Paul Schlieben had come up softly, the children had not noticed him at all in their eagerness. "Won't it burn?" he asked.

Wolfgang jerked himself up, and was on his feet in a moment. He had been red and fresh-looking, but now he grew pale, his frank look fell timidly, a miserable expression lengthened his round, childish face and made him look older.

"Have I to go in?" It sounded pitiful.

The man pretended not to hear the question; he had really intended fetching him in, but all at once he hesitated to say so. It was hard for the boy to have to go away now before the fire burnt, before the potatoes were roasted. So he said nothing, but stooped down, and as he was not far enough down even then he knelt down and blew the fire, that was faintly crackling, with all the breath he had in his broad chest.

Sparks began to leap out at once, and a small flame shot up and soon turned into a big one.

There was a shout of glee. Frida hopped about in the circle, her plaits flying: "It's burning, it's burning!" Artur and Hans chimed in too; they also hopped from the one foot to the other, clapped their dirty hands and shouted loudly: "It's burning, it's burning!"

"Be quiet, children." The man was amused at their happiness. "Bring me some twigs, but very dry ones," he ordered, full of eagerness, too, to keep alive this still uncertain flame, that now disappeared, now flared up again. He blew and poked and added more twigs. The wind drove the smoke into his face so that he had to cough, but he wiped his eyes, that were full of tears, and did not mind that his trousers got wet green spots from kneeling on the ground, and that chance pa.s.sers-by would be greatly surprised to see Herr Paul Schlieben occupied in that manner. He, too, found it fun now to keep up a fire for roasting potatoes under the pale, blue autumn sky, in which the white clouds were scudding along and the twittering swallows flying. He had never known such a thing--he had always lived in a town--but it was splendid, really splendid.

The children brought twigs. Wolfgang took them and broke them across his knee--crack!--the sticks broke like gla.s.s. What a knack the boy had at it.

The flames flared up, the little fire emitted an agreeable warmth; one could warm one's hands at it--ah, that was really very nice.

And then the man followed the smoke, which the wind raised from the field like a light cloud, with his eyes. It seemed grey at first, but the higher it flew the lighter it became, and the friendly sunshine shone through it, transforming it. It floated upwards, ever upwards, ever more immaterial, more intangible, until it flew away entirely--a puff, a whiff.

Now it was about time to bury the potatoes; Wolfgang busied himself with it. They had not poked the fire any more, the flame had sunk down, but the ashes hid all the heat. The children stood round with wide-open eyes, quite quiet, almost holding their breath and yet trembling with expectation: when would the first potatoes be done? Oh, did they not smell nice already? They distended their nostrils so as to smell them. But Paul Schlieben brushed his trousers now and prepared to go away--it would take too long before the potatoes were ready. He felt something that resembled regret. But it really would not do for him to stand about any longer; what would people think of him?

He was himself again now. "That's enough now," he said, and he went away, carefully avoiding the impracticable parts of the field where the puddles were. Then he heard steps close behind him. He turned round.

"Wolf? Well, what do you want?"

The boy looked at him sadly out of his dark eyes.

"Are you going home too?" There was astonishment in the man's question--he had not said that the boy was to go with him.

The pines emitted a splendid smell, you could breathe the air so freely, so easily, and that pale blue sky with the fleecy white clouds had something wonderfully clear about it, something that filled the eyes with light. White threads floated over the countryside, driven from the clean east, and hung fast to the green branches of the pines, shimmering there like a fairy web. And the sun was still agreeably warm without burning, and an invigorating pungent odour streamed from the golden-coloured leaves of the bushes that enclosed the gardens at the back.

The man drew a deep breath; he felt as if he had suddenly grown ten, twenty--no, thirty years younger. Even more.

"Well, run along," he said.

The boy looked at him as if he had not quite understood him.

"Run," he said once more curtly, smiling at the same time.

Then the boy gave a shout, such a shrill, triumphant shout that his playfellows, who were crouching round the potato fire, joined in immediately without knowing why.

There was a gleam in the dark eyes of the boy, who loved freedom, the free air and to run about free. He did not say his father had made him happy, but he drew a deep breath as if a load had fallen off his chest. And the man noticed something in his face, that was now commencing to grow coa.r.s.er, to lose the soft contours of childhood and get the sharp ones of youth, that made it refined and beautiful.

Wolfgang flew back across the field as quick as lightning, as if shot from a tightly strung bow.

The man went back into his garden. He opened the gate cautiously so that it should not creak, and closed it again just as quietly--Kate need not know where he had been. But she was already standing at the window.

There was something touchingly helpless in her att.i.tude, such an anxious scrutiny in her eyes--no, she need not look at him like that, he was not angry with her.

And he nodded to her.

When the housemaid asked whether the master did not know where the young gentleman was--she had had the milk warmed three times already for him and had run up and downstairs with it--he said in a low voice with an excuse in the tone: "Oh, that does not matter, Lisbeth. Warm it for a fourth time later on. It is so healthy for him to be out of doors."

BOOK II

CHAPTER VIII

It was Frida Lamke's birthday. "If you may come we are to have buns with raisins in, but if you mayn't there'll only be rolls like we have every day," she said to her friend Wolfgang. "Mind you get them to let you come." It was of most importance to her that Wolfgang came; no differences were made on account of Flebbe, although he always said he was going to marry her.

And Wolfgang teased his mother. "Let me go--why not? I should like to so much--why mayn't I?"

Yes, why not? He had kept dinning this "why not?" into her ears for the last twenty-four hours; it had quite worn her out. What should she say to him? that she disliked Frida? But what had the girl done that she had taken a dislike to her? Nothing. She always curtseyed politely, was always tidily dressed, had even plaited the blue ribbon into her fair hair with a certain taste. The parents were also quite respectable people, and still--these children always hung about the streets, always, both summer and winter. You could pa.s.s their house whenever you liked, those Lamkes were always outside their door. Was it the life of the streets this snub-nosed girl, who was very developed for her age, reminded her of? No, he must not go to those people's house, go down into the atmosphere of the porter's room.

"I don't wish you to go there," she said. She had not the heart to say: "I won't allow it," when he looked at her with those beseeching eyes.

And the boy saw his advantage. He felt distinctly: she is struggling with herself; and he followed it up with cruel pertinacity.

"Let me--oh, do let me. I shall be so sorry if I can't. Then I shan't care to do anything. Why mayn't I? Mammy, I'll love you so, if you'll only let me go. Do let me--will you? But I will."

She could not escape from him any more, he followed her wherever she went, he took hold of her dress, and even if she forbade him to ask her any more, she felt that he only thought of the one thing the whole time. So he forced her in that way.

Paul Schlieben was not so averse to his accepting the invitation from the Lamkes. "Why not? They're quite respectable people. It won't harm the boy to cast a glance at those circles for once in a way. I also went to our hall-porter's home as a boy. And why not?"

She wanted to say: "But that was something quite different, there was no danger in your case"--but then she thought better of it and said nothing. She did not want to bring him her fears, her doubts, her secret gnawing dread so soon again, as there was no manifest reason for them, and they could not be explained as every other feeling can be after all. Something like a depressing mist always hung over her. But why should she tell him so? She neither wanted to be scolded nor laughed at for it; she would resent both. He was not the same man he used to be. Oh--she felt it with a slight bitterness--how he used to understand her. He had shared every emotion with her, every vibration of her soul. But he had not the gift of understanding her thoughts now--or did she perhaps not understand him any longer?

But he was still her dear husband, her good, faithful husband whom she loved more than anyone else in the world--no, whom she loved as she loved Wolfchen. The child, oh, the child was the sun round which her life revolved.

If Paul only had been as he was formerly. She had to cast a covert glance at him very frequently now, and, with a certain surprise, also grow accustomed to his outward appearance. Not that his broadening-out did not suit him; the slight stoutness his slender figure with its formerly somewhat stiff but always perfect carriage had a.s.sumed suited his years, and the silver threads that commenced to gleam in his beard and at his temples. It suited also the comfortable velvet coat he always put on as soon as he came home, suited his whole manner of being. Strange that anybody could become such a practical person, to whom everything relating to business had formerly been such a burden, nay, even most repugnant. He would not have picked up the strange child from the Venn now, and--Kate gave her husband a long look--he would not have taken it home with him now as a gift from fairyland.

Had the years also changed her in the same manner? Her looking-gla.s.s did not show her any very great change. There was still the same girlish figure, which seemed twice as slender beside her husband's stoutness. Her hair was still fair, and she still blushed like a young girl to whom a stray look is enough to make the blood, that flows so easily, invade her delicate cheeks. Yes, she had still remained young outwardly. But her mind was often weary. Wolf caused her too much anxiety. A mother, who was ten, fifteen years younger than she, would not perhaps feel how every nerve becomes strained when dealing with such a child as she did. Would not such a mother often have laughed when she felt ready to cry?

Oh, what a boisterous, inexhaustible vital power there was in that boy! She was amazed, bewildered, exhausted by it. Was he never tired?

Always on his legs, out of bed at six, always out, out. She heard him tossing about restlessly at daybreak. He slept in the next room to theirs, and the door between the rooms always stood open, although her husband scolded her for it. The boy was big enough, did not want supervising. They need not have that disturbance at night, at any rate.

But she wanted to watch over his sleep too; she must do so. She often heard him talk in his dreams, draw his breath so heavily, as though something were distressing him. Then she would slip out of bed, softly, softly, so that her husband should not hear her; she did not light any candle, she groped her way into the other room on bare feet.

And then she would stand at his bedside. He still had the pretty railed cot from his first boyhood--but how long would it be before it was too small? How quickly he was growing, how terribly quickly. She pa.s.sed her hand cautiously and lightly over the cover, and felt the boy's long body underneath it. Then he began to toss about, groan, stiffen himself like one who is struggling with something. What could be the matter with him? Then he spoke indistinctly. Of what was he dreaming so vividly? He was wet through with perspiration.

If only she could see him. But she dared not light a candle. What should she say to her husband if he, awakened by the light, asked her what she was doing there? And Wolfchen would also wake and ask her what she wanted.

Yes, what did she really want? She had no answer ready even for herself. She would only have liked to know what was occupying his mind in his dream to such an extent that he sighed and struggled. Of what was he dreaming? Of whom? Where was he in his dream?

She trembled as she stood at his bedside on her bare feet listening.

And then she bent over him so closely that his breath, uneven and hot, blew into her face, and she breathed on him again--did not they mingle their breath in that manner? Was she not giving him breath of her breath in that manner?--and whispered softly and yet so earnestly, imploringly and at the same time urgently: "Your mother is here, your mother is near you."