The Best Continental Short Stories of 1927/The Godfather's Present

by František Xaver Šalda

THE GODFATHER’S PRESENT

By FRANZ SRAMEK

One January afternoon in the year 1888, there issued from the dark vestibule of a rather forbidding looking old house in Goat Street, a troop of boys.

There were a good three score fifth-form boys (German class) from a Czech gymnasium which held some of its classes in the private homes of the street.

These carefully trained students turned into the boisterous, frivolous, gay boys that they were, as soon as they got out of sight of the professor. Laughing and chattering, they separated into groups and soon lost themselves in the crooked, narrow streets en route to the old town.

The sky had already begun to darken, the shadows to grow denser along the narrow ways. The lights were burning in the shop windows and the lamplighter of the town trotted along with his pole and taper . . . open . . . shut . . . open shut. Two boys called after him as he lighted the street lanterns.

One of the students, a weak, narrow-chested, fair-haired boy, his face covered with freckles, his nearsighted spectacled blue eyes appearing faded behind the thick lenses, lagged behind the others as if he were waiting for some one. Soon another fellow came along briskly, tapping his leg smartly with a riding whip.

He called out: “Look here, Machon! I exercised Arabella with this in the promenade yesterday: trot, gallop, full, half, three-quarters; just as I liked. She went like the wind. It’s a pity I haven’t my spurs though . . . Those two officers I spoke of rode there too. They praised me and said how well I sat in my saddle. Afterwards we met in the garden restaurant. We drank. There was a Baroness. They gave me cigarettes. I did not want them really, but I was obliged to take some in order not to offend them,” and he actually did produce a silver case, which he opened to prove what he said.

He was a tall, slender fellow with remarkably small white hands and he held himself erect and had rather an aristocratic appearance. His complexion was dark and his face pock-marked, and his dark brown, restless eyes often shone with a feverish flame. His whole bearing was rather proud and tyrannical.

During their conversation, he was distracted as if he had something on his mind.

“Then you must have enjoyed yourself,” said his listener, gazing at him with admiration and affection. “I would just like to see you once on horseback. I hope you will let me . . . No! don’t be angry; I won’t let myself be seen. I’ll hide somewhere in the bushes to see you ride by.”

“You know very well I have already forbidden you to come,” objected the other boy indignantly. “It might injure my chances with my noble companions if it came out that I was only a student.”

“I won’t, then! Pardon me! I’ll dismiss the idea. You know I always do as you wish, and you have no reason to be angry now,” pled the anxious boy.

These two boys were inseparable companions whose friendship was quite extraordinary. To one-half of the class it was an object of curiosity, and to the other a subject for ridicule.

All the other boys said “thou” to each other. Only Landa and Machon said “you,” as if they had the consciousness of something unusual that brought them together, and an important secret that needed a ceremony. Landa had introduced it to the shortsighted novice at the beginning of the term in the narrow dark alley that led to their classroom. He was from the country and had entered the fifth form of the Prague gymnasium. Gaba had not seen him and stumbled into the gentleman’s son as they both rushed by in full swing.

“Don’t you see, fellow?” Landa called out in angry tones. A shadow fell on the bright little face which shone behind blunt spectacles, from under which he looked at Landa, “Can’t you see I have a new suit on and you have chalk-smeared hands.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the novice, “I will clean you,” and immediately began to search with a flurried hand in the pocket of his trousers for his handkerchief. It only lasted a few seconds but that time had already decided for life which of the two would rule and which serve.

The boys reached the old town ring. Their groups stood in the closely crowded place that ran into Iron Street. Machon wanted the whole time to call attention to his little person with something effective and daring, but he was afraid of making himself a nuisance. At last he gained courage.

“I did not sleep last night,” he said, in a low voice that was at the same time frightened and ready to be drowned by the voice of his friend, “I fished in the Moldau. Do you know, till now I have only fished by day, but for the first time with two Podskalakens in a boat with a fishing net. The moon shone, and I can’t tell you how beautiful it was.”

“Ah!” the other said, and shrugged his shoulders with disgust. “You are nothing but a superannuated gentleman; fishing with a rod and line is good enough for that sort. I should be disgusted with standing so long on a bank or a boat. . . . But on horseback with a good horse prancing—riding with a drawn sword in an unbroken straight line against the enemy—that is quite another thing——” and his eyes shone and he snapped his fingers.

“But, my angel,” said the little one after a few moments silence, as he tasted the bitterness of humility, “I will show you something else, I will bring it with me as soon as we meet, when your landlady is not at home. It is splendid-real English, with a threefold polished steel hook.”

“Well! That is something, but cannot be compared to my spurs. By the way, did you bring me the two gulden you promised?”

“No,” stammered the fair-haired boy, and blushed to the roots of his thick hair which lay like rusty colored wheat above his brow, “I could not, believe me, I had the best of intentions but my mother has not a farthing in the house now. A month ago she should have received the quarterly assistance from my grandmother—fifty gulden. When she gets it something can be done—scarcely before.”

“Why did you promise me then?” angrily said the dark complexioned fellow. His face, which never blushed for shame, grew red when he was in a rage. “I should have looked somewhere else. Are you a man of honor? Can you understand what that means? It doesn’t matter to me—all you say is nothing—I know hundreds of people who would gladly lend to the only son of the owner of vast estates in Porcernice.

“We are honest, but you—— It is better not to begin anything with—a person who causes you experiences that shame you.—You are a child and remain one.”

But forgetting his former boasting, he continued in a soft tone, “But I need two gulden to pay on account on my wonderful riding whip within two days.”

“Forgive me,” said the fair-haired, oppressed boy, lowering his eyes, “I was afraid to come to school because I could not help you to-day.” In order to be reconciled to the exasperated friend, he stretched out his hand in a rather hesitating and doglike manner and stroked the whip, as if by this means he could put its master in a good humor again.

Landa loosened his fingers and the whip was left in Machon’s hand; he held it up to the dark sky, and tried to praise it in a professional manner. “Yes, it is worth more. . . . At my uncle’s, a priest, I saw a worse one and it cost much more.”

His companion tore the whip out of his hand and blustered out, in short angry sentences, “Then good-by. I will not walk any farther in your cursed smelling street with you, where foxes say good night and the crazy people in the neighborhood growl over the walls. On the whole, in the future, I shall think twice before wasting my precious time with you—once burned, twice shy——”

They were already in lower Stephen Street. Landa lived in a decent, rather dark little room, sublet by a bookseller in School Street. He was a Protestant, and, it is true, of an obstinate race, as people said in his native town in the Ader Mountains. Machon, with his mother, a nervous and careworn postman’s widow, lived in a poor, one-storied cottage near Apollinarisus, between gardens, hospitals and other public institutions.

Without shaking his friend’s hand Landa ran quickly to a passage that connected Stephen Street and School Street. Machon stood as if the ground would give way under him—like a lover looking back after parting from his beloved, watching her out of sight.

He stood there a moment and then cried, “Landa! I beg you to wait a moment.” Landa did not look back and Machon ran after him. He reached him at the court of the passage and uttered stammeringly, “Don’t hurt me. Don’t quit me! To-morrow you shall have what you want.” And seeing his companion looking at him distrustfully from the height of his sullen, dark beauty, which heightened his ironical, scornful features—“On my honor!—I know what that means!”

If, at that moment, the dark, cold, beautiful young fellow had required from him his mother’s head he would perhaps have promised that, so tormented was his weak heart by the cruelty of the other boy. Machon felt at that moment smaller than a stone at his feet.

Landa melted now but only for a short time. His face darkened again and he grumbled unwillingly, “Go home now and try to keep your word. I don’t want you. I am going home, too. I shall read my Bible, so you know there are things in it that disturb me—for example, Joshua, who commanded the sun not to set and it did not, so that he could drive all his enemies together and kill them. But that is nothing to you. Besides, you are a Catholic, and dare not think about it.” He laughed aloud—this time against his will.

“He has hurt me again,” passed through the mind of the young boy, and his lips quivered painfully. “All is only a pretext to pain me. He is not a good man.” The first seeds of dissent arose in his slavish mind, and tears rushed to his eyes.

This did not escape Landa, and he called after him, “Go to Jericho! Are you a girl? Only fools do that! You must always weep!” and he slapped him on the back. “You should be more hardened against life!” and he gave him another shove with a new curse.

“By all the spirits, make haste! Sleep to-night! No fishing! That I forbid. Leave that to me! If I can only hunt soon, but not in the Moldau.”

Expectorating and shrugging his shoulders in a kind of hedgehog fashion, he accelerated his pace, and in a few seconds disappeared in the house in School Street.

Machon walked slowly home through the streets of upper Neustadt. The promise he had made his friend of giving him two gulden on the following day began to weigh on his mind like a load of stones. When he entered the house the contrivance for catching the wind was open on the first floor. The rusty wire shrieked and the old swinging clock struck. He crept along the low corridor and frightened and dumb he looked at his mother’s waxen yellow and withered face, as she opened the door to him.

“Where have you been so long?” were her first displeased and tired words. “That is a strange habit you are getting into. Do any of your friends detain you?”

The boy kissed his mother’s hand and avoiding an answer ran into the kitchen where, on the hearth, a cup of cold coffee and a slice of dry bread awaited him.

Scarcely had he finished eating before he hurried to his books and began to learn his lessons for the morrow, supporting his head in his hands and pressing his thumb into his ears to avoid hearing his mother chatter about the house-keeping, her dry cough and the ticking of the old blackwood clock. But before he had ten words together his thoughts wandered, and burned and scorched his mind in horror like a great inflamed wound. . . . Where could he get two gulden? He must have them for Landa on the following day, cost what it would.

His mouth felt dry. His heart for a moment seemed to be in his mouth; it beat so violently.

He felt as if he must choke unless he could free his head, which an immense, hard hand, more inexorable than death, seemed to be holding down.

“Rouse yourself. Be a man! Consider clearly awhile! If your common sense does not help you, you are lost,” he repeated perhaps a hundred times; but it was of no avail. Everything whirled through his head pell mell. He had the sensation of falling down a precipice. The bottom seemed to have dropped out of things. This was not possible—nor that—and the third still less. He must get the money—but how?

At last it occurred to him; as if his mother had said to him, “To-morrow you must pay your school money.” It was not long before the end of the term. At the beginning of the new one he really must pay down five gulden, for he was only exempt from half of the school money. He knew also that there was not so much money in the house, as soon as this idea occurred to him. So he must dismiss this first thought.

Eleven o’clock struck. His mother rolled up her knitting and as she stuck the needles into her work, she got up and took his hands from his ears: “It is enough for to-night,” she said. “The lamp will soon go out and in the morning I can borrow some petroleum from a neighbor. Then you can finish your work.” Saying this, she extinguished the lamp and he undressed in the moonlight, which shone down coldly upon the tempted lad.

Hours passed in sleeplessness. He prayed: “Christ help me! Tell me what to do in my trouble! Help me, Holy Virgin! But I must have two gulden . . . I must not fail, I have promised! . . . I must have them even if I steal them. . . . Oh, I must get them. . . .” He bit his lips until they bled. He prayed again in his despair: “Jesus Christ, I felt it from the first—I must steal! . . . but not from my mother’s purse . . . She would detect it at once. . . . But”—his eyes turned towards the linen closet—in there, in the first drawer under the linen, among his father’s keepsakes—his wedding ring—was a ducat. It was yellow, as yellow, as a fresh baked cake——

“My godfather’s present,” he said to himself. “I must steal it and change that to give Landa his guldens. Mother will not notice immediately that it is gone. Perhaps not for several days—maybe a week; quite a long time, really. Before that I can kill myself—I can die.”

His resolution made, he sat up in bed and listened for the regular breathing of his mother. Yes, only an occasional sigh caught her breath; she breathed as before and he began stealthily to put back the blanket. As soon as his feet touched the floor he shivered—pulled them back again. He could not do it. It was impossible to do so monstrous a thing in this stealthy manner.

He lay down again, his hands behind his head. Time went by. The clock struck the half hour and dragged on to the hour—on to three o’clock—four. Outside he heard some one going to work—somebody who must live far from the factory. The night lamp shed a bluish light, like an eye in the dark. He must brave it, for in a quarter of an hour perhaps his mother would wake up to get ready for Church.

The picture of his friend’s scorn drove him on again. He began to realize the consequences of this rash promise—but he must go on. He sprang out of bed and started across the floor—— Horrors! How the boards creaked! They fairly shouted. Had the noise awakened his mother? No! She half roused, grumbled something sleepily and turned over again. The boy felt grateful that the moon was hidden. Gaba went on, the cold beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. He closed his eyes a moment and then grit his teeth to keep them from clacking together. He must cross that streak of light. It seemed like a red-hot strip of iron. That done, he found the place where the key was always kept—beside the shrine. His hand touched its cold rusty surface and he recoiled. It grated, as he took it up, against something invisible. He shivered—— Will the cupboard yield its treasure? Does it know his fraud already?

He is sure that his mother has awakened from her sleep at the sound of the key in the lock—— This time he is sure. . . . Is she sitting up on the corner of the bed and listening in the darkness? He cannot go back now. Perhaps she cannot see him! He finds himself stretched upon his tiptoes. He waits to see what will happen, but his mother lies down again and sleep claims her for a second time. On his tiptoes he had the sensation of floating in space, between heaven and earth, as if the floor had gone out from under him. But until he was sure his mother was asleep, he stood the agony.

With his last strength he straightened for his task as if he would throw off the darkness bearing him down.

He groped convulsively for his treasure in the top drawer under the freshly ironed linen. His fingers touched the box! Slowly he took the coin out. There it was. It gleamed in the moonlight—— He was sure it gave him a reproachful glance from the palm of his hand as he shut it from sight.

He crept back to bed on tiptoe, quickly put it into his little worn purse, and stuffed that into his trousers pockets.

He crawled back into bed with a deep breath—realizing that he was holding himself stiffly and scarcely breathing.

He became conscious for the first time that he was bathed in perspiration, and that his teeth were chattering loudly. He drew the rough blanket up over his head—trying not to see, or hear or think. He sensed his mother moving quietly getting ready for church—the rustling of her dress—she closed the door quietly as she went out. Then he fell into a deep sleep from which she aroused him with great difficulty. She shook him with all her strength and finally, at half past seven, she succeeded in rousing him.

As he went along to school his feet weighed like lead. He stopped before an exchange which was just opening as he passed. A plump, old, short-legged money changer came forward and took the proffered ducat. He examined it through the magnifying glass, sounded it on the counter and finally said, “Five gulden.” Gaba as if in a dream, nodded in the affirmative, awkwardly scraped up the silver pieces and ran off to school. He was late—they had just finished the Lord’s Prayer. During the Ave Maria he stood, feeling like a prisoner before a closed door.

He did not look at the professor but at his friend. It was ready! Would he understand? He stood carelessly and a bit self-consciously under the gaze. His beautiful, proud head held high, looking to Gaba like a flaming black helm. The miserable youth became calmer . . . he did not know whether this was a good sign or a bad one.

Gaba was impatient for the lesson to finish, so they could get out. He went quickly, saying, “Here are your gulden—not two, but five!” He said it in a hasty, nervous manner as if he could hardly wait for the effect of his words—his reward!

Richard looked at him from head to foot, with a scornful expression on his face—and with studied carelessness put the proffered money—not into his purse but into his trousers pocket.

He laughed! “Why are you so excited about it?”

“It was very difficult to get,” said his friend humbly.

“That is droll, certainly. What would you do if it were a question of hundreds? Five gulden! and he acts as if it were thousands! I lose two in an evening when I play cards. You are nervous at trifles. What would you do if you really had a cause? If you had to handle gunpowder or shot?”

Poor Gaba stood first on one foot and then on the other in his embarrassment, feeling as if he were standing on red-hot coals. He felt it too cruel, after all, that his idol should treat so lightly what had caused him so much anguish. He had suffered tortures greater than he had ever before experienced in his life, in order to bring his friend what he had demanded—and now he laughed at him, and jibed at him, and even insulted him!

Tears of rage sprang to his eyes, and curses trembled on his lips, but a glance at the impassive, indifferent face of his comrade drove them back. It held him in check and instead he laughed embarrassedly and begged his friend to wait at eleven o’clock for him.

Richard whispered, “The professor is coming! Keep quiet! Wait for me after school. We are making ourselves conspicuous! I must not compromise myself by being everlastingly with you!”

Creeping home alone, Gaba sobbed tears of humiliation which he had never before experienced. His hot tears had a bitter taste in his mouth, and they made him choke. He went on, not realizing where he was going, but to his surprise he found himself in the open place before his home, as if he had been guided by some instinct.

As he entered the house he was oppressed by the horror of the night before. Did his mother know already? He greeted her mutely as her impenetrable countenance appeared at the gate. He entered, feeling that she had changed somehow. She looked the same—but!—he could not tell. But the table was set as usual for two, the bottle of water in its place. These familiar things quieted his nerves. His mother brought the soup plates from the dark kitchen as usual, and sitting down at the table muttered Grace.—Nothing! Nothing had yet happened!

The next few days passed in painful, suppressed excitement. How he longed, a hundred times, to throw himself down weeping at his mother’s feet and confess all . . . confess that on Thursday he had stolen—yes, stolen—the ducat to lend his friend the money . . . confess that even before this he had sold some of his books and those of his father to buy fishing tackle which he had never used, for himself. He knew all the time that he would not use it but he did this in order to uphold his heroic lies. . . .

Both he and Landa had intoxicated themselves with lies as others with drugs or alcohol. They were driven with a reckless desire each to impress the other with their exploits and daring deeds. They wanted to span the distance bettween themselves and their elders. But, nevertheless, they tried to have some material proof of the truth of their statements. Modest Machon, with a rod and line and an English fishhook! Daring Landa with a riding whip and spurs!

With bold courage the two invented and created imaginary events, hazardous adventures, daring feats, with the bits of proof available to strengthen their stories. They must be convincing and smack of reality.

A hundred times a day, Gaba would try to confess to his mother but a glance at her cold, reserved, impassive face froze the words on his lips. No! Whatever came, to clasp her knees and cry out his humiliating confessions was impossible.

Sunday morning came. Mrs. Machon took her son’s last shirt out of the drawer. Underneath lay the old straw box in which were her poor jewels, some mementoes of her husband, and that ducat from her son’s godfather.

As was her usual custom, when she caught sight of the box she opened it, and with a deep sigh closed it. Gaba knew without seeing what she would do.

It was a dull winter morning and on Sunday the boy was allowed to stay in bed later than usual. The school mass was at ten o’clock. But there was no repose this morning for Gaba. Indeed, he had slept but little. He was sure to-day would bring matters to a climax. As he lay in bed he watched his mother’s every movement; all the little familiar acts of preparation for the day. All centered around the cupboard.

First, his mother spread out on the bed his white Sunday shirt, then she went back to the cupboard—— His heart stood still Now! He closed his eyes hoping for something to intervene to ward off the inevitable. There was a pause—a frantic cry from behind the cupboard door—“Jesus Christ!” came in a wail—and his mother screeched in a frantic gasp, “Where is the ducat? What have you done with it? You have stolen it, you scamp!”

Without waiting for a word of denial from her son, she threw herself upon him. She beat him with her hard fists. She broke his spectacles, scratched his face in her frenzy. The blood streaming down did not deter her. She was in an unreasoning passion and she groaned out, “Thief! Murder!”

The boy could not help crying out with pain but he would not speak.

When the mother was exhausted she sank down on a stool, folding her hands in prayer. “My God! What have I done to have a son like this? Machon! What kind of a son have you left me to live and slave for? Jesus Christ, why do you punish me? What have I done to merit this? A thief!”

Gaining a little strength, she began again, and as she rained blows upon him she shrieked, “What have you done with the ducat? Where is it? Tell me, or I will beat you to death.”

She began to choke him, to shake him violently! He would only cry: “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“You don’t know! You don’t know! You monster! You know very well and you will tell or I will break every bone in your body! You have given it away—or you have spent the money for something!”

“No! Nothing!”

“What, nothing! Either you have it or you have hidden it!”

“No, I have not!”

The mother could get nothing further out of him. She pulled his hair! She boxed his ears until her hands ached! She strangled him and even kicked him about!

Finally exhausted, she sat down realizing he would let her beat him to death before he would confess.

“There is somebody else behind this!” she said to herself. “He must be protecting some one.” She washed his wounds and bound them up and sent him off to church.

“He must be under the spell of somebody! He is hiding something—some evil influence from without! Some stranger I do not know.”

Acting on this thought, she began to search her son’s things for evidence. Who was this person who had spoiled her son? Who had made him a thief?

She searched through everything—broke open his drawer. First she came across the fishing rod. What was he doing with that? She knew he did not go on the river. She did not allow it and he had no time with his studies. She examined the pieces of the rod. They were quite new. Had he spent the ducat for that? No, she could not believe that. She shook her head and the curlpapers bobbed on her head.

She went on with her search. In a corner carefully hidden under his papers she came across some notes with sentences like this:

“Do not forget the two florins!—— I don’t care about that but—— You know I threw up the examinations for you.” Or: “I will ride in the garden to-morrow! Bring me your doeskin gloves. I want them!”

“At school!” she breathed. “I have found it out. It is a comrade, a schoolfellow! But if this is true why does he say ‘you’ to him? Schoolfellows always say ‘thou’ to one another.” She was puzzled—and what about the examination? She could not make this out but she made up her mind to keep silent about her find when her son returned. Then she could pursue her quest without his suspecting it. She quickly put his desk to rights and decided to confide in the confessor of the gymnasium. (She was a zealous Catholic.)

On Monday morning, as soon as her son had gone to school, she set off. She set her case before the fat-cheeked old man and he exclaimed:

“Truly, my good woman, this matter must be looked into at once!” and he blinked at her through his spectacles.

“There is some disturbing undercurrent—some entangling circumstance, I fear. It is a question of keeping his soul firm—of guiding him!”

“God knows! The Czech literature is no longer what it was in our young days. I have just read an article in the ‘Heimat’ by Confrater Thomas Skral. Dreadful! Scandalous! Sodom come down to us!”

“I’ll call your son to-morrow and examine him. You were wise, Madame, to tell me all. Perhaps we can prevent a great danger to him. If we have a black sheep in our institution, he must go—at once—before he does any more harm.”

After the Scripture hour the next day, the Catechist waited at the door for Machon. The boy was surrounded by his chafing comrades asking about his wounds and laughing at Gaba’s appearance. The Confessor signaled to him to wait. “A word,” he said with a smile, at which the boy shivered.

The boy was questioned from every angle. The Catechist could make no headway. He was kind at first and then grew angry at the fellow’s stubbornness. He threatened. It was of no avail. Finally he promised forgiveness but the boy Iwas silent as before.

Machon was vague about the notes. They were from an unknown person! They had no address on them. Anyway the matter was not clear. The Confessor said: “Very well, I will give the matter into the hands of the Professor to-morrow. He will know the handwriting.” Machon snatched at the sheets. He knew well that the writing would soon be detected and his secret laid bare.

At last he gave in. He confessed and begged the Catechist to forgive him, to have mercy and pardon them both. It was Richard Landa! It was wrung from him.

“No! No, I will not pardon you. You hardened your heart as long as you could, until you were forced to tell. You have lied and only confessed when nothing remained to protect you and your friend. Tell me again what is his name.”

“Richard Landa,” replied the miserable Gaba.

“I do not know him,” said the priest, puzzled. “What class is he in?”

“In the fifth with us, but he is a Protestant!”

“Protestant!” The father threw up his hands. “So your most trusted friend is a Protestant! I don’t wonder you have become so obstinate, so sunk in sin. To carry on a friendship with a Protestant, I never suspected you of. Go home now. To-morrow the Professor will take up the matter and talk with you both.”

The two boys were brought together to be questioned: “What did you want with two gulden?” Landa was asked.

“I didn’t want them at all,” was the reply.

“Then why did you ask him for them?”

“To test the strength of his will.”

The Professor laughed dryly at that.

“How did you become such a psychologist? And what about the garden? Have you really ridden horseback there?”

“No!” was the response, “I was only testing his capacity for judgment and credulity!”

“Then he was just a fool for you to experiment upon!”

“It seemed so,” Richard said, and laughed uneasily.

“It is true,” said Gaba, conscience-stricken, and grown red under the criticism of his friend.

“I am to blame! He wanted to make me a brave, strong man. He often said so.”

“He has a strange method of doing this,” said the inquisitor. “Nevertheless, he will sit opposite you in prison for two hours! One is an idiot; the other an impudent, conceited ass who has no equal.”

“That only applies to Gaba, not to me,” said Landa impudently.

The Professor was astonished at such a remark and he grew red with anger. “Both!” he cried furiously.

Landa shrugged his shoulders. As usual, he shook off anything that bothered him and that he considered might make him ridiculous. He washed his hands of the whole matter.

Outside in the corridor, he turned to his poor friend and said, “I have to-day spoken my last word to you! You are not worthy and have betrayed me!”

“I beg you, don’t do that! I could not prevent it! I did not betray you, I assure you. It was the accursed note. My mother found it.”

“No excuses. I am through with you!” Then with a derisive laugh, Landa continued: “You do not know how to manage things. You do not know how a Revolutionist would do! He burns everything that could compromise him! But you, you would write down everything in a notebook. You would note when and where you bought powder—bullets—where the revolver, and then where the meetings were held. You are a chattering woman—disgusting,” said he and he strutted off, dismissing poor Gaba as if he were beneath notice.

Landa read avidly at this time, the biographies of Revolutionists—Lassalle, Marx, Bakunin—and Czeck and German writers on the subject, Hablick and Garibaldi, and books on the Paris Commune of 1871. He was so filled and thrilled by these tales that his judgment of a boy was “What sort of a Revolutionist would he make?” Would he make good or would he lose the pace?

Look what a mess he and Gaba were in—Gaba had failed, that was all.