The Son of His Mother Part 13

But he threw himself over to the other side with a jerk, turned his back on her and mumbled something. Nothing but incomprehensible words, rarely anything that was distinct, but even that was enough; she felt he was not there, not with her, that he was far away. Did his soul seek the home he did not know in his dreams? that he could not even know about, and that still had such a powerful influence that it drew him there even unconsciously?

Kate stood at Wolfgang's bedside tortured by such an anxiety as she had never felt before: a mother and still not mother. Alas, she was only a strange woman at the bedside of a strange child.

She crept back to her bed and buried her throbbing brows deep in the pillows. She felt her heart beat tumultuously, and she scolded herself for allowing her thoughts to dwell on such unavailing things. She did not change anything by it, it only made her weary and sad.

When Kate rose after such a night she felt her husband's eyes resting on her anxiously, and her hands trembled as she coiled up her thick hair. It was fortunate that she dropped a hair-pin, then she could stoop quickly and withdraw her tired face with the dark lines under the eyes from his scrutinising glance.

"I'm not at all satisfied with my wife's health again," Paul Schlieben complained to the doctor. "She's in a terribly nervous state again."

"Really?" Dr. Hofmann's friendly face became energetic. "I'll tell you one thing, my dear friend, you must take vigorous measures against it at once."

"That's no use." The man shook his head. "I know my wife. It's the boy's doing, that confounded boy!"

And he took Wolfgang in hand. "Now listen, you must not always be worrying your mother like that. If I notice once more that she is grieving about you because you are naughty, you shall see what I'll do to you."

Did he worry his mother? Wolfgang looked very blank. And surely it was not naughty of him to want to go to the Lamkes? It worried him to have to sit indoors, whilst the wind was whistling outside and playing about with one's hair in such a jolly manner. And it worried him, too, that he was not going to the Lamkes that day.

"Well then, go," said Kate. She even drove into Berlin before dinner and bought a doll, a pretty doll with fair locks, eyes that opened and shut, and a pink dress. "Take it to Frida for her birthday when you go," she said in the afternoon, putting it into the boy's hands. "Stop!

Be careful!"

He had seized hold of it impetuously, he was so delighted to be able to bring Frida something. And in a rare fit of emotion--he was no friend of caresses--he put up his face in an outburst of grat.i.tude and let his mother kiss him. He did not want her kiss, but he submitted to it, she felt that very well, but still she was glad, and she followed him with her eyes with a smile that lighted up her whole face.

"But you must be home again before dark," she called out to him at the last moment. Had he heard her?

How he ran off, as light-footed as a stag. She had never seen any child run so quickly. He threw up his straight legs that his heels touched his thighs every time. The wind blew his broad-brimmed sailor hat back, then he tore it off and ran on bareheaded, he was in such a hurry.

What was it that drew him so powerfully to those people?

The smile disappeared from Kate's face; she left the window.

Wolfgang was happy. He was sitting with the Lamkes, in the room in which they also did the cooking when the weather was cold. The parents'

bed was divided off by means of a curtain, Frida slept on the sofa, and Artur in the little room next to it in which were also kept the shovels and brooms which Lamke used for cleaning the house and street.

It was not winter yet, still pleasant autumn, but the room was already warm and cosy. The stronger smell of the coffee, which Frau Lamke was making in the large enamelled pot, mingled with the delicate fragrance of the pale monthly rose and carnation, myrtle and geranium, which had been pushed close to the window that was almost level with the ground and were all in flower. At home Wolfgang never got coffee, but he got some there; and he sipped it as he saw the others do, only he was even more delighted with it than they. And no fine pastry had ever tasted so good as did that plain bun, that was more like bread than like a cake. He ate it with his mouth open, and when Mrs.

Lamke pushed a second one to him, the guest of honour, he took it with radiant eyes.

Frau Lamke felt much flattered at his visit. But she had not made much of the doll; she had taken it from Frida at once and locked it into the cupboard: "So that you don't smash it at once. Besides, your father isn't a gentleman that you can play with dolls every day." But later on when her husband came down from the lodge, in which he sat in his leisure hours mending boots and shoes, to drink a cup of coffee and eat a bun on Frida's birthday, the doll was fetched out again and shown him.

"Fine, isn't it? She's got it from Wolfgang's mamma. Just look, Lamke"--the woman lifted the doll's pink dress up and showed the white petticoat trimmed with a frill edged with narrow lace--"such tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.

Just like that I sewed round the dress Frida wore at her christening.

She was the first one; bless you, and you think at the time it's something wonderful. Oh dear!"--she sighed and laid the doll back in the cupboard in which the clean pillowcases and Frida's and her Sunday hats were together with all kinds of odds and ends--"how time flies.

Now she's already nine."

"Ten," corrected Frida. "I'm ten to-day, mother."

"Right--dear me, are you already ten?" The woman laughed and shook her head, surprised at her own forgetfulness. And then she nodded to her husband: "Do you still remember, Lamke, when she was born?"

"If I remember!" he said, pouring another cup out of the inexhaustible coffee-pot. "Those were nice carryings-on when she was born--none of that again, thanks. The girl gave you a lot of trouble.

And me too; I was terribly afraid. But that's ten years since, old woman--why, it's almost forgotten."

"And if it had happened a hundred years ago I shouldn't have forgotten it, oh no." The woman put out her hand as though to ward off something. "I was just going to make myself some coffee about four o'clock in the afternoon, like to-day, I had got such a longing for it, and then it started. I just got as far as the pa.s.sage--do you remember, you were still working in Stiller's workshop at the time, and we lived in the Alte Jakob, fifth storey to the left?--and I knocked at Fritze's, the necktie maker's, whose door was opposite ours, and said: 'Oh, please,' I said, 'send your little one as quickly as you can to Frau Wadlern, 10, Spittelmarkt, she knows all about it'--oh dear, how bad I felt. And I fell down on the nearest chair; they had the greatest difficulty to get me home again. And now it began, I could not control myself however much I tried; I believe they heard me scream three houses off. And it lasted, it lasted--evening came on--you came home--it was midnight--five, six, seven in the morning--then at last at nine o'clock Frau Wadlern said: 'The child, it'll soon be----'"

"That's enough now, mother," interrupted the man, glancing sideways at the children, who were sitting very quietly round the table listening, with wide-open, inquisitive eyes. "All that's over long ago, the girl's here, and has been a credit to you so far."

"She was born at eleven sharp," said Frau Lamke dreamily, nodding her head at the same time and then drawing a deep breath as if she had climbed a high mountain. And then, overwhelmed by the pain and pleasure of a memory that was still so extremely vivid after the lapse of ten years, she called her daughter, her first-born, to come to her on this her tenth birthday.

"Come here, Frida." And she gave her a kiss.

Frida, who was quite abashed at this unexpected caress, giggled as she cast a glance at her brother Artur and the two other boys, and then ran to the door: "Can we go and play now?"

"Be off with you."

Then they rushed out of the dark cellar, where the Lamkes lived, in high spirits.

It was so light in the street, the sun shone brightly, a fresh wind was blowing and somebody was flying a kite far away across the field.

There were very few people on foot and no carriages. The road belonged to them, and they rushed to it with a loud hallo. The one who reached the lamp-post at the corner first was captain.

Wolfgang had never allowed anyone to deprive him of this honour before, but he had to be policeman to-day, he had been the last. He had followed the others slowly and silently. He had got something in his head to think about, which made him dull and hindered him from running; he had to think about it the whole time. He could not get rid of it even when he was in the midst of his favourite game; the only time he forgot it was when he was having a good scuffle with Hans Flebbe. The latter had scratched him in the face, and so he tore a handful of his hair out. They gripped hold of each other near the next garden-gate.

Artur, a feeble little creature, had not taken part in the fight, but he stood with his hands in his pockets giving advice in a screeching voice to the two who fought in silence.

"Give him it hard, Flebbe. Your fist under his nose--hard."

"On with you, Wolfgang. Settle him. Show him what you can do."

Frida hopped from one leg to the other, laughing, her fair plait dancing on her back. But all at once her laugh became somewhat forced and anxious: Hans, who was several years older than Wolfgang, had got him down on the ground and was hammering him in the face with his fist.

"Flebbe, you--!" She pulled his blouse, and as that did not help she nimbly put her foot out. He stumbled over it, and Wolfgang, quickly taking advantage of it, swung himself up and belaboured his enemy.

It was no game any longer, no ordinary scuffle between two boys.

Wolfgang felt his face burn like fire, he had a scratch on his cheek that went down to his chin, there were sparks before his eyes. All that had made him so silent before was forgotten, he felt a wild delight and gave a loud roar.

"Wolfgang, Wolfgang, no, that's not fair," cried the umpire. "That's no longer fun." Artur prepared to catch hold of Wolfgang, who was kneeling on his opponent's chest, by his two legs.

A jerk and off he flew. Wolf now turned against him, trembling with rage; his black eyes gleamed. This was no longer a well-dressed child of better-cla.s.s parents, this was quite an elementary, unbridled, unconquered force. He snorted, he panted--at that moment somebody called.

"Wolfgang, Wolfgang."

"Wolfgang," cried Frida warningly, "mother's calling. And your maid is standing near her beckoning."

Frau Lamke's voice was again heard, coming from the door of her house: "Wolfgang, Wolfgang." And now Lisbeth's sharp tones were also heard: "Well, are you soon coming? You're to come home."

Frau Lamke laughed. "Oh, leave them, they were so happy." But she got a fright all the same when she saw the boy's dirty clothes, and began to brush them. "My goodness, what a sight your pretty blouse looks--and the trousers." She turned red, and still redder when she noticed the fiery scratch on the young gentleman's cheek. "They've made a nice mess of you, the brats. Just you wait until I get hold of you." She shook her fist at Hans Flebbe and her own children, but her threat was not meant seriously. Then she said to Lisbeth in an undertone and with a twitching smile round the corners of her mouth, as she stood there motionless with indignation: "Wild brats, aren't they?

Well, it'll always be like that, we were all like that when we were young." And, turning to Wolfgang again, she pa.s.sed her gnarled hand over his fiery scratch: "That was fine fun, eh, Wolfgang?"

"Yes," he said from the bottom of his heart. And when he saw her looking at him with eyes so friendly and full of comprehension, a great liking for the woman sprang up in his heart.

It had been a splendid afternoon. But he did not speak of it as he went home with Lisbeth; she would have been sure to have turned up her nose at it.