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 G.o.d, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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, n.o.body 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, Wolfchen. Go on, go on, Wolfchen--that's splendid, Wolfchen."

She suffered the torments of h.e.l.l. 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, Wolfchen, 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 s.p.a.ce and resounds in the furthermost corner. Paul must be deaf as well. They pa.s.sed 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, Wolfchen, come." And she brought him past in safety.

At last they were in his room. "Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!" 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 G.o.d's omnipotence like a worm: only let him live, O G.o.d, 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-gla.s.s in which she had seen the brown boy's face near her fair woman's face, fresh and round-cheeked, a little coa.r.s.e, 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 gla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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--n.o.body 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.body else find out anything about it.