they stopped short of Amalia, and even if they had been put to Amalia they would have met with nothing but silence. Well, I’m glad to say I understand Amalia better now than I did then. She had more to endure than all of us, it’s incomprehensible how she managed to endure it and still survive. Mother, perhaps, had to endure all our troubles, but that was because they came pouring in on her; and she didn’t hold out for long; no one could say that she’s holding out against them today, and even at that time her mind was beginning to go. But Amalia not only suffered, she had the understanding to see her suffering clearly, we saw only the effects, but she knew the cause, we hoped for some small relief or other, she knew that everything was decided, we had to whisper, she had only to be silent. She stood face to face with the truth and went on living and endured her life then as now. In all our straits we were better off than she. Of course, we had to leave our house. Brunswick took it on, and we were given this cottage, we brought our things over in several journeys with a handcart, Barnabas and I pulling and father and Amalia pushing behind, mother was already sitting here on a chest, for we had brought her here first, and she whimpered softly all the time. Yet I remember than even during those toilsome journeys—they were painful, too, for we often met harvest wagons, and the people became silent when they saw us and turned away their faces—even during those journeys Barnabas and I couldn’t stop discussing our troubles and our plans, so that we often stood stock still in the middle of pulling and had to be roused by father’s ‘Hallo’ from behind. But all our talking made no difference to our life after the removal, except that we began gradually to feel the pinch of poverty as well. Our relatives stopped sending us things, our money was almost done, and that was the time when people first began to despise us in the way you can see now. They saw that we hadn’t the strength to shake ourselves clear of the scandal, and they were irritated. They didn’t underestimate our difficulties, although they didn’t know exactly what they were, and they knew that probably they wouldn’t have stood up to them any better themselves, but that made it only all the more needful to keep clear of us—if we had triumphed they would have honoured us correspondingly, but since we failed they turned what had only been a temporary measure into a final resolve, and cut us off from the community forever. We were no longer spoken of as ordinary human beings, our very name was never mentioned, if they had to refer to us they called us Barnabas’s people, for he was the least guilty; even our cottage gained in evil reputation, and you yourself must admit, if you’re honest, that on your first entry into it you thought it justified its reputation; later on, when people occasionally visited us again, they used to screw up their noses at the most trivial things, for instance, because the little oil-lamp hung over the table. Where should it hang if not over the table? and yet they found it insupportable. But if we hung the lamp somewhere else they were still disgusted. Whatever we did, whatever we had, it was all despicable.”
Petitions
“And what did we do meanwhile? The worst thing we could have done, something much more deserving of contempt than our original offence—we betrayed Amalia, we shook off her silent restraint, we couldn’t go on living like that, without hope of any kind we could not live, and we began each in his or her own fashion with prayers or blustering to beg the Castle’s forgiveness. We knew, of course, that we weren’t in a position to make anything good, and we knew too that the only likely connection we had with the Castle—through Sortini, who had been father’s superior and had approved of him—was destroyed by what had happened, and yet we buckled down to the job. Father began it, he started making senseless petitions to the village Superintendent, to the secretaries, the advocates, the clerks, usually he wasn’t received at all, but if by guile
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