Kostant Fabbre was home, and alone all day now that he was able to get across a room on crutches. How he spent these vast silent days no one considered, probably least of all himself. An active man, the strongest and most intelligent worker in the quarries, a crew foreman since he was twenty-three, he had had no practice at all at idleness, or solitude. He. had always used his time to the full in work. Now time must use him. He watched it at work upon him without dismay or impatience, carefully, like an apprentice watching a master. He employed all his strength to learn his new trade, that of weakness. The silence in which he passed the days clung to him now as the limestone dust had used to cling to his skin.
The mother worked in the dry-goods shop till six; Stefan got off work at five. There was an hour in the evening when the brothers were together alone. Stefan had used to spend this hour out in the back yard under the fir tree, stupid, sighing, watching swallows dart after invisible insects in the interminably darkening air, or else he had gone to the White Lion. Now he came home promptly, bringing Kostant the Brailava Messenger. They both read it, exchanging sheets. Stefan planned to speak, but did not. The dust lay on his lips. Nothing happened. Over and over the same hour passed. The older brother sat still, his handsome, quiet face bowed over the newspaper. He read slowly; Stefan had to wait to exchange sheets; he could see Kostant's eyes move from word to word. Then Rosana would come in yelling good-bye to schoolmates in the street, the mother would come in, doors would bang, voices ring from room to room, the kitchen would smoke and clatter, plates clash, the hour was gone.
One evening Kostant, having barely begun to read, laid the newspaper down. There was a long pause which contained no events and which Stefan, reading, pretended not to notice.
"Stefan, my pipe's there by you."
"Oh, sure," Stefan mumbled, took him his pipe. Kostant filled and lit it, drew on it a few times, set it down. His right hand lay on the arm of the chair, hard and relaxed, holding in it a knot of desolation too heavy to lift. Stefan hid behind his paper and the silence went on.
I'll read out this about the union coalition to him, Stefan thought, but he did not. His eyes insisted on finding another article, reading it. Why can't I talk to him?
"Ros is growing up," Kostant said.
"She's getting on," Stefan mumbled.
"She'll take some looking after. I've been thinking. This is no town for a girl growing up. Wild lads and hard men."
"You'll find them anywhere."
"Will you; no doubt," Kostant said, accepting Stefan's statement without question. Kostant had never been off the karst, never been out of Sfaroy Kampe. He knew nothing at all but limestone, Ardure Street and Chorin Street and Gulhelm Street, the mountains far off and the enormous sky.
"See," he said, picking up his pipe again, "she's a bit wilful, I think."
"Lads will think twice before they mess with Fabbre's sister," Stefan said. "Anyhow, she'll listen to you."
"And you."
"Me? What should she listen to me for?"
"For the same reasons," Kostant said, but Stefan had found his voice now:
"What should she respect me for? She's got good enough sense. You and I didn't listen to anything dad said, did we? Same thing."
"You're not like him. If that's what you meant. You've had an education."
"An education, I'm a real professor, sure. Christ! One year at the Normal School!"
"Why did you fail there, Stefan?" The question was not asked lightly; it came from the heart of Kostant's silence, from his austere, pondering ignorance. Unnerved at finding himself, like Rosana, included so deeply in the thoughts of this reserved and superb brother, Stefan said the first thing that came to mind:
"I was afraid I'd fail. So I didn't work."
And there it was, plain as a glass of water, the truth, which he had never admitted to himself.
Kostant nodded, thinking over this idea of failure, which was surely not one familiar to him; then he said in his resonant, gentle voice, "You're wasting your time here in Kampe."
"I am? What about yourself?"
"I'm wasting nothing. I never won any scholarship." Kostant smiled, and the humor of his smile angered Stefan.
"No, you never tried, you went straight to the pit at fifteen. Listen, did you ever wonder, did you ever stop a minute to ask what am I doing here, why did I go into the quarries, what do I work there for, am I going to work there six days a week every week of the year every year of my life? For pay, sure, there's other ways to make a living. What's it for? Why does anybody stay here, in this Godforsaken town on this Godforsaken piece of rock where nothing grows? Why don't they get up and go somewhere? Talk about wasting your time! What in God's name is it all for – is this all there is to it?"
"I have thought that."
"I haven't thought anything else for years."
"Why not go, then?"
"Because I'm afraid to. It'd be like Brailava, like the college. But you – "
"I've got my work here. It's mine, I can do it. Anywhere you go, you can still ask what it's all for."
"I know." Stefan got up, a slight man moving and talking restlessly, half finishing his gestures and words. "I know. You take yourself with yourself. But that means one thing for me and something else again for you. You're wasting yourself here, Kostant. It's the same as this business, this hero business, smashing yourself up for that Sachik, a fool who can't even see a rockslide coming at him – "
"He couldn't hear it," Kostant put in, but Stefan could not stop now. "That's not the point; the point is, let that kind of man look after himself, what's he to you, what's his life to you? Why did you go in after him when you saw the slide coming? For the same reason as you went into the pit, for the same reason as you keep working in the pit. For no reason. Because it just came up. It just happened. You let things happen to you, you take what's handed you, when you could take it all in your hands and do what you wanted with it!"
It was not what he had meant to say, not what he had wanted to say. He had wanted Kostant to talk. But words fell out of his own mouth and bounced around him like hailstones. Kostant sat quiet, his strong hand closed not to open; finally he answered: "You're making something of me I'm not." That was not humility. There was none in him. His patience was that of pride. He understood Stefan's yearning but could not share it, for he lacked nothing; he was intact. He would go forward in the same, splendid, vulnerable integrity of body and mind towards whatever came to meet him on his road, like a king in exile on a land of stone, bearing all his kingdom – cities, trees, people, mountains, fields and flights of birds in spring – in his closed hand, a seed for the sowing; and, because there was no one of his language to speak to, silent.
"But listen, you said you've thought the same thing, what's it all for, is this all there is to life – If you've thought that, you must have looked for the answer!"
After a long pause Kostant said, "I nearly found it. Last May."
Stefan stopped fidgeting, looked out the front window in silence. He was frightened. "That – that's not an answer," he mumbled.