Part 28 (1/2)

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 G.o.d's sake!” Frau Lamke pressed him down into the chair again, quite terrified. ”Lamke 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 Lamke 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 pa.s.sionate longing, for a mother who had borne him. He did not say a word, but he uttered sighs that sounded like groans.

Frau Lamke 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 Lamke 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 compa.s.sion. 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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, n.o.body. 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!----”