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The phenomenon of an adolescent poet in the family is always liked and distrusted by simple people—liked because it pleasantly teases the monotone of their existence, and distrusted because they fear, without quite knowing why, that it will develop into a being at variance with the fundamental designs of their lives. Carl’s parents clucked their tongues in puzzled admiration when he read them one of his poems, and then, with a note of loquacious fear in their voices, told him that he must look upon writing as a “side-line”—a pretty, lightly smirking distraction that could snuggle into the hollows of a business-man’s life. Carl, who liked the importance of carrying secret plots within him, did not answer this suggestion, or gave it a sulky monosyllable, and his reticence frightened his parents. The simple person is reassured by garrulity, even when it attacks but can derive nothing from silence save the feeling of an unseen dagger. The Felmans wanted their son to attain the money that had seduced and eluded their longings, but deeper than that, they yearned for him to place a colored wreath over the brows of their tired imaginations—one that could convince them that their lives had not been mere sterile and oppressed bickerings. The father, a traveling-salesman for a whiskey-firm, wanted Carl to be prosperous and yet daring over his cups while the mother felt that he might become a celestial notary-public, placing his seal upon the unnoticed documents of her virtues.