Should she go to bed now? She could not sleep--oh, she was too restless--but she would have to lie down, oh yes, she must do so, or what would the maids think, and Paul? Then she would have to get up again as she did every day, wash herself, dress, sit at the breakfast-table, eat, talk, smile as she did every day, as though nothing, nothing whatever had happened. And still so much had happened!
She felt so hopelessly isolated as she lay in bed beside her husband. There was nobody to whom she could complain. Paul had not understood her before, he would understand her even less now; he had changed so much in the course of time. Besides, was he not quite infatuated with the boy now? Strange, formerly when she had loved Wolfgang so, her love had always been too much of a good thing--how often he had reproached her for it!--and now, now!--no, they simply did not understand each other any longer. She would have to fight her battles alone, quite alone.
When Käte heard the first sounds in the house, she would have liked to get up, but she forced herself to remain in bed: it would attract their attention if they saw her so early. But a great fear tortured her. If that person--that, that intoxicated person over there should awake, make a noise, bang on the locked door? What should she say then to make excuses for him? What should she do? She lay in bed quite feverish with uneasiness. At last it was her usual time to get up.
"I suppose the boy came home terribly late--or rather early, eh?" said Paul at breakfast.
"Oh no. Just after you went upstairs."
"Really? But I lay awake quite a long time after that."
He had said it lightly, unsuspiciously, but she got a fright nevertheless. "We--we--he talked to me for quite a long time," she said hesitatingly.
"Foolish," he said, nothing more, and shook his head.
Oh, how difficult it was to tell lies. In what a position Wolfgang placed her.
When Schlieben had driven to town and the cook was busy in the kitchen and Friedrich in the garden, Käte kept an eye on the housemaid. What a long time she was in the bedroom to-day. "You must finish the rooms upstairs more quickly, you are excessively slow," she said in a sharp voice.