Käte saw it. Could Paul laugh? So he did not take it very seriously, after all. But that did not provoke her as it would have done some time ago, she felt as if everything in her were cold and dead. She heard the two speak as though they were far, far away, their voices sounded quite low, and still they were speaking loudly and also animatedly.
All the same the conversation was not altogether friendly. Even if the man was not seriously angry with the lad, he still considered it his duty to expostulate with him. He concluded by saying: "Such immoderate drinking is disgusting!"--but he thought to himself: "It cannot have been so bad as Käte makes out, or I should have seen some signs of it." His brown cheeks were smooth and firm, so shiny and so lately washed, his eyes, which were not large but noticeable on account of their dark depths, were even more sparkling than usual.
The man laid his hand on his son's shoulder: "So we must have no more of that, Wolfgang, if we're to remain friends."
The boy shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "I really don't know what crime I've committed, pater. The whole thing is something of a mystery to me. But it shan't happen again, I promise you."
And they shook hands.
Now something really did stir in Käte. She would have liked to have jumped up, to have cried: "Don't believe him, Paul, don't believe him. He's sure to get drunk again. I don't trust him. I cannot trust him. If you had seen him as I saw him--oh, he was so vulgar!" And as in a vision a village tavern suddenly appeared before her eyes, a tavern she had never seen. Rough men sat round the wooden table, leaning on their elbows, smoking evil-smelling tobacco, drinking heavily, bawling wildly ... ah, had not his father sat among them? His grandfather too? All those from whom he was descended? She was seized with a terrible fear. It could never, never end well.
"You are so pale, Käte," her husband said at the evening meal. "You sat still too long; it is still too cold outside."
"Aren't you well, mater?" inquired Wolfgang, politely anxious.
Käte did not answer her son, she only looked at her husband and shook her head: "I am quite well."
That satisfied them.