For some reason or other, the elder brother never married.

I have heard it said that he was crippled in childhood.

Be that as it may, he was vindictive and spiteful by nature, and prevented the quarrel from being forgotten.

The younger brother left the house with the clothes on his back, and steadily refused to accept the small allowance offered him, and which was his by right.

And now the father and the eldest son are dead--they died suddenly of the smallpox--and Doctor Grabofsky has come to inform the Count that he is the heir.