He had quarreled
bitterly with his son the night before, after being informed that one
of his cavalrymen had died in disgrace, and another deserted rank in
consequence. His head throbbed from the excesses of food and drink
that had become habitual with him; the whore that lay sleeping beside
him (his mistress) stank of his own corruption; and the prisoners he
had been charged to find, in the most demanding terms, still eluded
him. In the chill of early morning, he felt every day of the
fifty-three years he bore.
Of all these circumstances, the quarrel with his son troubled him most
deeply. It was not so much the fact of a dispute, all too common
between them, as the disturbing revelation which had come from it.
Because no man, no matter how far he has strayed from the path of
wisdom, wants to appear low and cowardly in the eyes of his son. And
no man, retaining from childhood the slightest memory of loving female
attention, can wantonly desecrate the altar of motherhood without a
latent stab of conscience. Yet both these things had now risen up to
haunt him, in the form of a daughter he had never seen.
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