Free Katherine Keenum by Where the Light Falls Page B

so. Nevertheless, you did things. You got your medical training; you moved in the society of men. You came out to the laboratory and experimented. You invented new products. Your cure for chilblains allowed us to expand.”
    “Any pharmacist can compound salves and remedies, Theodore. We both know that, and we both know it was your business sense that made the real difference.”
    “Only half true! You are proud that your salves and remedies work, and so am I. Without a good product, a businessman has nothing to sell. And now to keep expanding, we need new products.”
    “Hire younger men.”
    “Edward, what I am saying is that when you take an interest, you contribute! Your mechanical suggestions for the production line paid off, too. You have a good mind; it needs to stretch again. The routine of serving individual customers—”
    “—of caring for patients, Theodore. They are our neighbors—mine, anyway.”
    “Some ever since Germany, and your comrades in the war—I know,” said Theodore, sympathetically, and yet with a touch of impatience. He started to light the cigar, remembered, and flung the match away. “Papa clung to Forty-Eight. For him everything always had to be measured by the revolution that failed. It was my big cause, too, but we lost. We came here. I put it behind me. What happened to you in your war was very terrible, but at least the Union was saved, enslaved men were set free. Don’t you ever get tired of it, Edward, always this looking back?”
    “Tired of it? I’m sick of it! Sick of myself. Sick of being watched and pitied, yes. Sick of gratitude; sick of what follows—impatience at having to be grateful. Oh, the devil! That bum was right; nobody remembers anymore but the old mothers. Yes, Theodore, I am sick to my soul; we have all seen that. Nostalgic, you think. Impotent is more like it.” Edward, whose thin frame had become taut with anger, slumped back. He turned his face toward the fire. “In France, they call it ennui.”
    Theodore, who had been taken aback by the vehemence of Edward’s outburst, was silent. In the soft semidarkness of the cluttered room, lit only by the fire and a small lamp, strong feeling ebbed away. If the two brothers had been strangers, they would have rubbed each other the wrong way. As it was, the attachment between them was strong.
    “What I was going to suggest was travel,” Theodore said. “Why don’t you go somewhere?”
    “Covington, maybe? Kansas?”
    “I mean it; I am serious. New sights to make a new man. Not all of France is ennui, Edward—it is also gaiety and beauty and esprit. Or if not France, then Italy, England, maybe even Spain. Go back to Kiel if you want. You were eight when we left; you can only half remember it. Such lovely, gentle views in Holstein. Or go to Alsace—you remember the summers at Gran’marie’s house? Go to Switzerland. Take the waters at Baden-Baden.”
    “You have something in mind.” It was a measure of Edward’s improved health that he could detect an unspoken purpose in Theodore’s pleading and be almost amused by it.
    Theodore shrugged like a man caught out; his eyes twinkled. “There is something I want you to do. I want you to accompany Carl to Europe.”
    “The Grand Tour! Stuff his Midwestern head with culture?” asked Edward, disbelieving.
    “No—though that would not hurt. They are tabulae rasae, these American children of mine. That much Latin even they may know, though not a word of Greek. What do they know of music, of theater, of painting and art? The best Cincinnati has to offer,” he answered himself ironically.
    “I speak with a twang myself,” said Edward. “I’m as much a hick as they are.”
    “That you are not! You grew up with Papa and Mutter. And you still read,” said Theodore, pointing the cigar forcefully. He frowned as he caught the drift of his own thought. “Not that we have no reason to be proud in Cincinnati! It is a great city in a great country. The future