His face never moved, and his voice had still the same monotonous tone which sounded so terrible to her. She sobbed aloud, and her eyes clung to her husband--he must help her now. But he looked at her with a frown; she could plainly read the reproach in his face: "Why did you not follow my advice? Had we told him in time--" No, she would not find any help in him either. And now--what was it Paul was saying now? Her eyes dilated with a sudden fear, she grasped the arms of her chair with both hands, she wanted to sink back and still she started up to ward off what must come now Was Paul out of his mind? He was saying: "You are not our son."
"Not your son?" The boy stammered. He had made up his mind that nothing should disconcert him, but this answer disconcerted him all the same. It bewildered him; he turned red, then white, and his eyes wandered uncertainly from the man to the woman, from the woman to the man.
So he, too--that man--was not his father either? But Frau Lämke had said so? Oh, so he wanted to disown him now? He looked suspiciously at the man, and then something that resembled mortification arose within him. If he were not his father, then he had really no--no right whatever to be there?
And, drawing a step nearer, he said hastily: "You must be my father. You only don't want to say it now. But she"--he gave a curt nod in the direction of the chair--"she's not my mother." His eyes gleamed; then he added, drawing a long breath as though it were a relief: "I've always known that."
"You've been wrongly informed. If I had had my way, I would have told you the truth long ago. But as the right moment--unfortunately--has been neglected, I will tell you it to-day. I tell you it--on my word of honour, as one man speaking to another--I am not your father, just as little as she is your mother. You have nothing to do with us by birth, nothing whatever. But we have adopted you as our child because we wanted to have a child and had not one. We took you from----"
"Paul!" Käte fell on her husband's breast with a loud cry, as she had done at the time when he wanted to disclose something to the boy, because he was indignant at his ingratitude. She clasped her arms round his neck, she whispered hastily, passionately in his ear with trembling breath: "Don't tell him from where. For God's sake not from where. Then he'll go away, then I shall lose him entirely. I can't bear it--have mercy, have pity on me--only don't tell him from where."
He wanted to push her away, but she would not let go of him. She repeated her weeping, stammering entreaty, her trembling, terrified, desperate prayer: only not from where, only not from where.
He felt a great compassion for her. His poor, poor wife--was this to happen to her? And then he was filled with anger against the boy, who stood there so bold--arrogant--yes, arrogant--who demanded where he had to ask, and looked at them unmoved with large, cold eyes.
His voice, which had hitherto been grave but gentle whilst speaking to Wolfgang, now became severe: "Besides, I won't allow you to question me in this manner."
"I have a right to question you."