The family of Kurt, whose history is here
traced through five generations, inherits a temperament which would have
secured its survival and raised it to distinction in barbaric ages, but
which will as surely, unless powerfully modified, necessitate its
extinction in the present age. For the Kurts are incapable of
assimilating civilization. An excess of physical vigor in the first Kurt
who settled in Norway takes the form of lawlessness and an entire
absence of moral restraint.
Violence of the most atrocious kind goes unpunished because Kurt is
powerful and has friends at court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and
Max (he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family temperament is
modified, though in Max, who perpetuates the race, the modification is
not radical. Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and moody,
and addicted to the pleasures of the table. Max, on the other hand, is a
man of inexhaustible vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of
a gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve to establish his
authority over the simple inhabitants of the little coast town.
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