"You were drunk," she said softly, vehemently.
"I--? Oh!" He was overcome with a sudden confusion. Had he really been drunk? He had no idea of it. But she might be right all the same, for he had no idea how he had come home.
"I suppose you've again been sitting up waiting for me?" He gave her a suspicious sidelong glance, and frowned so heavily that his dark eyebrows met. "You mustn't always wait up for me," he said with secret impatience, but outwardly his tone was anxious. "It makes me lose all liking to do anything with the others if I think you are sacrificing your night's rest. Please don't do so again, mater."
"I won't do so again," she said, with her eyes fixed on her lap. She could not have looked at him, she despised him so. How broad and big and bold he had looked as he stood there saying good evening quite happily. He had behaved as if he knew nothing of all that had happened, that he had wanted to creep on all fours, stretch himself on the doorstep as if that were his bed or he a dog. He was as unembarrassed as though he had not been lying in his room at dinner-time in such--such a filthy condition; as though she had not seen him in his deep humiliation. No, she would never, never be able to kiss him again or caress him, to lay her arms round his neck as she had been so fond of doing when he was a boy. All at once he had become quite a stranger to her.
She did not say another word, did not reproach him. She heard what her husband said to him, when he joined him in the garden, as if it did not concern her.
Although Paul Schlieben had seemed very mild when speaking to his wife at dinner-time, he was not so now when face to face with his son. "I hear you came home drunk--what do you mean by that?" he said to him severely. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"Who has said so?"
"That's nothing to do with you, I know it, and that is sufficient."
"She, of course," said the boy bitterly. "The mater always exaggerates everything. I was certainly not drunk, I only had a little too much--we all had--good gracious, pater, you must do what the others do! What else is one to do on such a long evening? But it was certainly nothing bad. See how fresh I am." And he took hold of the ornamental cherry-tree, under which they were standing, with both hands, as if he were going to root it up, and a whole shower of white blossoms fell down on him and on the path.
"Let my tree alone," said his father, smiling.