Though we did not realize
it then, Mrs. Harling was our audience when we played, and we always looked
to her for suggestions. Nothing flattered one like her quick laugh.
Mr. Harling had a desk in his bedroom, and his own easy-chair by the
window, in which no one else ever sat. On the nights when he was at home,
I could see his shadow on the blind, and it seemed to me an arrogant
shadow. Mrs. Harling paid no heed to anyone else if he was there. Before
he went to bed she always got him a lunch of smoked salmon or anchovies and
beer. He kept an alcohol lamp in his room, and a French coffee-pot, and
his wife made coffee for him at any hour of the night he happened to want
it.
Most Black Hawk fathers had no personal habits outside their domestic ones;
they paid the bills, pushed the baby-carriage after office hours, moved the
sprinkler about over the lawn, and took the family driving on Sunday. Mr.
Harling, therefore, seemed to me autocratic and imperial in his ways. He
walked, talked, put on his gloves, shook hands, like a man who felt that he
had power. He was not tall, but he carried his head so haughtily that he
looked a commanding figure, and there was something daring and challenging
in his eyes. I used to imagine that the 'nobles' of whom Antonia was
always talking probably looked very much like Christian Harling, wore caped
overcoats like his, and just such a glittering diamond upon the little
finger.
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