She felt her trembling heart grow stronger, as she made the firm resolve to speak to him when he returned home. What she had kept as the greatest secret, what she had guarded with trembling, what nothing could have torn from her, as she thought, she was now prepared to reveal of her own free will. She must do so. Otherwise how could things ever be better? How could they ever end happily, or ever end at all?

Her eyes wandered about seeking something fervently; there was a terrified expression in them. But there was no other way out. Kate Schlieben prepared herself for the confession with a resoluteness that she would not have been capable of a year ago. For one moment the wish came to her to call Paul to help her. But she rejected the thought quickly--had he ever loved Wolfgang as she had done? Perhaps it would be a matter of no moment to him--no, perhaps it would be a triumph to him, he had always been of a different opinion to her. And then another thing. He might perhaps forestall her, tell Wolfgang himself, and he must not do that. She, she alone must do that, with all the love of which she was still capable, so that it might be told him in a forbearing, merciful and tender manner.

She ran hastily across to her sitting-room. She kept the certificate of his baptism and the deed of surrender they had got from his native village in her writing-desk there; she had not even trusted the papers to her husband. Now she brought them out and put them ready.

She would have to show him that everything was as she said.

The papers rustled in her trembling hands, but she repressed her agitation. She must be calm, quite calm and sensible; she must throw down the castle in the air she had built for herself and that had not turned out as in her dreams, knowing fully what she was doing. But even if this castle in the air collapsed, could not something be saved from the ruins? Something good rise from them? He would be grateful to her, he must be grateful to her. And that was the good that would rise.

She folded her hands over the common paper on which the evidence was written, and quivering sighs escaped from her breast that were like prayers. O G.o.d, help me! O G.o.d, help me!

But if he did not understand her property, if she did not find the words that must be found? If she should lose him thereby? She was overcome with terror, she turned pale, and stretched out her hands gropingly like one who requires a support. But she remained erect. Then rather lose him than that he should be lost.

For--and tears such as she had not been able to weep for a long, long time, dropped from her eyes and relieved her--she still loved him, after all, loved him more than she had considered possible.

So she waited for him. And even if she had to wait until dawn and if he came home drunk again--more drunk than the first time--she would still wait for him. She must tell him that day. She was burning to tell him.

Paul Schlieben had gone to bed long ago. He was vexed with his wife, had only stuck his head into the room and given a little nod: "Good night," and gone upstairs. But she walked up and down the room downstairs with slow steps. That tired her physically, but gave her mind rest and thereby strength.

When she went to meet Wolfgang in the hall on hearing him close the door, her delicate figure looked as though it had grown, it was so straight and erect. The house slept with all in it, only he and she were still awake. They were never so alone, so undisturbed nowadays.

The time had come.

And she held out her hand to him, which she would not have done on any other occasion had he come so late--thank G.o.d, he was not drunk!--and approached her face to his and kissed him on the cheek: "Good evening, my son."

He was no doubt somewhat taken aback at this reception, but his sunken eyes with the black lines under them looked past her indifferently.

He was terribly tired--one could see--or was he ill? But all that would soon be better now. Kate seized hold of his hand once more full of the joyful hope that had been awakened in her, and drew him after her into her room.

He allowed himself to be drawn without resisting, he only asked with a yawn: "What's the matter?"

"I must tell you something." And then quickly, as though he might escape her or she might lose courage, she added: "Something important--that concerns you your that concerns your--your birth."

What would he say--she had stopped involuntarily--what would he say now? The secret of his birth for which he had fought full of longing, fought strenuously--oh, what scenes those had been!--would now be revealed to him.

She leant towards him involuntarily, ready to support him.

Then he yawned again: "Must it really be now, mater? There's plenty of time to-morrow. The fact is, I am dead beat. Good night." And he wheeled round, leaving her where she was, and went out of the room and up the stairs to his bedroom.

She stood there quite rigid. Then she put her hand up to her head: what, what was it? She must not have understood him properly, she must be deaf, blind or beside herself. Or he must be deaf, blind or beside himself. She had gone up to him with her heart in her mouth, she had held out her hand, she had wanted to speak to him about his birth--and he? He had yawned--had gone away, it evidently did not interest him in the slightest. And here, here, in this very room--it was not yet four years ago--he had stood almost on the same spot in the black clothes he had worn at his confirmation--almost as tall as he was now, only with a rounder, more childish face--and had screamed aloud: "Mother, mother, where is my mother?" And now he no longer wanted to know anything?

It was impossible, she could not have understood him aright or he not her. She must follow him, at once, without delay. It seemed to her that she must not neglect a moment.

She hurried noiselessly up the stairs in her grey dress. She saw her shadow gliding along in the dull light the electric bulb cast on the staircase-wall, but she smiled: no, she was not sorrow personified gliding along like a ghost any longer. Her heart was filled with nothing but joy, hope and confidence, for she was bringing him something good, nothing but good.

She went into his room without knocking, in great haste and without reflecting on what she was doing. He was already in bed, he was just going to put out the light. She sat down on the edge of his bed.

"Wolfgang," she said gently. And as he gazed at her in surprise with a look that was almost unfriendly, her voice sounded still softer: "My son."

"Yes--what's the matter now?"

He was really annoyed, she noticed it in the impatient tone of his voice, and then she suddenly lost courage. Oh, if he looked at her like that, so coldly, and if his voice sounded so repellent, how difficult it was to find the right word. But it must be done, he looked so pale and was so thin, his round face had positively become long. What had struck her before struck her with double force now, and she got a great fright. "Wolfgang," she said hastily, avoiding his glance almost with fear--oh, how he would accuse her, how reproachful he would be, and justifiably reproachful--"I must tell you at last--it's better--it won't surprise you much either. Do you still remember that Sunday it was the day of your confirmation--you--you asked us then----"

Oh, what along introduction it was. She called herself a coward; but it was so difficult, so unspeakably difficult.

He did not interrupt her with a single sound, he asked no questions, he did not sigh, he did not even move.

She did not venture to turn her eyes, which were fixed on one point straight in front of her, to look at him. His silence was terrible, more terrible than his pa.s.sion. And she called out with the courage of despair: "You are not our son, not our own son."

He still did not say anything; did not make a single sound, did not move. Then she turned her eyes on him. And she saw how the lids fell over his tired, already gla.s.sy eyes, how he tore them open again with difficulty and how they closed once more, in short, how he fought with sleep.

He could sleep whilst she told him this--this? A terrible feeling of disillusion came over her, but still she seized hold of his arm and shook him, whilst her own limbs trembled as though with fever: "Don't you hear--don't you hear me? You are not our son--not our own son."

"Yes, I know," he said in a weary voice. "Leave me, leave me." He made a gesture as if to thrust her away.

"And it--" her complete want of comprehension made her stammer like a child--"it does not affect you? It--it leaves you so cold?"

"Cold? Cold?" He shrugged his shoulders, and his tired, dull eyes began to gleam a little. "Cold? Who says it leaves me cold--has left me cold?" he amended hastily. "But you two have not asked about that. Now _I_ won't hear anything more about it. I'm tired now. I want to sleep."

He turned his back on her, turned his face to the wall and did not move any more.

There she stood--he was already asleep, or at least seemed to be so.

She waited anxiously a few minutes longer--would he, would he not have to turn once more to her and say: "Tell me, I'm listening now." But he did not turn.

Then she crept out of the room like a condemned criminal. Too late, too late. She had spoken too late, and now he did not want to hear anything more about it, nothing more whatever.

In her dull wretchedness the words "too late" hurt her soul as if they had been branded on it.

Kate had no longer the courage to revert again to what she had wanted to confess to Wolfgang that night. Besides, what was the good?

She had the vivid feeling that there was no getting at him any more, that he could not be helped any more. But she felt weighed down as though she had committed a terrible crime. And the feeling of this great crime made her gentler towards him than she would otherwise have been; she felt called upon to make excuses for his actions both to herself and her husband.

Paul Schlieben was very dissatisfied with Wolfgang. "If only I knew where he's always wandering about. I suppose he's at home at night--eh?"

An involuntary sound from his wife had interrupted him, now he looked at her inquiringly. But she did not change countenance in the slightest, she only gave an affirmative nod. So the husband relied upon his wife.

And now the last days of autumn had come, which are often so warm and beautiful, more beautiful than summer. Everybody streamed out into the Grunewald, to bathe themselves once more in the sun and air ere winter set in. The people came in crowds to Hundekehle and Paulsborn, to Uncle Tom and the Old Fisherman's Hut as though it were Sunday every day. There was laughter everywhere, often music too, and young girls in light dresses, in last summer's dresses that were not yet quite worn out. Children made less noise in the woods now than in summer; it grew dark too early now, but there were all the more couples wandering about, whom the early but still warm dusk gave an excellent opportunity to exchange caresses, and old people, who wanted to enjoy the sun once more ere the night perhaps came that is followed by no morning.

Formerly Paul Schlieben had always detested leaving his house and garden on such days, when the Grunewald was overrun with people. He had always disliked swallowing the dust the crowd raised. But now he was broader-minded. Why should the people, who were shut up in cramped rooms on all the other days, not be out there too for once in a way, and inhale the smell of the pines for some hours, at any rate, which they, the privileged ones, enjoyed every day. It did one good to see how happy people could be.

He ordered a carriage, a comfortable landau, both to give himself a pleasure and also to distract his wife, who seemed to him to be graver and more lost in thought than ever, and went for a drive with her. They drove along the well-known roads through the Grunewald, and also got out now and then when the carriage forced its way more slowly through the sand, and walked beside it for a bit along the foot-path, which the fallen pine-needles had made smooth and firm.

They came to Schildhorn. The red glow of evening lay across the water; the sun could no longer be seen in all its splendour, a dusky, melancholy peace lay over the Havel and the pines. Kate had never thought the wood was so large. All at once she shivered: ah, the cemetery where they buried the suicides lay over there. She did not like to look in that direction, she pressed her eyes together nervously. All at once a young lad moved across her mental vision--young and fresh and yet ruined already--many a mother's son.

She shuddered and wanted to hurry past, and still something drew her feet irresistibly to the spot in the loose sand that had been enclosed.

She could not help it, she had to stop. Her eyes rested thoughtfully on the ugly, uncared-for graves: had those who rested there found peace? A couple of branches covered with leaves and a few flowers that she had plucked on the way fell out of her hand. The evening wind blew them on to the nearest grave; she let them lie there. Her heart felt extremely sad.

"Kate, do come," Paul called. "The carriage has been waiting for us quite a long time."

She felt very depressed. Fears and suspicions, that she could not speak of to anybody, crowded upon her. Wolfgang was unsteady--but was he bad? No, not bad--not yet. O G.o.d, no, she would not think that! Not bad! But what would happen? How would it end?

Things could never be right again--how could they? A miracle would have to happen then, and miracles do not happen nowadays.