He was half asleep as he went upstairs again alone; he almost stumbled with fatigue, and his limbs were heavy. But in spite of that his thoughts were clearer, more inexorable than in the daytime, when there is so much around one to distract one's attention. At that hour his heart was filled with longing for a wife who would lead him quietly and gently along a soft track in his old age, and whose smiles were not only outward as the smiles on Käte's face. A wife whose heart laughed--and, alas, his Käte was not one of those.
The man lay down again with a sigh of disappointment and shivered as he drew up the covering. But it was a long time before he could fall asleep. If only the lad would come. It really was rather late to-day. Such loafing about realty went too far.
The morning was dawning as a cab drove slowly down the street. It stopped outside the white villa, and two gentlemen helped a third out of it. The two, who were holding the third under his arms, were laughing, and the driver on his seat, who was looking down at them full of interest, also laughed slyly: "Shall I help you, gentlemen? Well, can you do it?"
They leant him up against the railing that enclosed the front garden, rang the bell gently, then jumped hastily into the cab again and banged the door. "Home now, cabby."
The bell had only vibrated softly--a sound like a terrified breath--but Käte had heard it, although she had fallen asleep in her chair; not firmly, only dozing a little. She jumped up in terror, it sounded shrill in her ears. She rushed to the window. Somebody was leaning against the railing outside. Wolfgang? Yes, yes, it was. But why did he not open the gate and come in?
What had happened to him? All at once she felt as though she must call for help--Friedrich! Paul! Paul!--must ring for the maids. Something had happened to him, something must have happened to him--why did he not come in?
He leant so heavily against the railing, so strangely. His head hung down on his chest, his hat was at the back of his head. Was he ill?
Or had some vagrants attacked him? The strangest ideas shot suddenly through her head. Was he wounded? O God, what had happened to him?
Fears, at which she would have laughed at any other time, filled her mind in this hour, in which it was not night any longer and not day either. Her feet were cold and stiff as though frozen, she could hardly get to the door; she could not find the key at first, and when her trembling hands stuck it into the lock, she could not turn it. She was so awkward in her haste, so beside herself in her fear. Something terrible must have happened. An accident. She felt it.
At last, at last! At last she was able to turn the key. And now she rushed through the front garden to the gate; a chilling icy wind like the breath of winter met her. She opened the gate: "Wolfgang!"