Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Das Kapital

With her mouth full of meat, Rosalind Green stopped chewing when she heard Mr. Tate speak. A wave of shame washed over her. She’d already eaten so much meat, so caught up in the rare treat that she’d completely forgotten about her son.

After finishing the piece in her mouth with a conflicted heart, Rosalind Green didn’t take any more meat. She stuck to the potatoes, even though she was dying for more.

She couldn’t take meat away from her son. She was already failing to provide for him; what kind of mother would she be if she ate his food too?

“There’s no need to be so frugal with the meat,” Adrian Hawthorne said calmly. “When this is gone, I’ll just go hunt for more in the mountains.”

He wasn’t one for scrimping and saving when it came to food. Rather than rationing out a tiny piece of meat with every meal, he believed it was better to eat your fill all at once.

Besides, both Mr. Tate and Rosalind Green needed the meat for nourishment. In times like these, nothing else mattered. A healthy body was the most important asset; otherwise, how would they ever make it through?

Mr. Tate and Rosalind Green still held back, so Adrian picked up several pieces of meat and placed them in their bowls. He didn’t say a word, just watched them until, finally, neither could resist the siren call of the meat.

They gave in.

The entire large basin of meat and potatoes was finished, right down to the last drop of broth. The sweet potatoes, dipped in the savory, oily juices, were exceptionally delicious, and that large bowl was devoured as well. They had cleaned out everything, leaving not a single scrap behind.

Mr. Tate let out a long, satisfied burp. His spirits soared. It had been nearly ten years since he’d last eaten his fill. It felt wonderful.

“Here, Mr. Tate. Have some candy.”

Adrian Hawthorne pulled five or six pieces of candy from his pocket and gave them all to Mr. Tate. The old man loved sweets as much as Rosalind Green did. In his youth, he had studied abroad in Albia, living there for over twenty years. His dietary habits had been influenced by his time there, and he’d developed a love for afternoon tea.

He would brew some black tea or coffee, toast some bread, and sit in the garden enjoying a leisurely afternoon.

However, not long after he returned home, those wonderful times came to an abrupt end. Forget afternoon tea; he could barely scrape together three meals a day.

Mr. Tate’s eyes lit up, his excitement even greater than when he’d seen the meat. ’My dearest candy! It’s been too long!’

“Is this from the Thorne family as well?”

Mr. Tate unwrapped a piece and popped it into his mouth, sucking on it with a contented expression. He let out a soft sigh. ’It’s so sweet. What flavor is there in a life without sugar?’

He had endured ten years without sugar. ’It was a life worse than death!’

“Yeah. Little Fatty Tang gave them to me.”

An image of Tang Xiaonan’s gapped-tooth smile and her roly-poly body flashed through Adrian Hawthorne’s mind. He frowned in disgust. ’I should call her Big Fatty Tang instead. You couldn’t find a fatter girl than that little devil in the whole village.’

Mr. Tate looked surprised. ’What trouble is that chubby girl trying to stir up now?’

“That girl isn’t planning on causing trouble again, is she?” Rosalind Green asked, worried.

She was genuinely terrified of Tang Xiaonan. The girl was a little demon who was always pestering her son. You couldn’t hit her, you couldn’t scold her, and you couldn’t placate her. One wrong move, and her three thuggish older brothers would show up.

“It’s fine.”

Adrian Hawthorne wasn’t too concerned. It wasn’t the first time Little Fatty Tang had stirred up trouble. At least this time she came bearing candy. Even if she was planning something, it wouldn’t be a total loss. ’I’ll just consider it wages for having to play with the chubby girl,’ he thought.

After sitting for a little while longer, Mr. Tate returned to his room. It wouldn’t be proper for a man like him to linger too long in the home of a widow and her son.

Adrian Hawthorne followed him out, taking a thick, dog-eared book with him. Its title was—

*Das Kapital*, by Karl Marx.

This was one of the few books Mr. Tate had managed to bring with him; the rest had all been burned. The loss had been so devastating he’d nearly collapsed at the time, and the memory of it was still gut-wrenching.

Every single day, without fail, Adrian Hawthorne would study with Mr. Tate.

「At that very moment, the Thorne family was also having lunch.」

Their meal was far more lavish than the Hawthornes’. Their serving dishes were the size of washbasins: one held a massive portion of meat stewed with eggs, another was filled with pickled cabbage and fatty intestines, and a third contained salted pork steamed with “ivory” bamboo shoots—an especially tender type of spring shoot harvested in the early spring.

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