The organ above them was being played very softly, and the clergyman repeated the texts he had chosen for the candidates in a low voice to the accompaniment of its gentle tones:

"Revelation, 21st chapter, 4th verse. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Ah, that was for Kullrich. He raised his face, that was wet with tears and so red and hot, to receive the comforting words. But now, now—Wolfgang stopped breathing—now his text was coming. What kind of a text would he get, what would he say to him?

"Hebrews, 13th chapter, 14th verse. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come."

That was to be for him—that? What was the meaning of it? A terrible disappointment came over Wolfgang, for—had he not waited for the text as for a revelation? The text was to be a judgment of God. It was to tell him what was true—or what was not true. And now?

Here have we no continuing city, we seek one to come. That did not tell him anything.

He got up from the steps mechanically, deceived in all his hopes. He did not see that his mother's eyes sent him a covert greeting, that his father was surreptitiously nodding to him with a friendly expression on his face; he felt quite disillusioned, quite bewildered by this disappointment.

If only it had been over now. How tiring it was to sit quiet for so long. Wolfgang was pale and yawned covertly; the long night during which he had not slept made itself felt, he could hardly keep himself from falling asleep. At last, at last the "Amen" was said, at last, at last the final hymn pealed from the organ.

The enormous crowd poured out of the church like a never-ending flood. Each child joined its parents and passed through the church porch between its father and mother.

Wolfgang walked like that, too, as he had done before. He saw Kullrich in front of him—with his father only; both of them still wore the broad mourning-band. Then he left his father and mother and hurried after Kullrich. He had never been on specially friendly terms with him, but he took hold of his hand now and pressed and shook it in silence, without a word, and then went back again quickly.

Her boy's impulsive sympathy touched Kate greatly; altogether she was very much moved that day. When Wolfgang walked beside her again, she looked at him sideways the whole time with deep emotion: oh, he was so good, so good. And her heart sent up burning hopes and desires to heaven.

The sky was bright, so blue, there was not a cloud on it.

They took a carriage so as to drive home, as both parents felt they could not be crowded together in the train with so many indifferent, chattering people; they wanted to be alone with their son. Wolfgang was silent. He sat opposite his mother and allowed his hand to remain in hers, which she kept on her lap, but his fingers did not return her tender, warm pressure. He sat as quiet as though his thoughts were not there at all.

They drove past the house again in which Laemke was porter; Frida sprang to the window on hearing the noise the carriage made on the hard, sun-baked road, and smiled and nodded once more. But there was nothing to be seen of Frau Laemke now, and Wolfgang missed her. Well, that afternoon as soon as he could get free he would go to the Laemkes.

Some guests were already waiting for them at the villa. They did not wish to invite a lot of outsiders in honour of the confirmation, but still the good old doctor, his wife, and the two partners had to be asked—all elderly people. Wolfgang sat between them without saying much more than "yes" and "no," when questions were put to him. But he ate and drank a good deal; the food was always good, but still you did not get caviar and plovers' eggs every day. His face grew redder and redder, and then his head began to swim. At last his health was drunk in champagne, and Braumueller, the oldest partner, a very jovial man, had amused himself by filling the boy's glass again and again.

"Well, Wolfgang, that will be grand when you come to the office. Your health, my boy."

It was almost five o'clock when they got up from table. The ladies sat down in the drawing-room to have a cup of coffee, the gentlemen went to the smoking-room. Wolfgang stole away, he felt such a longing for the Laemkes. First of all he wanted to show them the gold watch, and then he wanted to ask what text Frida had got at her confirmation, and then, then—what would Frau Laemke say to him?

Here have we no continuing city, we seek one to come; that was really a stupid text. And still he could not get it out of his head. He thought of it the whole time whilst sauntering slowly along through the soft silvery air of spring, that is so full of presages. No, the text was not so stupid, after all. He knit his brows thoughtfully, looked up at the motionless tops of the pines and then around him—"Here have we no continuing city"—could not that also mean, here is not your home? But where then—where?

A strange gleam came into his dark eyes, a look as if seeking for something. And then his face, which the wine had flushed, grew pale. If it were true what the two had said? Oh, and so many other things occurred to him all at once: there had been that Lisbeth, that horrid woman who had been with them before Cilia came—what was all that Lisbeth had always been babbling about when she was in a bad humour? "You've no right here"—"you're here on sufferance"—and so on, only he could not remember it all now. What a pity! At that time he had been too young and too innocent, but now—now?

"Hang that woman!" He clenched his hand. But oh, if he only had her there now. He would not call her names, oh no, he would get it out of her quite gently and coaxingly, for he must, he must know it now.

A violent longing, a burning curiosity had suddenly been roused in him, and would not be repressed any longer. There must be some truth in it, or how could they have taunted him like that? And he must know the truth; he had a right to know it now. His figure grew taller. Self-will and defiance engraved deep, firm lines round his mouth. And even if it were ever so terrible, he must know it. But was it terrible? The lines round his lips became softer. "Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come"—very well then, he would seek it.

He gave up sauntering and began to stride along more quickly. What would Frau Laemke say? And if he should ask her now—she meant so well by him—if he should ask her in the way a man is asked when he has to swear to anything, if he asked her whether—yes, but what was it he really wanted to ask her?

His heart throbbed. Oh, that stupid heart. It often behaved as if it were a wild bird that has been shut up in a small cage.

He had commenced to run again; now he had to slacken his pace. And still he was quite breathless when he came to the Laemkes. The father and son had gone out, but the mother and daughter were sitting there as though waiting for him.

Frida jumped up, so that the edging she had been crocheting for the kitchen fell to the ground, seized hold of both his hands, and her blue eyes sparkled with admiration. "Oh, how fine you are, Wolfgang! Like a gentleman—awfully grand."

He smiled: that was nice of her to say it.

But when Frau Laemke said in a voice full of feeling: "Now I shall have to treat you as a grown-up, Wolfgang—you're getting too big now—but I like you none the less for that, you may be sure, I could hardly be fonder of my own children"—he felt happier than he had done the whole day. His face grew tender and full of emotion, and he pressed the gnarled hand that gave his such a hearty shake firmly.

Then he sat down near them; they wanted to hear about everything.

He showed them his gold watch and let it strike the hour; but he did not talk much, the atmosphere of the room filled him with a vague feeling of delight, and he sat quite still. There was the same smell of freshly-made coffee as once before, and the myrtle in the window and the pale monthly rose mingled their fainter perfume with it. He had quite forgotten that he had already been there some time; all at once it occurred to him with a sudden feeling of dread that he had something to ask. He cast a searching glance at the woman. She was just saying: "Oh, how pleased your mother will be to have such a big son," when he jerked out: "Am I her son?" And as she did not answer, but only looked at him uncertainly with her eyes full of dismay, he almost shouted it: "Am I her son?"

The mother and daughter exchanged a rapid glance; Frau Laemke had turned scarlet and looked very embarrassed. The boy had got hold of her arms with both hands and was bending over her. There was no getting out of it.

"Don't tell me any lies," he said hastily. "I shall find it out all the same. I must find it out. Is she my mother? Answer. And my father—he isn't my real father either?"

"Good gracious, Wolfgang, what makes you think of such a thing?" Frau Laemke hid her embarrassment under a forced laugh. "That's all nonsense."

"Oh no." He remained quite serious. "I'm old enough now. I must know it. I must."

The woman positively writhed: oh, how disagreeable it was for her; let the boy go somewhere else and ask. "I should get into nice trouble with them if I told tales," she said, trying to get out of it. "Ask your parents themselves, they'll tell you all you want to know. I'll take care not to meddle with such things."

Frida opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something, but a warning glance made her remain silent. Her mother flew at her angrily: "Will you be quiet? To think of you mixing yourself up with it. What next. On the whole, what do chits like you know about such things? Wolfgang's father knows very well what the boy is to him and where he got him from. And if the lady is satisfied with it, no one else has a word to say about it."

Wolfgang stared at the gossip. "The boys say—Lisbeth said—and now you say—you too"—he jumped up—"I'll go and ask—them." He pointed with his finger as though pointing at something at a great distance of which he knew nothing. "Now I must know it."

"But Wolfgang—no, for God's sake!" Frau Laemke pressed him down into the chair again, quite terrified. "Laemke will beat me if he gets to know what I've done. He may possibly lose his situation as porter because of it—now, straightway, and the children don't earn anything as yet. I've not said anything, have I? How can I help that other people make you suspicious and uneasy? I don't know your mother at all and your father will, of course, have lost sight of her long ago. Let the whole thing lie, my boy." She wanted to soothe him, but he was not listening.

"My—my father?" he stammered. "So he is my real father?"

Frau Laemke nodded.

"But my—my real m—" He could not say the word "mother." He held his hands before his face and his whole body quivered. He was suddenly seized with a longing, that great passionate longing, for a mother who had borne him. He did not say a word, but he uttered sighs that sounded like groans.

Frau Laemke was frightened to death; she wanted to clear herself but made it much worse. "Tut, tut, my dear boy, such a thing often happens in life—very decent of him that he doesn't disown you; there are heaps who do. And you would have far to go to find anybody like the lady who has adopted you as her own child. Splendid—simply splendid!" Frau Laemke had often been vexed with the fine lady, but now she felt she wanted to do her justice. "Such a mother ought to be set in gold—there isn't such another to be found." She exhausted herself in praise. "And who knows if it's true after all?" And with that she concluded.

Oh, it was all true. Wolfgang had grown quiet—at least his face no longer showed any special emotion when he let his hands fall. "I shall have to be going now," he said.

Frida stood there looking very distressed. She had known it all a long time—who did not know it?—but she was very sorry indeed that he knew it now. Her clear eyes grew dim, and she looked at her friend full of compassion. Oh, how much more beautiful her own confirmation last Easter had been. She had not had any gold watch, only quite a small brooch of imitation gold—it had cost one shilling and sixpence, for she had chosen it herself with her mother—but she had been so happy, so happy.

"What text did you get?" she asked quickly, so as to take his thoughts away from it.

"I don't know it by heart," he said evasively, and his cheeks that had grown pale flamed. "But it suited." And with that he went out of the door.

He went straight home—why should he waste any more time? the matter was urgent. He did not notice the starlings flying in and out of their boxes on the tall pines, did not notice that there was already a bright crescent in the evening sky that was growing darker and darker, and a golden star near it, he only noticed with satisfaction as he entered the hall at the villa that the coats and hats had disappeared from the pegs. That was good, the visitors had left. He rushed to the drawing-room, he almost fell into the room. His father and mother were still sitting there—no, his father and she, the—the——

"Come, tell us where you've been such along time," inquired his father, not without a touch of vexation in his voice.

"To-day, just on this day," said his mother. "They all sent you their love, they waited for you. But it's almost eight o'clock now."

Wolfgang cast an involuntary glance at the clock on the mantel-piece—right, nearly eight o'clock. But all that was immaterial now. And, staring straight in front of him as though his eyes were fixed on some object, he placed himself in front of the two.

"I have something to ask you," he said. And then—it came out quite suddenly, quite abruptly. "Whose child am I?"

Now it was said. The young voice sounded hard. Or did it only sound so cutting to Kate's ears? She heard something terribly shrill, like the dissonant blast of a trumpet. O God, there it was, that awful question. A sudden wave of blood laid a thick veil covered with glittering spots before her eyes; she could not see her boy any more, she only heard his question. She stretched out her hand gropingly, helplessly—thank God, there was her husband! He was still there. And now she heard him speak.

"What makes you ask that question?" said Paul Schlieben. "Our son of course. Whose child could you be otherwise?"

"I don't know. That's just what I want to know from you," the boy went on in his hard voice.

It was strange how calm the voice sounded, but it seemed doubly terrible to Kate in its monotony.

Now it became a little louder: "Give me an answer—I will—I must know it."

Kate shuddered. What inexorableness, what obstinacy lay in that "I will"—"I must!" He would never stop asking again. She sank down as though crushed, and shuddered.

Even the man's quiet voice betrayed a secret tremor. "Dear boy, somebody—I will not ask who, there are always enough gossips and abettors—has again put something into your head. Why do you treat us as if we were your enemies? Haven't we always been like a father and mother to you?"

Oh, that was wrong—like a father and mother? Quite wrong. Kate started up. She stretched out her arms: "My boy!"

But he remained standing as though he did not see those outstretched arms; his brows were contracted, he only looked at the man. "I know very well that you are my father, but she"—he cast a quick sidelong glance at her—"she's not my mother."

"Who says that?" Kate shrieked it.

"Everybody."

"No, nobody. That's not true. It's a lie, a lie! You are my child, my son, our son I And the one who denies that lies, deceives, slanders!——"

"Kate!" Her husband looked at her very gravely, and there was a reproach in his voice and a warning. "Kate!"

And then he turned to the boy, who stood there so sullenly, almost defiantly—drawn up to his full height, with one foot outstretched, his head thrown back—and said: "Your mother is naturally very much agitated, you must take care of her—to-day especially. Go now, and to-morrow we will——"

"No, no!" Kate did not let him finish speaking, she cried in the greatest excitement: "No, don't postpone it. Let him speak—now—let him. And answer him—now—at once that he is our son, our son alone. Wolfgang—Woelfchen!" She used the old pet name from his childhood again for the first time for months. "Woelfchen, don't you love us any more? Woelfchen, come to me."

She stretched out her arms to him once more, but he did not see those longing, loving, outstretched arms again. He was very pale and his eyes were fixed on the ground.

"Woelfchen, come."

"I cannot."

His face never moved, and his voice had still the same monotonous tone which sounded so terrible to her. She sobbed aloud, and her eyes clung to her husband—he must help her now. But he looked at her with a frown; she could plainly read the reproach in his face: "Why did you not follow my advice? Had we told him in time—" No, she would not find any help in him either. And now—what was it Paul was saying now? Her eyes dilated with a sudden fear, she grasped the arms of her chair with both hands, she wanted to sink back and still she started up to ward off what must come now Was Paul out of his mind? He was saying: "You are not our son."

"Not your son?" The boy stammered. He had made up his mind that nothing should disconcert him, but this answer disconcerted him all the same. It bewildered him; he turned red, then white, and his eyes wandered uncertainly from the man to the woman, from the woman to the man.

So he, too—that man—was not his father either? But Frau Laemke had said so? Oh, so he wanted to disown him now? He looked suspiciously at the man, and then something that resembled mortification arose within him. If he were not his father, then he had really no—no right whatever to be there?

And, drawing a step nearer, he said hastily: "You must be my father. You only don't want to say it now. But she"—he gave a curt nod in the direction of the chair—"she's not my mother." His eyes gleamed; then he added, drawing a long breath as though it were a relief: "I've always known that."

"You've been wrongly informed. If I had had my way, I would have told you the truth long ago. But as the right moment—unfortunately—has been neglected, I will tell you it to-day. I tell you it—on my word of honour, as one man speaking to another—I am not your father, just as little as she is your mother. You have nothing to do with us by birth, nothing whatever. But we have adopted you as our child because we wanted to have a child and had not one. We took you from——"

"Paul!" Kate fell on her husband's breast with a loud cry, as she had done at the time when he wanted to disclose something to the boy, because he was indignant at his ingratitude. She clasped her arms round his neck, she whispered hastily, passionately in his ear with trembling breath: "Don't tell him from where. For God's sake not from where. Then he'll go away, then I shall lose him entirely. I can't bear it—have mercy, have pity on me—only don't tell him from where."

He wanted to push her away, but she would not let go of him. She repeated her weeping, stammering entreaty, her trembling, terrified, desperate prayer: only not from where, only not from where.

He felt a great compassion for her. His poor, poor wife—was this to happen to her? And then he was filled with anger against the boy, who stood there so bold—arrogant—yes, arrogant—who demanded where he had to ask, and looked at them unmoved with large, cold eyes.

His voice, which had hitherto been grave but gentle whilst speaking to Wolfgang, now became severe: "Besides, I won't allow you to question me in this manner."

"I have a right to question you."

"Yes, you have." The man was quite taken aback. Yes, the lad had the right. It was quite clear who was wrong. And so he said, thinking better of it and in a more friendly voice again: "But even if you are not our son by birth, I think the training and the care you have received from our hands during all these years have made you our child in spirit. Come, my son—and even if they all say you are not our son, I tell you you are our son in truth."

"No," he said. And then he walked slowly backwards to the door, his dry eyes fixed on those he had called parents for so long.

"Boy, where are you going? Stop!" the man called after him in a kind voice. The boy was certainly in a terrible position, they must have patience with him. And he called out once more "Stop, Wolfgang!"

But Wolfgang shook his head: "I cannot. You have deceived me. Let me go." He shook off the man's hand that he had laid on his sleeve with a violent gesture.

And then he screamed out like a wounded animal: "Why do you still worry me? Let me go, I want to think of my mother—where is she?"



BOOK III



CHAPTER XIII

The clocks in the house ticked terribly loudly. They could be heard through the silence of the night like warning voices.

Oh, how quickly the time flew. It had quite lately been evening—midnight—and now the clock on the mantel-piece already struck a short, clear, hard one.

The lonely woman pressed her hands to her temples with a shudder. How they throbbed, and how her thoughts—torturing thoughts—hurried along, madly, restlessly, like the hasty tick of the clocks.

Everybody in the house was asleep—the manservant, the maids, her husband too—long ago. Only she, she alone had not found any sleep as yet.

And everything was asleep outside as well. The pines stood around the house motionless, and their dark outlines, as stiff as though cut out of cardboard, stood out clearly against the silvery sky of night.

No shouts, no footsteps, no sound of wheels, no singing, no laughter, not even a dog's bark came from the sleeping colony in the Grunewald. But something that sounded like a gentle sighing was heard around the white villa with the red roof and the green shutters.

The mother, who was waiting for her son, listened: was anybody there? No, it was the breeze that was trying to move the branches of the old gnarled pines.

Kate Schlieben was standing at the window now. She had torn it open impatiently some time before, and now she leant out of it. As far as her eye could reach there was nobody to be seen, nobody whatever. There was still no sign of him.

The clock struck two. The woman gazed round at the mantel-piece with an almost desperate look: oh, that unbearable clock, how it tortured her. It must be wrong. It could not be so late.

Kate had sat up waiting for Wolfgang many an evening, but he had never remained out so long as to-day. Paul had no objection to the boy going his own way. "My child," he had said, "you can't alter it. Lie down and go to sleep, that is much more sensible. The boy has the key, he will come home all right. You can't keep a young fellow of his age in leading-strings any longer. Leave him, or you'll make him dislike our house—do leave him in peace."

What strange thoughts Paul had. He was certainly quite right, she must not keep the boy in leading-strings any longer. She was not able to do so either—had never been able to do so. But how could she go to bed quietly? She would not be able to sleep. Where could he be?

Kate had grown grey. In the three years that had elapsed since her son's confirmation she had changed considerably outwardly. Whilst Wolfgang had grown taller and stronger and broader like a young tree, her figure had drooped like a flower that is heavy with rain or is about to wither. Her fine features had remained the same, but her skin, which had retained almost the delicate smoothness of a young girl's for so long, had become looser; her eyes looked as if she had wept a great deal. Her acquaintances found Frau Schlieben had grown much older.

When Kate saw herself in the glass now, she did not blush with pleasure at the sight of her own well-preserved looks; she did not like looking at herself any more. Something had given her a shock both inwardly and outwardly. What that had been nobody guessed. Her husband knew it certainly, but he did not speak of it to his wife. Why agitate her again? Why tear open old wounds?

He took good care never again to mention the day on which the boy had been confirmed. It was also best not to do so. He had certainly taken him very severely to task on account of his ungrateful behaviour at the time, and had demanded of him that he should treat them more considerately and his mother also more affectionately. And the lad, who had no doubt repented of his conduct long ago, had stood there like a poor sinner; he had said nothing and had not raised his eyes. And when his father had finally led him to his mother, he had allowed himself to be led and to be embraced by his mother, who had thrown both her arms round his neck. She had wept over him and then kissed him.

And then nothing more had ever been said about it.

The white house with its bright green and red, which was always being embellished and improved, both inside and out, struck everybody who passed by as extremely cosy. The trippers on Sundays used to stand outside the wrought iron railing and admire the abundance of flowers, the ivy-leaved geraniums on the balconies and the splendid show of fine rose-trees in summer, the azaleas and camellias behind the thick glass of the conservatory and the rows of coloured primulas and early hyacinths and tulips between the double windows in winter. The lady in her dress of soft cloth and with the wavy grey hair and the gentle face, with its rather sad smile, suited the house and the flowers and her peaceful surroundings well. "Delightful," the people used to say.

When Wolfgang heard such things in former years when he was a boy, he used to make faces at the people: the house and garden were no concern of theirs, there was nothing to admire about them. Now it flattered him when they remained standing, when they even envied him. Oh yes, the place was quite nice. He felt very important.

Paul Schlieben and his wife had never placed any special value on money, they had always had enough, a competency was simply a matter of course to them; and they never guessed that their son placed any value on wealth. When Wolfgang used to think now of how little he had once cared for it all in his boyish impetuosity, and that he had run away without money, without bread, he had to smile. How childish. And when he remembered that he once, when he was already older and able to reflect upon his actions, had asked impetuously for something that would have been equivalent to giving up all that made his life so comfortable, he shook his head now. Too silly.

To compare himself with others afforded him a certain satisfaction. Kesselborn was still sweating in the top form—his people made a point of his studying theology, possibly in order to become court chaplain on account of his noble birth—Lehmann had to help his father in his forwarding business in spite of the very good examination he had passed on leaving school, and look after the furniture-vans. And Kullrich—ah, poor Kullrich, he had consumption, like his mother.

The corners of Wolfgang's mouth drooped with a half-contemptuous, half-compassionate smile when he thought of his school-fellows. Was that living? Oh, and to live, to live was so beautiful!

Wolfgang was conscious of his strength: he could tear up trees by the roots, blow down walls that stood in his way with his breath as though they were cards.

School was no longer the place for him, his limbs and his inclinations had outgrown the benches. Besides, he was already growing a moustache. There had long been a black shadow on the upper lip that made one guess it was coming, and now it had come, it had come!

Surely such a grown-up person could not remain in the second form any longer? And why should he? He was not to be a scholar. Wolfgang left school after passing the examination that admitted him to the top form.

Paul Schlieben had given up, for the present, his intention of sending him abroad as soon as he had finished school; he wished to keep him a little longer under his own eye first. Not that he wanted to guard him as carefully as Kate did, but the old doctor, their good friend whom he esteemed so highly, had warned him in confidence once when they were sitting quite alone over a glass of wine: "Listen, Schlieben," he had said, "you had better take care of the boy. I wouldn't let him go so far away as yet—he is so young. And he is a rampageous fellow and—after what he went through as a child, you know—hm, one can never tell if his heart will hold out."

"Why not?" Schlieben had asked in surprise. "So you look upon him as ill?"

"No, certainly not." The doctor had grown quite angry: at once this exaggeration! "Who says anything about 'ill'? All the same, the lad must not do everything in a rush. Well, and boys will be boys. We know that from our time."

And both men had nodded to each other, had brightened up and laughed.

Wolfgang had a horse to ride on, rode first at the riding-school and then a couple of hours each day out of doors. His father made a point of his not sitting too much at the office. He would easily learn what was necessary for him to know as a merchant, and arithmetic he knew already.

The two partners, old bachelors, were delighted with the lively lad, who came to the office with his whip in his hand and sat on his stool as if it were a horse.

Paul Schlieben did not hear any complaints of his son; the whole staff, men who had been ten, twenty years with the firm, all well-oiled machines that worked irreproachably, hung round the young fellow: he was their future chief. Everything worked smoothly.

Both father and mother were complimented on their son. "A splendid fellow. What life there is in him." "He's only in the making," the man would answer, but still you could see that he was pleased to hear it in his heart. He did not feel the torturing anxiety his wife felt. Kate only raised her eyebrows a little and gave a slight, somewhat sad smile of consent.

She could not rejoice in the big lad any longer, as she had once rejoiced in the little fellow on her lap. It seemed to her as though she had altogether lost the capacity for rejoicing, slowly, it is true, quite gradually, but still steadily, until the last remnant of the capacity had been torn out by the roots on one particular day, in one particular hour, at the disastrous moment when he had said: "I will go, I want to think of my mother—where is she?" Ever since then. She still wished him to have the best the earth could give, but she had become more indifferent, tired. He had trodden too heavily on her heart, more heavily than when in days gone by his small vigorous feet had stamped on her lap.

She bent further out of the window with a deep sigh, as she waited all alone for him. Was it not unheard of, unpardonable of him to come home so late? Did he not know that she was waiting for him?

She clenched her hand, which rested on the windowsill, in such a paroxysm of anger as she had rarely felt. It was foolish of her to wait for him. Was he not old enough—eighteen? Did he still want waiting for like a boy coming home alone from a children's party for the first time? He had made an appointment with some other young fellows in Berlin—who knew in what cafe they were spending their night?

She stamped her foot. Her hot breath rose like smoke in the cold clear night in spring, she shivered with exhaustion and discomfort. And then she thought of the hours, all the hours during which she had watched for him already, and her heart was filled with a great bitterness. Even her tongue had a bitter taste—that was gall. No, she did not feel the love of former years for him any longer. In those days, yes, in those days she had felt a rapture—even when she suffered on his account; but now she only felt a dull animosity. Why had he forced himself into her life? Oh, how smooth, how free from sorrow, how—yes, how much happier it had been formerly. How he had broken her spirit—would she ever be able to rise again?

No. A hard curt no. And then she thought of her husband. He had also robbed her of him. Had not he and she been one formerly, one in everything? Now this third one had forced his way between them, pushed her husband and her further and further apart—until he went on this side and she on that.

A sudden pain seized the woman as she stood there pondering, a great compassion for herself drove the tears into her eyes; they felt hot as they dripped down on her hands that she had clenched on the window-sill. If he—if he had only never come into their lives——

At that moment a hand touched her shoulder and made her start. She turned round like lightning: "Are you there at last?"

"It's I," said her husband. He had woke up, and when he did not hear her breathing beside him he had got vexed: really, now she was sitting downstairs again, waiting for the lad. Such want of sense. And after lying a little time longer waiting for her and vexed with her, he had cast on a few necessary garments, stuck on his slippers and groped his way through the dark house. He shivered with cold and was in a bad humour. That he had been disturbed in his best sleep and that she would have a sick headache next day was not all; no, what was worse was that Wolfgang must find it downright intolerable to be watched in that manner.

It was natural that he scolded her. "What wrong is there if he remains away a little longer for once in a way, I should like to know, Kate? It's really absurd of you. I used also to loaf about as a young fellow, but thank goodness, my mother was sensible enough not to mind. Come, Kate, come to bed now."

She drew back. "Yes—you!" she said slowly, and he did not know what she meant by it. She turned her back on him and leant out of the window again.

He stood a few moments longer waiting, but as she did not come, did not even turn round to him, he shook his head. He would have to leave her, she really was getting quite peculiar.

He was half asleep as he went upstairs again alone; he almost stumbled with fatigue, and his limbs were heavy. But in spite of that his thoughts were clearer, more inexorable than in the daytime, when there is so much around one to distract one's attention. At that hour his heart was filled with longing for a wife who would lead him quietly and gently along a soft track in his old age, and whose smiles were not only outward as the smiles on Kate's face. A wife whose heart laughed—and, alas, his Kate was not one of those.

The man lay down again with a sigh of disappointment and shivered as he drew up the covering. But it was a long time before he could fall asleep. If only the lad would come. It really was rather late to-day. Such loafing about realty went too far.

The morning was dawning as a cab drove slowly down the street. It stopped outside the white villa, and two gentlemen helped a third out of it. The two, who were holding the third under his arms, were laughing, and the driver on his seat, who was looking down at them full of interest, also laughed slyly: "Shall I help you, gentlemen? Well, can you do it?"

They leant him up against the railing that enclosed the front garden, rang the bell gently, then jumped hastily into the cab again and banged the door. "Home now, cabby."

The bell had only vibrated softly—a sound like a terrified breath—but Kate had heard it, although she had fallen asleep in her chair; not firmly, only dozing a little. She jumped up in terror, it sounded shrill in her ears. She rushed to the window. Somebody was leaning against the railing outside. Wolfgang? Yes, yes, it was. But why did he not open the gate and come in?

What had happened to him? All at once she felt as though she must call for help—Friedrich! Paul! Paul!—must ring for the maids. Something had happened to him, something must have happened to him—why did he not come in?

He leant so heavily against the railing, so strangely. His head hung down on his chest, his hat was at the back of his head. Was he ill?

Or had some vagrants attacked him? The strangest ideas shot suddenly through her head. Was he wounded? O God, what had happened to him?

Fears, at which she would have laughed at any other time, filled her mind in this hour, in which it was not night any longer and not day either. Her feet were cold and stiff as though frozen, she could hardly get to the door; she could not find the key at first, and when her trembling hands stuck it into the lock, she could not turn it. She was so awkward in her haste, so beside herself in her fear. Something terrible must have happened. An accident. She felt it.

At last, at last! At last she was able to turn the key. And now she rushed through the front garden to the gate; a chilling icy wind like the breath of winter met her. She opened the gate: "Wolfgang!"

He did not answer. She could not quite see his face; he stood there without moving.

She took hold of his hand: "Good gracious, what's the matter with you?"

He did not move.

"Wolfgang! Wolfgang!" She shook him in the greatest terror. Then he fell against her so heavily that he almost knocked her down, and faltered, lisped like an idiot whose heavy tongue has been taught to say a few words: "Beg—par—don."

She had to lead him. His breath, which smelt strongly of spirits, blew across her face. A great disgust, more terrible than the fear she had had before, took possession of her. This was the awful thing she had been expecting no, this was still more awful, more intolerable. He was drunk, drunk! This was what a drunken man must look like.

A drunken man had never been near her before; now she had one close to her. The horror she felt shook her so that her teeth chattered. Oh for shame, for shame, how disgusting, how vulgar! How degraded he seemed to her, and she felt degraded, too, through him. This was not her Wolfgang any more, the child whom she had adopted as her son. This was quite an ordinary, quite a common man from the street, with whom she had nothing, nothing whatever to do any more.

She wanted to push him away from her quickly, to hurry into the house and close the door behind her—let him find out for himself what to do. But he held her fast. He had laid his arm heavily round her neck, he almost weighed her down; thus he forced her to lead him.

And she led him reluctantly, revolting desperately in her heart, but still conquered. She could not leave him, exposed to the servants' scorn, the laughter of the street. If anybody should see him in that condition? It would not be long before the first people came past, the milk-boys, the girls with the bread, the men working in the street, those who drank Carlsbad water early in the morning. Oh, how terrible if anybody should guess how deeply he had sunk.

"Lean on me, lean heavily," she said in a trembling voice. "Pull yourself together—that's right." She almost broke down under his weight but she kept him on his feet. He was so drunk that he did not know what he was doing, he actually wanted to lie down in front of the door, at full length on the stone steps. But she snatched him up.

"You must—you must," she said, and he followed her like a child. Like a dog, she thought.

Now she had got him into the hall—the front door was again locked—but now came the fear that the servants would see him. They were not up yet, but it would not be long before Friedrich would walk over from the gardener's lodge in his leather slippers, and the girls come down from their attics, and then the sweeping and tidying up would commence, the opening of the windows, the drawing up of the blinds, so that the bright light—the cruel light—might force its way into every crevice. She must get him up the stairs, into his room without anybody guessing anything, without asking anyone for help.

She had thought of her husband for one moment—but no, not him either, nobody must see him like that. She helped him upstairs with a strength for which she had never given herself credit; she positively carried him. And all the time she kept on entreating him to go quietly, whispering the words softly but persistently. She had to coax him, or he would not go on: "Quietly, Woelfchen. Go on, go on, Woelfchen—that's splendid, Woelfchen."

She suffered the torments of hell. He stumbled and was noisy; she gave a start every time he knocked his foot against the stairs, every time the banisters creaked when he fell against them helplessly, and a terrible fear almost paralysed her. If anybody should hear it, oh, if anybody should hear it. But let them get on, on.

"Quietly, Woelfchen, quite quietly." It sounded like an entreaty, and still it was a command. As he had conquered her before by means of his heavy arm, so she conquered him now by means of her will.

Everybody in the house must be deaf, that they did not hear the noise. To the woman every step sounded like a clap of thunder that continues to roll and roll through the wide space and resounds in the furthermost corner. Paul must be deaf as well. They passed his door. The intoxicated lad remained standing just outside his parents' bedroom, he would not on any account go further—in there—not a step further. She had to entice him, as she had enticed the child in bygone days, the sweet little child with the eyes like sloes that was to run from the chair to the next halting-place. "Come, Woelfchen, come." And she brought him past in safety.

At last they were in his room. "Thank God, thank God!" she stammered, when she had got him on the bed. She was as pale as the lad, whose face with its silly expression grew more and more livid as the day dawned. Ah, that was the same room in which she had once, many years ago—it was exceedingly long ago!—fought for the child's precious life with fear and trembling, where she had crawled before God's omnipotence like a worm: only let him live, O God, only let him live! Alas, it would have been better had he died then.

As an arrow shot from a too tight bow whizzes along as quick as lightning, so that thought whizzed through her mind. She was horrified at the thought, she could not forgive herself for having had it, but she could not get rid of it again. She stood with shaking knees, terrified at her own heartlessness, and still the thought came: if only he had died at the time, it would have been better. This—this was also the room in which she had tried on the suit the boy, who was growing so fast, was to wear at his confirmation. Now she drew off the grown-up man's clothes, tore off his dinner jacket, his fine trousers—as well as she could in his present state of complete unconsciousness—and unlaced his glace shoes.

Where had he been? A smell of cigarettes and scent and the dregs of wine streamed from him; it almost took her breath away. There hung the same looking-glass in which she had seen the brown boy's face near her fair woman's face, fresh and round-cheeked, a little coarse, a little defiant, but still so nice-looking in its vigorous strength, so dear in its innocence. And now—?

Her eyes glanced at the livid face with the open mouth, from which the breath reeking with spirits came with a snore and a rattle, in the glass, and then at her own terrified, exhausted face, on which all the softness had been changed into hard lines that grief had worn. A shudder passed through her; she smoothed the untidy grey strands of hair away from her forehead with her cold hand; her eyes blinked as though she wanted to weep. But she forced her tears back; she must not cry any more now; that time was over.

She stood some time longer in the centre of the room, motionless, with bated breath, letting her tired arms hang down loosely; then she crept on her toes to the door. He was sleeping quite firmly. She locked the door from the outside and stuck the key in her pocket—nobody must go in.

Should she go to bed now? She could not sleep—oh, she was too restless—but she would have to lie down, oh yes, she must do so, or what would the maids think, and Paul? Then she would have to get up again as she did every day, wash herself, dress, sit at the breakfast-table, eat, talk, smile as she did every day, as though nothing, nothing whatever had happened. And still so much had happened!

She felt so hopelessly isolated as she lay in bed beside her husband. There was nobody to whom she could complain. Paul had not understood her before, he would understand her even less now; he had changed so much in the course of time. Besides, was he not quite infatuated with the boy now? Strange, formerly when she had loved Wolfgang so, her love had always been too much of a good thing—how often he had reproached her for it!—and now, now!—no, they simply did not understand each other any longer. She would have to fight her battles alone, quite alone.

When Kate heard the first sounds in the house, she would have liked to get up, but she forced herself to remain in bed: it would attract their attention if they saw her so early. But a great fear tortured her. If that person—that, that intoxicated person over there should awake, make a noise, bang on the locked door? What should she say then to make excuses for him? What should she do? She lay in bed quite feverish with uneasiness. At last it was her usual time to get up.

"I suppose the boy came home terribly late—or rather early, eh?" said Paul at breakfast.

"Oh no. Just after you went upstairs."

"Really? But I lay awake quite a long time after that."

He had said it lightly, unsuspiciously, but she got a fright nevertheless. "We—we—he talked to me for quite a long time," she said hesitatingly.

"Foolish," he said, nothing more, and shook his head.

Oh, how difficult it was to tell lies. In what a position Wolfgang placed her.

When Schlieben had driven to town and the cook was busy in the kitchen and Friedrich in the garden, Kate kept an eye on the housemaid. What a long time she was in the bedroom to-day. "You must finish the rooms upstairs more quickly, you are excessively slow," she said in a sharp voice.

The maid looked at her mistress, quite astonished at the unusual way in which she spoke to her, and said later on to the cook downstairs: "Ugh, what a bad temper the mistress is in to-day. She has been after me."

Kate had stood beside the girl until the bedroom was finished, she had positively rushed her. Now she was alone, quite alone with him up there, now she could see what was the matter with him.

Would he still be drunk? As she stood outside his door she held her breath; putting her ear to the door she listened. There was nothing to be heard inside, not even his breathing. After casting a glance around her she opened the door like a thief, crept inside and locked it again behind her. She approached the bed cautiously and softly; but she started back so hastily that the high-backed chair she knocked against fell over with a loud noise. What was that—there? What was it?

A disgusting smell, which filled the closed room, made her feel sick. Staggering to the window she tore it open, thrust back the shutters—then she saw. There he lay like an animal—he, who had always been accustomed to so much attention, he who as a child had stretched out his little hands if only a crumb had stuck to them: "Make them clean!" and had cried. There he lay now as if he did not feel anything, as if he did not care anything whatever about what was going on around him, as if the bed on which he lay were fresh and clean; his eyes, with their jet-black lashes that fell like shadows on his pale cheeks, were firmly closed, and he slept the heavy sleep of exhaustion.

She did not know what she was doing. She raised her hand to strike him in the face, to throw a word at him—a violent word expressive of disgust and loathing; she felt how the saliva collected in her mouth, how she longed to spit. It was too horrible, too filthy, too terrible!

A stream of light forced its way in through the open window, of light and sun; a blackbird was singing, full and clear. Outside was the sun, outside was beauty, but here, here? She would have liked to cover up her face and whimper, to run away and conceal herself. But who should do what was necessary? Who should make everything tidy and clean? The chair she had knocked down, the clothes she had drawn off him so hastily, the disgusting smell—alas, all reminded her only too distinctly of a wild night. It must not remain like that. And even if she did not love him any longer—no, no, there was no voice in her heart now that spoke of love—her pride bade her not to humble herself before the servants. Let her get it away quickly, quickly, let nobody else find out anything about it.

She set her teeth hard, pressing back the disgust that rose again and again as though to choke her, and commenced to wash, scrub, clean. She fetched water for herself again and again, the pitcher full, a whole pailful. She had to do it furtively, to creep across the passage on tiptoe. Oh dear, how the water splashed, how noisily it poured into the pail when she turned the tap on. If only nobody, nobody found out anything about it.

She had found a cloth to scour with, and what she had never done before in her life she did now, for she lay on her knees like a servant and rubbed the floor, and crept about in front of the bed and under the bed, and stretched out her arms so as to be sure to get into every corner. Nothing must be forgotten, everything must be flooded with fresh, clean, purifying water. Everything in the room seemed to her to be soiled—as though it were damaged and degraded—the floor, the furniture, the walls. She would have preferred to have washed the wall-paper too, that beautiful deep-coloured wallpaper, or to have torn it off entirely.

She had never worked like that in her life before. Her pretty morning-gown with the silk insertions and lace clung to her body with the perspiration of exertion and fear. The dress had dark spots on the knees from slipping about in the wet, the hem of the train had got into the water; her hair was dishevelled; it had come undone and was hanging round her hot face. Nobody would have recognised Frau Schlieben as she was now.

At last, thank goodness! Kate looked round with a sigh of relief; the air in the room was quite different now. The fresh wind that blew in through the open window had cleared everything. Only he, he did not suit amid all that cleanliness. His forehead was covered with clammy sweat, his cheeks were livid, his lips swollen, cracked, his hair bristly, standing straight up in tufts. Then she washed him, too, cooled his forehead and dried it, rubbed his cheeks with soap and a sponge, fetched a brush and comb, combed and smoothed his hair, ran quickly across to her room, brought the Florida water that stood on her dressing-table and sprinkled it over him. Now she had only to put on another bed-spread. She could not do any more, it was too difficult for her to lift him. For he did not awake. He lay there like a tree that had been hewn down—dead, stiff, immovable—and noticed nothing of the trembling hands that glided over him, that pulled and smoothed now here, now there.

She did not know how long she had been engaged with him; a knock at the door brought her thoughts back to the present.

"Who is there?"

"I, Friedrich."

"What do you want?"

"The master wishes to know if you will come down to dinner, ma'am."

"To dinner—the master?" She pressed her hands to her head. Was it possible? Paul back already—dinner-time? It could not be. "What time is it?" she cried in a shrill voice. She never thought of looking herself at the watch that lay on the table beside the bed; and it would not have been any use—the expensive gold watch, the gift he had received at his confirmation, had stopped. It had not been wound up.

"It's half past two, ma'am," said Friedrich outside. And then the man, who had been there for years, ventured to inquire respectfully: "Is the young master not well, as he has not got up? Could I perhaps be of some use, ma'am?"

She hesitated for a moment. Should she let him into the secret? It would be easier for her then. But the shame of it made her call out: "There's nothing to be done, you had better go. The young master has a headache, he will remain in bed for another hour. I'll come directly."

She rushed across to her room. There was no time to change her dress, but she would at any rate have to fasten up her hair that had fallen down, smooth it and put a little cap on trimmed with dainty ribbons.

"Still in your morning-gown?" said her husband in a tone of surprise, as she came into the dining-room. There was also a little reproach in his voice as he asked the question; he did not like people not to dress for dinner.

"You came exceptionally early to-day," she said in excuse. She did not dare to look up frankly, she felt so exceedingly humiliated. She could not eat, an intolerable memory rendered every drink, every mouthful loathsome.

"Where is Wolfgang?"

There was the question for which she really ought to have been prepared and which crushed her nevertheless. She had no means of warding it off. What was she to answer? Should she say he was ill? Then his father would go up and see him. Should she say he was drunk and sleeping? Oh no, no, and still it could not remain a secret. She turned red and white, her lips quivered and not a word crossed them.

"Ha ha!" All at once her husband gave a loud laugh—a laugh partly good-natured and partly mocking—and then he stretched his hand to her across the table and eyed her calmly: "You must not agitate yourself like that if the boy feels a little seedy for once in a way. Such things do happen, every mother has to go through that."

"But not to that degree—not to that awful degree!" She screamed out aloud, overwhelmed with pain and anger. And then she seized her husband's hand and squeezed it between both hers that were cold and damp, and whispered, half stifled: "He was drunk—quite drunk—dead drunk!"

"Really?" The man frowned, but the smile did not quite disappear from his lips. "Well, I'll have a word with the boy when he has finished sleeping. Dead drunk, you say?"

She nodded.

"It won't have been quite as bad as that, I suppose. Still, to be drunk—that must not happen again. To take a little too much"—he shrugged his shoulders and a smile passed over his face as at some pleasant memory—"by Jove, who has been young and not taken a little too much for once in a way? Oh, I can still remember the first time I had done so. The headache after it was appalling, but the drop too much itself was fine, splendid! I would not like to have missed that."

"You—you've been drunk too?" She stared at him, with eyes distended.

"Drunk—you mustn't call that drunk exactly. A little too much," he corrected. "You mustn't exaggerate like that, Kate." And then he went on with his dinner as if nothing had happened, as if the conversation had not succeeded in depriving him of his appetite.

She was in a fever. When would Wolfgang wake? And what would happen then?

Towards evening she heard his step upstairs, heard him close his window and then open it again, heard his low whistle that always sounded like a bird chirping. Paul was walking up and down in the garden, smoking his cigar. She was sitting in the veranda for the first time that spring, looking down at her husband in the garden. The weather was mild and warm. Then she heard Wolfgang approaching; she made up her mind she would not turn her head, she felt so ashamed, but she turned it nevertheless.

He was standing in the doorway leading from the dining-room to the veranda; behind him was twilight, in front of him the brightness of the evening sun. He blinked and pressed his eyes together, the sun shone on his face and made it flame—or was it red because he felt so ashamed? What would he say now? How would he begin? Her heart throbbed; she could not have spoken a single word, her throat felt as though she were choking.

"Good evening," he said in a loud and cheery voice. And then he cleared his throat as though swallowing a slight embarrassment and said in a low voice, approaching his mother a little more: "I beg your pardon, mater, I've overslept myself. I had no idea it was so late—I was dead tired."

Still she did not say anything.

He did not know how he stood with her. She was so quiet, that confused him a little. "The fact is, I came home very late last night."

"Oh! did you?" She turned her head away from him and looked out into the garden again with eyes full of interest, where her husband was just speaking to Friedrich and pointing with his finger to an ornamental cherry-tree that was already in bloom.

"I think so, at least," he said. What was he to say? Was she angry? He must indeed have come home very late, he could not remember at what time, altogether he could not remember anything clearly, everything seemed rather blurred to him. He had also had a bad dream and had felt wretched, but now he was all right again, quite all right. Well, if she had any fault to find with him, she would have to come out with it.

Pointing his lips again so as to whistle like a bird and with his hands in the pockets of his smart, well-cut trousers, he was about to go down into the garden from the veranda when she called him back.

"Do you want anything, mater?"

"You were drunk," she said softly, vehemently.

"I—? Oh!" He was overcome with a sudden confusion. Had he really been drunk? He had no idea of it. But she might be right all the same, for he had no idea how he had come home.

"I suppose you've again been sitting up waiting for me?" He gave her a suspicious sidelong glance, and frowned so heavily that his dark eyebrows met. "You mustn't always wait up for me," he said with secret impatience, but outwardly his tone was anxious. "It makes me lose all liking to do anything with the others if I think you are sacrificing your night's rest. Please don't do so again, mater."

"I won't do so again," she said, with her eyes fixed on her lap. She could not have looked at him, she despised him so. How broad and big and bold he had looked as he stood there saying good evening quite happily. He had behaved as if he knew nothing of all that had happened, that he had wanted to creep on all fours, stretch himself on the doorstep as if that were his bed or he a dog. He was as unembarrassed as though he had not been lying in his room at dinner-time in such—such a filthy condition; as though she had not seen him in his deep humiliation. No, she would never, never be able to kiss him again or caress him, to lay her arms round his neck as she had been so fond of doing when he was a boy. All at once he had become quite a stranger to her.

She did not say another word, did not reproach him. She heard what her husband said to him, when he joined him in the garden, as if it did not concern her.

Although Paul Schlieben had seemed very mild when speaking to his wife at dinner-time, he was not so now when face to face with his son. "I hear you came home drunk—what do you mean by that?" he said to him severely. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Who has said so?"

"That's nothing to do with you, I know it, and that is sufficient."

"She, of course," said the boy bitterly. "The mater always exaggerates everything. I was certainly not drunk, I only had a little too much—we all had—good gracious, pater, you must do what the others do! What else is one to do on such a long evening? But it was certainly nothing bad. See how fresh I am." And he took hold of the ornamental cherry-tree, under which they were standing, with both hands, as if he were going to root it up, and a whole shower of white blossoms fell down on him and on the path.

"Let my tree alone," said his father, smiling.

Kate saw it. Could Paul laugh? So he did not take it very seriously, after all. But that did not provoke her as it would have done some time ago, she felt as if everything in her were cold and dead. She heard the two speak as though they were far, far away, their voices sounded quite low, and still they were speaking loudly and also animatedly.

All the same the conversation was not altogether friendly. Even if the man was not seriously angry with the lad, he still considered it his duty to expostulate with him. He concluded by saying: "Such immoderate drinking is disgusting!"—but he thought to himself: "It cannot have been so bad as Kate makes out, or I should have seen some signs of it." His brown cheeks were smooth and firm, so shiny and so lately washed, his eyes, which were not large but noticeable on account of their dark depths, were even more sparkling than usual.

The man laid his hand on his son's shoulder: "So we must have no more of that, Wolfgang, if we're to remain friends."

The boy shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "I really don't know what crime I've committed, pater. The whole thing is something of a mystery to me. But it shan't happen again, I promise you."

And they shook hands.

Now something really did stir in Kate. She would have liked to have jumped up, to have cried: "Don't believe him, Paul, don't believe him. He's sure to get drunk again. I don't trust him. I cannot trust him. If you had seen him as I saw him—oh, he was so vulgar!" And as in a vision a village tavern suddenly appeared before her eyes, a tavern she had never seen. Rough men sat round the wooden table, leaning on their elbows, smoking evil-smelling tobacco, drinking heavily, bawling wildly ... ah, had not his father sat among them? His grandfather too? All those from whom he was descended? She was seized with a terrible fear. It could never, never end well.

"You are so pale, Kate," her husband said at the evening meal. "You sat still too long; it is still too cold outside."

"Aren't you well, mater?" inquired Wolfgang, politely anxious.

Kate did not answer her son, she only looked at her husband and shook her head: "I am quite well."

That satisfied them.

Wolfgang ate with a good appetite, with a specially big one even; he was quite ravenous. There were also lots of good things of which he was fond: hot fricassee of chicken with sweetbread, force-meat balls and crawfish tails, and then some very good cold meat, butter and cheese and young radishes.

"Boy, don't drink so much," said Paul Schlieben, as Wolfgang seized the decanter again.

"I'm thirsty," said his son with a certain defiance, filling his glass to the brim and drinking it in one gulp.

"That comes of revelling." His father shook his finger at him, but smiled at the same time.

"It comes of swilling," thought Kate, and she shuddered with disgust again. She had never used such an expression before even in her thoughts, but now none seemed strong, blunt, contemptuous enough.

There was no pleasant conversation in spite of the room being so cosy, the appointments of the table so beautiful, the flowers so prettily arranged in a cut-glass bowl on the white table-cloth, and above it all a soft subdued light under a green silk shade. Kate was so monosyllabic that Paul soon seized the newspaper, and the boy, after trying to stifle his yawns, at last got up. It was really too awfully slow to have to sit there. Should he drive into Berlin again or go to bed? He did not quite know himself what to do.

"You are going to bed now?" said his mother. It was intended for a question, but Kate heard herself that it did not sound like one.

"Of course he's going to bed now," said his father, looking up from his paper for a moment. "He's tired. Good night, my lad."

"I'm not tired." Wolfgang grew red and hot. What did they mean by wanting to persuade him that he was tired? He was no longer a child to be sent to bed. His mother's tone irritated him especially—"you are going to bed now"—that was an order.

The sparkle in his dark eyes became a blaze; the expression of defiance and refractoriness on his face was not pleasant to see. They could no doubt see in what a passion he was, but his father said "Good night," and held out his hand to him without looking up from the newspaper.

His mother also said "Good night."

And the son grasped first one hand and then the other—he imprinted the usual kiss on his mother's hand—and said "Good night."



CHAPTER XIV

Paul Schlieben was sitting in his private office, in the red armchair he had had placed there for his comfort. But he was not leaning back in it, he was sitting very uncomfortably, straight up, and he looked like a man who has made a disagreeable discovery. How could the boy have contracted debts—with such ample pocket-money? And then that he had not the courage to come and say: "Father, I've spent too much, help me," was simply incomprehensible. Was he such a severe father that his son had reason to fear him? Did the fear drive out love? He reviewed his own conduct; he really could not reproach himself for having been too strict. If he had not always been so yielding as Kate—she was too yielding—he had always thought he had repeatedly shown the boy that he was fond of him. And had he not also—just lately—thought the boy was fond of him too? More fond of him than before? Wolfgang had just grown sensible, had seen that they had his welfare at heart, that he was his parents' dear son, their ever-increasing delight, their hope—nay, now that they had grown old, their whole future. How was it that he preferred to go to others, to people with whom he had nothing to do, and borrow from them instead of asking his father?

The man took up a letter from his writing-desk with a grieved look, read it through once more, although he had already read it three or four times, and then laid it back again with a gesture of vexation. In it Braumueller, who had lately retired from the firm and was at present in Switzerland for his health and recreation, wrote that the boy had already borrowed money from him several times. Not that he would not gladly give him it, that did not matter to him in the slightest, but still he considered it his duty—&c., &c.

"The fact is, dear Schlieben, the boy has got into a fast set. I'm awfully sorry to have to tell tales about him, but I cannot put it off any longer, as he goes to others just as well as he comes to me. And it would be extremely painful, of course, if the son of Messrs. Schlieben & Co., to whom I still count myself as belonging with the old devotion, should become common talk. Don't take it amiss, old friend. I make the boy a present of all he owes me; I am fond of him and have also been young. But I am quite pleased to have no children, it is a deucedly difficult job to train one. Good-bye, remember me very kindly to your wife, it is splendid here ..."

The man stared over the top of the paper with a frown; this letter, which had been written with such good intentions and was so kind, hurt him. It hurt him that Wolfgang had so little confidence in him with respect to this matter. Was he not straightforward? He remembered very distinctly that he had always been truthful as a child, had been so outspoken as to offend—he had been rude, but never given to lying. Could he have changed so now? How was that, and why?

The man resolved not to mention anything about the letter, but to ask Wolfgang when he found an opportunity—but it must be as soon as possible—in what condition his money matters were. Then he would hear.

He quite longed to ask the question, and still he did not say a word when Wolfgang entered the private room soon afterwards without knocking, as all the others did, and with all the careless assurance of a son. He sat down astride on his father's writing-desk, quite unmindful of the fact that his light trousers came into unpleasant contact with the ink-stand. The air out of doors was clear and the sun shone brightly; he brought a large quantity of both with him into the room that was always kept dark, cool and secluded.

"Had something to vex you, pater?" What fancies could the old gentleman have got hold of now? Certainly nothing of importance. On the whole, who could feel vexed in such delightful, pleasant summer weather?

Wolfgang loved the sun. As he had gazed admiringly at the small copy of it when a child, the round yellow sunflower in his garden, so he still delighted in it. If the perspiration stood in drops on his brown skin, he would push his white panama hat a little further back from his forehead, but he never drew his breath more freely, easily, and felt less oppressed.

"It was splendid, pater," he said, and his eyes gleamed. "First of all I swam the whole width of the lake three times, there and back and there and back and there and back again without stopping. What do you say to that?"

"Much too tiring, very thoughtless," remarked Paul Schlieben, not without some anxiety. Indeed Hofmann was not at all anxious that the boy should swim.

"Thoughtless? Fatiguing? Ha ha!" Wolfgang thought it great fun. "That's a mere trifle to me. I've really missed my vocation, you know. You ought not to have put me into an office. I ought to have been a swimmer, a rider or—well, a cowboy in the Wild West."

He had said it in joke without meaning anything, but it seemed to the man, who suddenly looked at him with eyes that had grown suspicious, that something serious, an accusation, was concealed behind the joke. What did he want then? Did he want to gallop through life like an unrestrained boy?

"Well, your sporting capacities will be of use to you when you are a soldier," he said coolly. "At present what you have to do here is of more importance. Have you drawn up the contract for delivery for White Brothers? Show it to me."

"Directly."

Wolfgang disappeared; but it was some time before he returned. Had he only done the work now, which he had been told was urgent and was to be done carefully? The ink was still quite fresh, the writing was very careless, even if legible; it was no business hand. Schlieben frowned; he was strangely irritable to-day. At any other time he would have been struck by the celerity with which the boy had finished the work he had neglected; but to-day the careless writing, the inkspots in the margin, the slipshod manner in which it had all been done, which seemed to him to point to a want of interest, vexed him.

"Hm!" He examined it once more critically. "When did you do this?"

"When you gave me it to do." The tone in which Wolfgang said this was so unabashed that it was impossible to doubt it.

The man felt quite ashamed of himself. How a seed of suspicion grows! He had really wronged his son this time. But that question of the money still remained, the boy had not been open and honest in that. It seemed to the father that he could not quite rely on his son any more now.

It was hardly noon when Wolfgang left the office again. He had arranged to meet a couple of acquaintances in the Imperial Cafe not far from the Linden; he would have to have something to eat, and whether he had his lunch there or somewhere else was of no consequence; a sandwich, which was all his father took with him from home, was not sufficient for him after swimming and riding.

Then he showed himself again at the office for an hour in the afternoon, but in his tennis clothes this time, in white shoes, a racket in his hand.

When Wolfgang left the West End tennis-ground that afternoon, hot and red—the games had been long and obstinate—and went across to the Zoological Gardens' Station, he hesitated as he stood at the entrance to it. He did not feel as if he wanted to go home at all. Should he not drive into town again instead? As a matter of fact he did not feel tempted to go into the streets either, which the drifting crowds made still closer; it was better in the suburbs, where there was at least a breath of fresh air blowing over the villa—but then he would have to sit with his parents. And if his father were in just as bad a humour as he had been at the office that morning, it would be awful. Then it would be better to find some friend or other in Berlin. If only he had not had his tennis suit on. That hindered him. He was still standing undecided when he suddenly saw in the crowd that now, when work was over and free-time come, was winding its way through the entrance to the station like a long worm and dividing itself into arms to go up the steps to the right and left, a mass of fair hair gleaming under a white sailor-hat trimmed with a blue velvet band and pressed down on a forehead, which seemed well-known to him. It was beautiful fair silky hair, smooth and shining; carelessly arranged in an enormous knot to all appearances, but in reality with much care. And now he recognised the blue eyes and the pert little nose under the straw hat. Frida Laemke! Oh, what a long time since he had seen her. He suddenly remembered the hundreds of times he had neglected them. How little he had troubled himself about those good people. That was very wrong of him. And all at once it seemed to him that he had missed them always, the whole time. He reached her side with one bound like an impetuous boy, not noticing that he trod on a dress here and that he gave somebody a shove in the side there.

"Frida!"

She gave a little start. Who had accosted her so boldly?

"How do, Frida. How are you?"

She did not recognise him at first, but then she blushed and pouted. What a gentleman Wolfgang had grown. And she answered a little pertly, a little affectedly: "Very well, thanks, Mr. Wolfgang. Are you quite well too?" and she threw her fair head back and laughed.

He would not hear of her calling him "Mr. Wolfgang." "Nonsense, what are you thinking of?" And he was so cordial, so quite the Wolfgang of former years, that she was soon on the old terms with him again. She dropped her affectation entirely. They walked beside each other as intimately as if almost a year had not passed since last they had talked together.

"Young lovers," thought many a one who came across them strolling along near the coppices in the Tiergarten. They had let their train go—he had no wish to hurry home, at any rate—and so they walked further and further in among the green trees, where it was already dark and where even his light tennis suit and her light blouse could not be distinguished any longer. The nightingales had grown silent long ago; all that was heard was a girl's soft laugh now and then, which sounded like the cooing of a dove, and the low whispers of invisible couples. Whispers came from the benches that stood in the dark, summer dresses rustled, burning cigars gleamed like glow-worms; all the seats one came across were occupied. It was extremely close in the park.

Wolfgang and Frida spoke of Frau Laemke. "She's always ill, she has had to go to the doctor so often," said the girl, and her voice trembled with sincere grief. Wolfgang was very sorry.

When Frida came home that evening extremely late—the house had been closed long before; Frau Laemke had already begun to get nervous, and did not know how she should keep the roast potatoes warm—she threw her arms round her mother's neck: "Mother, mummy, don't scold." And then it came out with a rush, that she had met Wolfgang: "Wolfgang Schlieben, you know. He was so nice, mother, you can't think how nice he was. Not the slightest bit stuck-up. And he asked at once how you were, and when I told him you had something the matter with your stomach and your nerves, he was so sorry. And he said: 'You must get your mother out in this beautiful weather,' and he gave me this bank-note—here, do you see it, a green one. I did not want to take it on any account, what would people think of it?—but he was so strong, he stuffed it into my hand. I could have screamed, he pulled my fingers apart so—are you angry, mother, that I took it? I didn't want to, I really didn't want to. But he said, 'It's for your mother.' And 'Do be sensible, Frida.'" Frida almost cried, she felt so touched and so grateful.

Frau Laemke took it more calmly. "Perhaps I can go to Eberswald to my brother, or even to my sister in the Riesengebirge. And I'll give up the places where I clean for a few weeks, that will do me an enormous amount of good. The good boy, that was nice of him, that he thought of his old friend. Hm, he can do it too. What are fifty marks to people like him?"

When Wolfgang had taken Frida to her door he had strolled on slowly, his racket under his arm, his hands in the pockets of his wide trousers. A sky, richly spangled with stars, extended over his head, innumerable golden eyes watching him with a kind twinkle. There were no more wheels to be heard, no crowds of pedestrians whirled up the dust of the street any longer. What the dust-carts, passing backwards and forwards during the day, had not been able to do, the night-dew had done. The loose sand had been settled, a cool freshness rose up out of the earth, one could smell the trees and bushes; a fragrance of flowers ascended from the beds in the gardens that the darkness had swallowed up. Wolfgang drew a deep breath of delight and whistled softly; his heart was full of peace and joy; now it was a good thing he was not wandering about in Berlin. It had been so nice with Frida. What a lot they had had to talk about—and then—he was really awfully pleased to be able to help Frau Laemke a little.

He came home thoroughly happy.

"The master and mistress have had their supper long ago," Friedrich took the liberty of remarking with a certain reproach—the young gentleman was really too unpunctual.

"Well, can't be helped," said Wolfgang. "Tell the cook she's to prepare me something quickly, a cutlet or some beefsteak, or—what else was there for supper this evening? I'm ravenous."

Friedrich looked at him quite taken aback. Now! at half past ten? The master or the mistress had never thought of asking for such a thing—a warm supper at half past ten? He stood hesitating.

"Well, am I soon going to get something?" the young gentleman called to him over his shoulder, and went into the dining-room.

His parents were still sitting at the table—both were reading—but the table was empty.

"Good evening," said the boy, "is the table cleared already?" You could plainly hear the surprise in his voice.

"So there you are!" His father nodded to him but did not look up; he seemed to be quite taken up with his reading. And his mother said: "Are you going to sit with us a little?"

All at once the lad shivered. It had been so nice and warm outside, here it was cool.

And then everything was quiet for a while, until Friedrich came in with a tray on which there was only a little cold meat, bread, butter and cheese beside the knife and fork. It struck Wolfgang how loudly he rattled the things; the housemaid generally waited. "Where's Marie?"

"In bed," said his mother curtly.

"Already?" Wolfgang wondered why to himself. Hark, the clock in his mother's room was just striking—eleven? Was it actually already eleven o'clock? They would really have to be quick and get him something to eat, he was dying for want of food. He fixed his eyes on the door through which Friedrich had disappeared. Was something soon coming?

He waited.

"Eat something." His mother pushed the dish with cold meat nearer to him.

"Why don't you eat?" asked his father suddenly.

"Oh, I am still waiting."

"There's nothing more," said his mother, and her face, which looked so extremely weary like the face of one who has waited long in vain, flushed slightly.

"Nothing else?—nothing more?—why?" The boy looked exceedingly disappointed. He glanced from his mother to the table, then to the sideboard and then round the room as though searching for something.

"Haven't you had anything else to eat?"

"Yes, we have had something else—but if you don't come—" His father knit his brows, and then he looked straight at his son for the first time that evening, surveying him with a grave glance. "You can't possibly expect to find a warm supper, when you come home so unpunctually."

"But you—you are not obliged to"—the young man swallowed the rest—he would have much preferred it had his parents not sat there waiting for him; the servants would have done what was expected of them.

"Perhaps you think the servants don't require their night's rest?" said his father, as though he had guessed his thought. "The maids, who have been in the kitchen the whole day, want to have done in the evening as well as other people. So you must come earlier if you want to have supper with us. Moreover, I don't suppose it will harm a young fellow to get nothing but a piece of bread and butter for his supper for once in a way. Besides, you who—" he was going to say "you who get such a good dinner"—but the young man's face, which expressed such immeasurable astonishment, irritated him, and he said in a loud and, contrary to his custom, angry voice, angrier than he had intended: "You—are you entitled to make such claims? How can you think of doing so, you especially?" A movement made by his wife, the rustling of her dress, reminded him of her presence, and he continued more temperately, but with a certain angry scorn: "Perhaps you do too much? Two hours at the office in the morning—hardly that—an hour in the afternoon—yes, that's an astonishing, an enormous amount of work, which must tax your powers greatly. Indeed, it requires quite special food. Well, what, what?"

Wolfgang had been going to say something, but his father did not allow him to speak: "Let me see a more modest look on your face first, and then you may speak. Lad, I tell you, if you apply to Braumueller for money any more——!"

There, there, it was out. In his wrath he had forgotten the diplomatic questions he had intended asking, and all he had meant to find out by listening to his replies. The man felt quite a relief now he could say: "It's an unheard-of thing! It's a disgrace for you—and for me!" The excited voice had calmed down, the last words were almost choked by a sigh. The man rested his arm on the table and his head in his hand; one could see that he took it much to heart.

Kate sat silent and pale. Her eyes were distended with horror—so he had done that, that, borrowed money? That too? Not only that he got drunk, dead drunk but that, that too? It could not be possible—no! Her eyes sought Wolfgang's face imploringly. He must deny it.

"Why, really, pater," said Wolfgang, trying to smile, "I don't know what's the matter with you. I asked your partner to do me a little favour—besides, he offered to do it himself, he has always been most friendly to me. I was just going to send it back to him"—he glanced sideways at his father: did he know how much it was?—"I'll send it to him to-morrow."

"Oh, to-morrow." There was suspicion in the man's tone, but a certain relief nevertheless; he was so anxious to think the best of his son. "What other debts have you?" he asked. And then he was suddenly seized with the fear that the lad was deceiving him, and, terrified at the great responsibility he had taken on himself, he said in a voice that was harder than he really intended, much harder than was compatible with his feelings: "I would punish you as a good-for-nothing fellow if I heard you had! I would cast you off—then you could see how you got on. Disgraceful debts! To be in debt!"

Kate gazed at her husband the whole time. She had never seen him like that before. She wanted to call out, to interrupt him: "You are too strict, much too strict. You'll prevent him confessing anything if you speak like that"—but she could not say a word. She was mute under the burden of the fears that overwhelmed her. Her eyes, full of a terrible anxiety, hung on the young face that had grown pale.

Wolfgang's lips quivered; his thoughts were active. He wanted to speak, had already opened his mouth to do so, to confess that he had spent more than he had had. If only his father were not always so extremely proper. Good gracious, you cannot help pulling handfuls of money out of your pockets if you have got it to spend! But he did not say anything to these—these two about it. They were good people on the whole, but they could not put themselves into his place. Good people? No, they were not.

And now came his indignation. What possessed his father to treat him in that manner, to scold him in that tone of voice? Like a criminal. And she, why did she stare at him in that way with eyes in which he thought he read something that looked like contempt? Well, then, he would horrify them still more, hurl into their faces: "Of course I have debts, what does that matter?" But in the midst of his anger came the cool calculation: what had his father said: "I would cast you off"?

All at once Wolfgang got a great fright. He had need of these people, he could not do without them. And so he pulled himself together quickly: he must not confess anything, by any means, he must be sure not to betray himself. And he said, in a quick transition from defiant passion to smooth calmness: "I don't know why you excite yourself so, pater. I have none."

"Really none?" His father looked at him gravely and inquiringly, but a glad hope shone already through the gravity.

And when his son answered "No," he stretched out his hand to him across the table: "I'm pleased to hear it."

They were very nice to him that evening. Wolfgang felt it with much satisfaction. Well, they owed him an apology, too. He allowed them to make much of him.

The father felt glad, quite relieved that nothing else, nothing worse had come to light, and the mother had the feeling for the first time for many weeks that it was possible to love the lad again. Her voice had something of the old sound once more when she spoke to him. And she spoke a good deal to him, she felt the need to do so. She had not spoken so much to him during all those weeks. She felt as if a spring within her had been bricked up and had to discharge itself now. He had contracted no debts. Thank God, he was not quite so bad then! Now she was sorry she had sent the maids to bed, because she had been annoyed with him for coming home so late—for his loafing about, as she had called it in her thoughts—and had no proper supper for him. If she had not been afraid of her husband, she would have gone down into the kitchen and tried to prepare something better for him herself.

"Have you really had enough?" she said to him in a low voice.

"Oh, it'll do." He felt his superiority.

Paul Schlieben put his paper aside that evening. When his son asked him politely if he would not read, he shook his head: "No, I've read the whole evening." He, too, felt the need of, nay, felt it his duty to have, a friendly talk to his son, even if he found that Kate was going too far, as usual. She really need not make such a fuss of the boy, he had done wrong hi any case; the Braumueller matter must not be forgotten, he ought to have come openly—but really, after all, it was only a stupidity, a thing that might happen ninety times out of every hundred.

The man resolved to raise his monthly allowance by 100 marks, when he paid him on the first of the month. Then he would certainly have ample, and there could be no more talk of not being able to make both ends meet and of secrecy.

It was already far past midnight when the parents and son at last parted. Kate stretched herself in her bed with a feeling of happiness she had not known for a long time: she would soon fall asleep; she would not have to lie so long waiting for sleep to come to her, she felt so relieved, so reassured, so soothed. Things were working better now, everything would still be right at last. And she whispered softly to her husband: "Paul!" He did not hear her, he was already half asleep. Then she whispered more urgently: "Paul, Paul!" And when he moved she said softly: "Paul, are you angry with me?"

"Angry? Why should I be?"

"Oh, I only thought you might be." She did not want to give any explanation, besides it was hardly necessary, for she had the impression that he, too, felt that they themselves would be on better, pleasanter, more cordial and more united terms with each other in the future. Oh yes, if they were on better terms with him—the boy—then he and she would also be on better terms with each other.