His father died ten years before. He remembered storms of temper and showers of affection: he remembered pourings of words. He could catch no memory of his mother’s words woven into his father’s. His father’s voice and his mother’s seemed separate always. He wondered what this meant. They had lived in Boston, his father had been well on his way to fame. There he was born. They left and their leaving was woven into the contrast of his father’s humors and wild words, his mother’s rigid eyes. Adolph Markand had stopped performing with his violin. He became a teacher. Little girls and young women rang the bell and were secreted with him in the parlor. Sometimes no music came through the hour. His mother grew nervous in the kitchen. She dropped a dish. She said: “David, go into the parlor and fetch my sewing.” He stepped to the door. “Wait,” she called. “Don’t bother, dear....” In a rasping voice: “Why don’t you go out in the garden and play?” His father died. A mighty man who was an uncle came up to them from New York; Anthony Deane, a man within a white waistcoat, under a stove-pipe hat, a man who was his mother’s brother. He said to David with a god-like unction: “You and Mamma will stay on at the house, never fear, my lad.” He patted his cheek with two round ringed fingers. The funeral was a mellow flat in his mind; one moment, like a hill that stood sheer above the field where he lounged on Sundays, marked it forever. His mother was dry-eyed and so was his uncle. They were busy and pious, they did not weep. Yet his mother was sad. He was sure of that. He felt a terror in her lack of tears--a portentous suffering beyond the relief of his own. They stood over the grave and the body went down. He could not keep his eyes from his mother. He said to himself: “Look at that box, that’s father; that’s the last time you will see him.” It was no help. His mother was beautiful and tall, her black dress was a delight. He loved her black dress that showed off so well the soft white hands, the pale smooth cheek, the warm heaving of her bosom! Her eyes were large brown eyes and they were dry and there was sun in them: she did not fend them. Her eyes looked at the coffin of her husband, rigidly as if he were dancing instead of still and hidden in a box. Then they turned away: his mother looked at the girl who stood across from her, near David. A soft round girl named Letty who had red eyes now and was his father’s pupil. The deep commotion of his mother’s breast was gone: she threw forth her hands, palms outward as if there was some one against her. Tears came. His mother sobbed and covered her face, she almost fell. His uncle led her away. She wept a long time. The next morning, again, her eyes were dry and her breast that he so loved again moved deeply.