He called it Trost in Trauer, and quoted the text of Scripture
Auge um Auge, Zabn um Zahn, after which he did not
again allude to his wife's decease. In his last years,
when my father managed the estate, and he only lived with us
and criticised, he came to have the reputation of an oracle.
The neighbours sent him their sons at the beginning of
any important phase in their lives, and he received them
in this very arbour, administering eloquent and minute
advice in the deep voice that rolled round the shrubbery
and filled me with a vague sense of guilt as I played.
Sitting among the bushes playing muffled games for fear
of disturbing him, I supposed he must be reading aloud,
so unbroken was the monotony of that majestic roll.
The young men used to come out again bathed in perspiration,
much stung by mosquitoes, and looking bewildered; and when they had
got over the impression made by my grandfather's speech and presence,
no doubt forgot all he had said with wholesome quickness,
and set themselves to the interesting and necessary work of gaining
their own experience. Once, indeed, a dreadful thing happened,
whose immediate consequence was the abrupt end to the long
and close friendship between us and our nearest neighbour.
His son was brought to the arbour and left there in the usual way,
and either he must have happened on the critical
half hour after the coffee and before the Kreuzzeitung,
when my grandfather was accustomed to sleep, or he was more
courageous than the others and tried to talk, for very shortly,
playing as usual near at hand, I heard my grandfather's voice,
raised to an extent that made me stop in my game and quake, saying
with deliberate anger, "Hebe dich weg von mir, Sohn des Satans!"
Which was all the advice this particular young man got,