The child was a mere incident in
their lives, a thing that had come undesired and had gone unregretted.
It had not even a name; a strange, hybrid little being, come and gone
within a fortnight's time, yet combining in its puny little body the
blood of the Hebrew, the Pole, and the Spaniard.
But the birth of this child had peculiar consequences. Maria came out
of her dementia, and in a few days the household settled itself again
to its sordid regime and Maria went about her duties as usual. Then one
evening, about a week after the child's burial, Zerkow had asked Maria
to tell him the story of the famous service of gold plate for the
hundredth time.
Zerkow had come to believe in this story infallibly. He was immovably
persuaded that at one time Maria or Maria's people had possessed these
hundred golden dishes. In his perverted mind the hallucination had
developed still further. Not only had that service of gold plate once
existed, but it existed now, entire, intact; not a single burnished
golden piece of it was missing. It was somewhere, somebody had it,
locked away in that leather trunk with its quilted lining and round
brass locks. It was to be searched for and secured, to be fought for,
to be gained at all hazards.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291