"Yes, you have." The man was quite taken aback. Yes, the lad had the right. It was quite clear who was wrong. And so he said, thinking better of it and in a more friendly voice again: "But even if you are not our son by birth, I think the training and the care you have received from our hands during all these years have made you our child in spirit. Come, my son--and even if they all say you are not our son, I tell you you are our son in truth."
"No," he said. And then he walked slowly backwards to the door, his dry eyes fixed on those he had called parents for so long.
"Boy, where are you going? Stop!" the man called after him in a kind voice. The boy was certainly in a terrible position, they must have patience with him. And he called out once more "Stop, Wolfgang!"
But Wolfgang shook his head: "I cannot. You have deceived me. Let me go." He shook off the man's hand that he had laid on his sleeve with a violent gesture.
And then he screamed out like a wounded animal: "Why do you still worry me? Let me go, I want to think of my mother--where is she?"
BOOK III
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CHAPTER XIII
The clocks in the house ticked terribly loudly. They could be heard through the silence of the night like warning voices.
Oh, how quickly the time flew. It had quite lately been evening--midnight--and now the clock on the mantel-piece already struck a short, clear, hard one.