The Son of His Mother Part 33

"Young lovers," thought many a one who came across them strolling along near the coppices in the Tiergarten. They had let their train go--he had no wish to hurry home, at any rate--and so they walked further and further in among the green trees, where it was already dark and where even his light tennis suit and her light blouse could not be distinguished any longer. The nightingales had grown silent long ago; all that was heard was a girl's soft laugh now and then, which sounded like the cooing of a dove, and the low whispers of invisible couples.

Whispers came from the benches that stood in the dark, summer dresses rustled, burning cigars gleamed like glow-worms; all the seats one came across were occupied. It was extremely close in the park.

Wolfgang and Frida spoke of Frau Lamke. "She's always ill, she has had to go to the doctor so often," said the girl, and her voice trembled with sincere grief. Wolfgang was very sorry.

When Frida came home that evening extremely late--the house had been closed long before; Frau Lamke had already begun to get nervous, and did not know how she should keep the roast potatoes warm--she threw her arms round her mother's neck: "Mother, mummy, don't scold." And then it came out with a rush, that she had met Wolfgang: "Wolfgang Schlieben, you know. He was so nice, mother, you can't think how nice he was. Not the slightest bit stuck-up. And he asked at once how you were, and when I told him you had something the matter with your stomach and your nerves, he was so sorry. And he said: 'You must get your mother out in this beautiful weather,' and he gave me this bank-note--here, do you see it, a green one. I did not want to take it on any account, what would people think of it?--but he was so strong, he stuffed it into my hand. I could have screamed, he pulled my fingers apart so--are you angry, mother, that I took it? I didn't want to, I really didn't want to. But he said, 'It's for your mother.' And 'Do be sensible, Frida.'"

Frida almost cried, she felt so touched and so grateful.

Frau Lamke took it more calmly. "Perhaps I can go to Eberswald to my brother, or even to my sister in the Riesengebirge. And I'll give up the places where I clean for a few weeks, that will do me an enormous amount of good. The good boy, that was nice of him, that he thought of his old friend. Hm, he can do it too. What are fifty marks to people like him?"

When Wolfgang had taken Frida to her door he had strolled on slowly, his racket under his arm, his hands in the pockets of his wide trousers. A sky, richly spangled with stars, extended over his head, innumerable golden eyes watching him with a kind twinkle. There were no more wheels to be heard, no crowds of pedestrians whirled up the dust of the street any longer. What the dust-carts, pa.s.sing backwards and forwards during the day, had not been able to do, the night-dew had done. The loose sand had been settled, a cool freshness rose up out of the earth, one could smell the trees and bushes; a fragrance of flowers ascended from the beds in the gardens that the darkness had swallowed up. Wolfgang drew a deep breath of delight and whistled softly; his heart was full of peace and joy; now it was a good thing he was not wandering about in Berlin. It had been so nice with Frida. What a lot they had had to talk about--and then--he was really awfully pleased to be able to help Frau Lamke a little.

He came home thoroughly happy.

"The master and mistress have had their supper long ago," Friedrich took the liberty of remarking with a certain reproach--the young gentleman was really too unpunctual.

"Well, can't be helped," said Wolfgang. "Tell the cook she's to prepare me something quickly, a cutlet or some beefsteak, or--what else was there for supper this evening? I'm ravenous."

Friedrich looked at him quite taken aback. Now! at half past ten?

The master or the mistress had never thought of asking for such a thing--a warm supper at half past ten? He stood hesitating.

"Well, am I soon going to get something?" the young gentleman called to him over his shoulder, and went into the dining-room.

His parents were still sitting at the table--both were reading--but the table was empty.

"Good evening," said the boy, "is the table cleared already?" You could plainly hear the surprise in his voice.

"So there you are!" His father nodded to him but did not look up; he seemed to be quite taken up with his reading. And his mother said: "Are you going to sit with us a little?"

All at once the lad shivered. It had been so nice and warm outside, here it was cool.

And then everything was quiet for a while, until Friedrich came in with a tray on which there was only a little cold meat, bread, b.u.t.ter and cheese beside the knife and fork. It struck Wolfgang how loudly he rattled the things; the housemaid generally waited. "Where's Marie?"

"In bed," said his mother curtly.

"Already?" Wolfgang wondered why to himself. Hark, the clock in his mother's room was just striking--eleven? Was it actually already eleven o'clock? They would really have to be quick and get him something to eat, he was dying for want of food. He fixed his eyes on the door through which Friedrich had disappeared. Was something soon coming?

He waited.

"Eat something." His mother pushed the dish with cold meat nearer to him.

"Why don't you eat?" asked his father suddenly.

"Oh, I am still waiting."

"There's nothing more," said his mother, and her face, which looked so extremely weary like the face of one who has waited long in vain, flushed slightly.

"Nothing else?--nothing more?--why?" The boy looked exceedingly disappointed. He glanced from his mother to the table, then to the sideboard and then round the room as though searching for something.

"Haven't you had anything else to eat?"

"Yes, we have had something else--but if you don't come--" His father knit his brows, and then he looked straight at his son for the first time that evening, surveying him with a grave glance. "You can't possibly expect to find a warm supper, when you come home so unpunctually."

"But you--you are not obliged to"--the young man swallowed the rest--he would have much preferred it had his parents not sat there waiting for him; the servants would have done what was expected of them.

"Perhaps you think the servants don't require their night's rest?"

said his father, as though he had guessed his thought. "The maids, who have been in the kitchen the whole day, want to have done in the evening as well as other people. So you must come earlier if you want to have supper with us. Moreover, I don't suppose it will harm a young fellow to get nothing but a piece of bread and b.u.t.ter for his supper for once in a way. Besides, you who--" he was going to say "you who get such a good dinner"--but the young man's face, which expressed such immeasurable astonishment, irritated him, and he said in a loud and, contrary to his custom, angry voice, angrier than he had intended: "You--are you ent.i.tled to make such claims? How can you think of doing so, you especially?" A movement made by his wife, the rustling of her dress, reminded him of her presence, and he continued more temperately, but with a certain angry scorn: "Perhaps you do too much? Two hours at the office in the morning--hardly that--an hour in the afternoon--yes, that's an astonishing, an enormous amount of work, which must tax your powers greatly. Indeed, it requires quite special food. Well, what, what?"

Wolfgang had been going to say something, but his father did not allow him to speak: "Let me see a more modest look on your face first, and then you may speak. Lad, I tell you, if you apply to Braumuller for money any more----!"

There, there, it was out. In his wrath he had forgotten the diplomatic questions he had intended asking, and all he had meant to find out by listening to his replies. The man felt quite a relief now he could say: "It's an unheard-of thing! It's a disgrace for you--and for me!" The excited voice had calmed down, the last words were almost choked by a sigh. The man rested his arm on the table and his head in his hand; one could see that he took it much to heart.

Kate sat silent and pale. Her eyes were distended with horror--so he had done that, that, borrowed money? That too? Not only that he got drunk, dead drunk but that, that too? It could not be possible--no! Her eyes sought Wolfgang's face imploringly. He must deny it.

"Why, really, pater," said Wolfgang, trying to smile, "I don't know what's the matter with you. I asked your partner to do me a little favour--besides, he offered to do it himself, he has always been most friendly to me. I was just going to send it back to him"--he glanced sideways at his father: did he know how much it was?--"I'll send it to him to-morrow."

"Oh, to-morrow." There was suspicion in the man's tone, but a certain relief nevertheless; he was so anxious to think the best of his son. "What other debts have you?" he asked. And then he was suddenly seized with the fear that the lad was deceiving him, and, terrified at the great responsibility he had taken on himself, he said in a voice that was harder than he really intended, much harder than was compatible with his feelings: "I would punish you as a good-for-nothing fellow if I heard you had! I would cast you off--then you could see how you got on. Disgraceful debts! To be in debt!"

Kate gazed at her husband the whole time. She had never seen him like that before. She wanted to call out, to interrupt him: "You are too strict, much too strict. You'll prevent him confessing anything if you speak like that"--but she could not say a word. She was mute under the burden of the fears that overwhelmed her. Her eyes, full of a terrible anxiety, hung on the young face that had grown pale.

Wolfgang's lips quivered; his thoughts were active. He wanted to speak, had already opened his mouth to do so, to confess that he had spent more than he had had. If only his father were not always so extremely proper. Good gracious, you cannot help pulling handfuls of money out of your pockets if you have got it to spend! But he did not say anything to these--these two about it. They were good people on the whole, but they could not put themselves into his place. Good people?

No, they were not.

And now came his indignation. What possessed his father to treat him in that manner, to scold him in that tone of voice? Like a criminal.

And she, why did she stare at him in that way with eyes in which he thought he read something that looked like contempt? Well, then, he would horrify them still more, hurl into their faces: "Of course I have debts, what does that matter?" But in the midst of his anger came the cool calculation: what had his father said: "I would cast you off"?

All at once Wolfgang got a great fright. He had need of these people, he could not do without them. And so he pulled himself together quickly: he must not confess anything, by any means, he must be sure not to betray himself. And he said, in a quick transition from defiant pa.s.sion to smooth calmness: "I don't know why you excite yourself so, pater. I have none."

"Really none?" His father looked at him gravely and inquiringly, but a glad hope shone already through the gravity.

And when his son answered "No," he stretched out his hand to him across the table: "I'm pleased to hear it."

They were very nice to him that evening. Wolfgang felt it with much satisfaction. Well, they owed him an apology, too. He allowed them to make much of him.

The father felt glad, quite relieved that nothing else, nothing worse had come to light, and the mother had the feeling for the first time for many weeks that it was possible to love the lad again. Her voice had something of the old sound once more when she spoke to him.

And she spoke a good deal to him, she felt the need to do so. She had not spoken so much to him during all those weeks. She felt as if a spring within her had been bricked up and had to discharge itself now.

He had contracted no debts. Thank G.o.d, he was not quite so bad then!

Now she was sorry she had sent the maids to bed, because she had been annoyed with him for coming home so late--for his loafing about, as she had called it in her thoughts--and had no proper supper for him. If she had not been afraid of her husband, she would have gone down into the kitchen and tried to prepare something better for him herself.

"Have you really had enough?" she said to him in a low voice.

"Oh, it'll do." He felt his superiority.

Paul Schlieben put his paper aside that evening. When his son asked him politely if he would not read, he shook his head: "No, I've read the whole evening." He, too, felt the need of, nay, felt it his duty to have, a friendly talk to his son, even if he found that Kate was going too far, as usual. She really need not make such a fuss of the boy, he had done wrong hi any case; the Braumuller matter must not be forgotten, he ought to have come openly--but really, after all, it was only a stupidity, a thing that might happen ninety times out of every hundred.

The man resolved to raise his monthly allowance by 100 marks, when he paid him on the first of the month. Then he would certainly have ample, and there could be no more talk of not being able to make both ends meet and of secrecy.

It was already far past midnight when the parents and son at last parted. Kate stretched herself in her bed with a feeling of happiness she had not known for a long time: she would soon fall asleep; she would not have to lie so long waiting for sleep to come to her, she felt so relieved, so rea.s.sured, so soothed. Things were working better now, everything would still be right at last. And she whispered softly to her husband: "Paul!" He did not hear her, he was already half asleep. Then she whispered more urgently: "Paul, Paul!" And when he moved she said softly: "Paul, are you angry with me?"