Language in "In the Heart of the Country"

While the narrator's father is in his room with Klein-Anna, she approaches his door and attempts to open it, but finds that it is locked. She then tries to speak to him. After he tells her, "It's late child. Let us rather talk tomorrow. Go and get some sleep [54]," the narrator states, "He has spoken. Having found it necessary to lock the door against me, he has now found it necessary to speak to me [54]." Here, language is used as a confession of a reprehensible act. It becomes a confession because, as the narrator states, her father actually spoke to her. Most of the time he treats her indifferently and neglects almost any type of interaction with her. And now that he is having sex with his servants wife, he speaks to her. He does whatever he can to avoid her, finally speaking to her. This passage only enforces the mistreatment of the narrator by her father that one can see during the course of the novel. The few sentences that are spoken to her are not even out of interest, but simply for deceit, so that she will not know of his actions.