"What do you want?" There was again something of the old repellent sound in his voice.
But she would not allow herself to be deterred. "I thought you might perhaps like to--well, talk a little more about it," she said tenderly.
"What am I to do?" he cried, and he wrung his hands and started to stride restlessly up and down the room again. "If only somebody would tell me what I'm to do now. But nobody knows. Nobody can know. What am I to do--what am I to do?"
Käte stood there dismayed: oh, now he had such thoughts. She saw it, he had wept. She clung to him full of grieved sympathy. She did what she had not done for a long time, for an exceedingly long time, she kissed him. And shaken in the depths of her being by his "What am I to do?" as by a just reproach, she said contritely: "Don't torture yourself. Don't fret. If you like we'll go there--we'll look for her--we shall no doubt find her."
But he shook his head vehemently and groaned. "That's too late now--much too late. What am I to do there now? I am no use for that or for this"--he threw out his hands--"no use for anything. Mother, mother!" Throwing both his arms round the woman he fell down heavily in front of her and pressed his face against her dress.
She felt he was sobbing by the convulsive movement of his body, by the tight grasp of his hot hands round her waist.
"If only I knew--my mother--mother--oh, mother, what am I to do?"
He wept aloud, and she wept with him in compassionate sympathy. If only Paul had been there. She could not find any comforting words to say to him, she felt so deserving of blame herself, she believed there was no longer any comfort to be found. Before her eyes stood the one agonising, torturing question: "How is it to end?" engraved in large letters, like the inscriptions over cemetery gates.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Käte took counsel with herself: should she write to her husband "Come"? Wolfgang was certainly not well again. He did not complain, he only said he could not sleep at night and that made him so tired. She did not know whether it was moral suffering that deprived him of his sleep or physical. She was in great trouble, but she still put off the letter to her husband. Why should she make him hasten to them, take that long journey? It would not be of any use. It was still not clear to her that she wanted him for herself, for her own sake. She even omitted writing to him for a few days.