And still all at once he saw his own face so plainly before his mind's eye and his mother's near it, as he had seen them in the glass. There was not a single feature alike--no, not one.
It was really odd that mother and son resembled each other so little. Now he was wide awake, and commenced to ponder, his brows knit, his hands clenched. What did they really mean by their offensive remarks? If only he knew it. He would be quite satisfied then, quite easy. But he could not think of anything else as things were now, with everything so obscure. All his thoughts turned round and round the same point. It was a horrible feeling that tormented him now, a great uncertainty in which he groped about in the dark. Light, light, he must have light. Ah, he would see that he got some.
He tossed about restlessly, quite tortured by his thoughts, and considered and pondered how he was to find it out, where he was to find it out. Who would tell him for certain whether he was his parents' child or not? Why should he not be their child? Yes, he was their child--no, he was not. But why not? If he was not their real child, would he be very sorry? No, no!--but still, it terrified him.
The perspiration stood out on the excited boy's body, and still he felt icy-cold. He drew the cover up and shook as though with fever. His heart behaved strangely too, it fluttered in his breast as though with restless wings. Oh, if only he could sleep and forget everything. Then there would be no thought of it next day, and everything would be as it had always been.
He pressed his eyes together tightly, but the sleep he had driven away did not come again. He heard the clocks strike, the old clock resounded hi the dining-room downstairs, and the bronze one called from his mother's room with its silvery voice. The silence of the night exaggerated every sound; he had never heard the clocks strike so loudly before.
Was the morning never coming? Was it not light yet? He longed for the day to come, and still he dreaded it. All at once he was seized with an inexplicable terror--why, what was it he feared so much?
If only he were already at church--no, if only it were all over. He was filled with reluctance, a sudden disinclination. The same thought continued to rush madly through his brain, and his heart rushed with it; it was impossible to collect his thoughts. He sighed as he tossed and turned on his bed; he felt so extremely lonely, terrified, nay, persecuted.
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea--alas, he could not escape from that thought, it was everywhere and always, always there.
As the morning sun stole through the shutters that were still closed on Palm Sunday, forcing its way into the room in delicate, golden rays, Käte came into her son's room. She was pale, for she had been struggling with herself the whole night: should she tell him something, now that he was to enter upon this new chapter of his life or should she tell him nothing? Something within her whispered: "The day has come, tell him it, you owe it to him"--but when the morning sun appeared she bade the voice of the night be silent. Why tell him it? What did it matter to him? What he did not know could not grieve him; but if he knew it, then--perhaps he would then--oh, God, she must keep silent, she could not lose him!
But she longed to let him feel her love. When she came in with soft steps she was amazed, for he was standing already quite dressed in the new black coat and trousers at the window, gazing fixedly at the field in which they were beginning to build a villa now. The ground floor was already finished, there was a high scaffolding round it; it was going to be an enormous building.