"Do you see how the waves are getting farther and farther away from the middle?" he asked. "They are always doing that. What is there peculiar in it?" "You are quite right," said the pastor; "it is always like that--everywhere, on the pond and in our lives. When something good happens in the world, waves are produced by it; they grow larger and larger and extend farther and farther." "I don't understand you," said Adler indifferently, sipping his wine. "I will explain it to you, if you will not be angry with me." "I am never angry with you." "Very well. You see, it is like this: you have brought your son up badly and have turned him loose upon the world, as I threw that stick into the water. He has incurred debts--that was the first wave. Then you reduced the workmen's pay--that was the second. Gosławski's death was the third; the troubles in the factory and the newspaper scandals were the fourth; and so on with the dismissal of the hands and the lawsuit. What will the tenth wave be?" "That does not concern me," said Adler. "Let your waves go out into the world and frighten fools; I am not interested in them." The pastor pointed to a cork he had just thrown on to the surface. "Look, Gottlieb, sometimes it is the tenth wave which rebounds on the shore and returns to where it came from." The old mill-owner reflected for a while on this demonstration, which was quite clear, and for a brief moment it seemed as if he were hesitating, as if an indefinable fear had sprung up in him. But it was only for a moment. Adler had too little imagination and reasoned too obstinately to foresee remote possibilities. He convinced himself that the pastor was talking drivel and preaching one of his sermons, so he laughed and replied in his thick voice: "No, no, Martin; I have taken proper precautions to prevent your waves from returning to me." "How can you tell?" "The doctor will not come back, nor the leaders of the strike, nor the fines, nor even Gosławski!" "But misfortune may return." "No, no, no, it will not return! ... or if it does it will break against my fists, against the factory, the insurance, the police ... and above all against my money...." It was late when the friends parted. "What a fool Martin is!" thought Adler; "he means to frighten me." The pastor, driving home in his little cart and looking upwards to the starlit sky, asked anxiously: "Which of the waves will return?" The comparison had come into his head unexpectedly, and he looked upon it as a sort of revelation. He believed firmly that the wave of wrong would turn; but when? ... which of them would it be?... CHAPTER VI