Moreover, he is endowed with great shrewdness and practical sense, and
is an expert in ship-building, agriculture, and other pursuits. But he
is the terror of women, and his sensual excesses so undermine his
strength that he becomes insane, and believes that he is continually
pursued by the spirit of his brother, whose death he had caused. Konrad
Kurt, the son of Max, runs away from home because he cannot endure to
see his mother maltreated by his father. He inherits a shattered
constitution and poor nerves; outwardly he is quite a respectable man,
but he has a strong physical need of drink, and every night he goes to
bed intoxicated. It is the author's purpose to show how the sins of his
fathers, by a physiological necessity, predisposed Konrad Kurt to drink.
His son, John Kurt, who is the result of a criminal relation, is the
complete incarnation of the genius of the family. The fresh blood which
he has derived from his English mother has postponed the doom of the
race and enabled him to repeat, in a modified form, the excesses of his
ancestors.
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