The Sons Read Online Free PDF

rest. Come, I’ll help you to take off your things, you’ll see I can do it. Or if you would rather go into the front room at once, you can lie down in my bed for the present. That would actually be the most sensible thing.”
    Georg stood close beside his father, who had let his head with its shaggy white hair sink to his chest.
    “Georg,” said his father in a low voice, without moving.
    Georg knelt down at once beside his father. In the old man’s weary face he saw the abnormally large pupils staring at him fixedly from the corners of the eyes.
    “You have no friend in St. Petersburg. You’ve always been one for pulling people’s legs and you haven’t hesitated even when it comes to me. How could you have a friend there, of all places! I can’t believe it.”
    “Just think back a bit, Father,” said Georg, lifting his father from the chair and slipping off his dressing gown as he stood there, now quite feebly, “soon it’ll be three years since my friend came to see us last. I remember you didn’t like him very much. At least twice I even told you he wasn’t there when he was actually sitting with me in my room. I could quite well understand your dislike of him, my friend does have his peculiarities. But then later you had a good talkwith him after all. I was so proud because you listened to him and nodded and asked him questions. If you think back you’re bound to remember. He told us the most incredible stories of the Russian Revolution. For instance, the time he was on a business trip to Kiev and ran into a riot, and saw a priest on a balcony who cut a broad cross in blood into the palm of his hand and held the hand up and appealed to the crowd. You’ve told that very story yourself once or twice since.”
    Meanwhile Georg had succeeded in lowering his father into the chair again and carefully taking off the knitted drawers he wore over his linen undershorts and his socks. The not particularly clean appearance of his underwear made Georg reproach himself for having been so neglectful. It should certainly have been his duty to see that his father had clean changes of underwear. He had not yet explicitly discussed with his fiancée what arrangements should be made for his father in the future, for they had both silently taken it for granted that he would remain alone in the old apartment. But now he made a quick, firm decision to take him into his own future home. It almost looked, on closer inspection, as if the care he meant to devote to his father there might come too late.
    He carried his father over to the bed in his arms. It gave him a dreadful feeling to observe that while he was taking the few steps toward the bed, the old man cradled against his chest was playing with his watch chain. For a moment he could not put him down on the bed, so firmly did he hang on to the watch chain.
    But as soon as he was laid in bed, all seemed well. He covered himself up and even drew the blanket higher than usual over his shoulders. He looked up at Georg with a not unfriendly expression.
    “You’re beginning to remember my friend, aren’t you?” asked Georg, giving him an encouraging nod.
    “Am I well covered up now?” asked his father, as if he couldn’t see whether his feet were properly tucked in or not.
    “So you like it in bed, don’t you?” said Georg, and tucked the blanket more closely around him.
    “Am I well covered up?” the father asked once more, seeming to be peculiarly intent upon the answer.
    “Don’t worry, you’re well covered up.”
    “No!” cried his father, so that the answer collided with the question, and flinging the blanket back so violently that for a moment it hovered unfolded in the air, he stood upright in bed. With one hand he lightly touched the ceiling to steady himself. “You wanted to cover me up, I know, my little puppy, but I’m far from being covered up yet. And even if this is the last bit of strength I have, it’s enough for you, more than enough. Of