In his eyes nothing was of value except the law, unwritten to be sure, but of immemorial duration, that subjects the little to the big, the weak to the strong, the immature to the experienced, the poor to the rich. In accordance with this law humanity for him was divided into two camps: those who submitted to the law, and the undesirable citizens who rebelled against the law. And of these undesirable citizens his son Eberhard was the most undesirable. With this stinging, painful thorn in his flesh, oppressed by the feeling of loneliness in the very midst of a noisy, fraudulent activity, and filled with an ever-increasing detestation of the superfluity and consequent effeminacy of his daily existence, he had created out of the figure of his son a picture of evil incarnate. He visualised him in dissipation and depravity of every kind and degree; he saw him sinking lower and lower, a traitor to his family name; as if in a dream that appeases the sense of obscene horror, he saw him in league with the abandoned and proscribed, associating with thieves, street bandits, high-flying swindlers, counterfeiters, anarchists, prostitutes, and literati. He saw him in dirty dives, a fugitive from justice wandering along the highway, drunk in a gambling den, a beggar at a fair, and a prisoner at the bar. His determination to wait until the degenerate representative of the human family had been stigmatised by all the world he finally abandoned. His impatience to find peace, to throw off the mask, to rid himself completely of all entanglements, dissimulation, and the life of luxury to which he had been accustomed became so great, that he looked forward to the day that would eventually mark his release as the day of a new birth. But why did he hesitate? Was there still an element of doubt in his breast? Was there still slumbering, deep down in the regions of his heart that were inaccessible to bitterness and revenge, another picture of his son? Why did he hesitate from week to week, from month to month? In the meantime he had donated great fortunes to poor houses, hospitals, foundations, and similar causes. He wanted to give away other millions, at least so much that his heirs would receive only the gleanings of what had once been a field of riches. Emilia was to be given the income from the breweries and the country estates.