CHAPTER VII
Those were days of the purest happiness at the Schliebens'. The villa had been bought now, some rooms had been built on to it, and another piece of land had been added to the garden as a play-ground. They could not think of not giving the boy sufficient space to romp about in. Some sand was brought there, a heap as high as a dune in which to dig. And when he was big enough to do gymnastics they got him a swing and horizontal and parallel bars.
But still it was not sufficient. He climbed over all the fences round the neighbouring villas, over all the walls that were protected by barbed wire and pieces of glass.
"A splendid lad," said Dr. Hofmann when he spoke of Wolfgang. When he spoke to him he certainly said: "What a little ruffian you are! Just you wait till you go to school and they'll soon teach you to sit still."
Wolf was wild--rather too wild, his mother considered. The boy's high spirits amused her husband: that was because there was such a large amount of surplus energy in him. But Käte felt somewhat surprised at so much wildness--no, she was not really surprised, she knew too well where all that wildness came from; it frightened her.
She did not scold him when he tore his trousers--oh, they could be replaced--but when he came home with the first hole in his head she became incredibly agitated. She scolded him angrily, she became unjust. She was quite unable to stop the blood--ugh, how it ran!--she felt as if she were going to have a fit; she dragged herself into her room with difficulty and remained sitting silently in a corner, her eyes staring into space.
When her husband reproached her for exaggerating in that manner, she never answered a word. Then he comforted her: she could feel quite easy now, the thing was of no moment, the hole was sewn up and the lad as happy as though it had never happened.
But she shuddered nervously and her cheeks were pale. Oh, if Paul knew what she had been thinking of, was forced to think of the whole time! How strange that the same memory did not obtrude itself on him. Oh, Michel Solheid had laid bleeding on the Venn--blood had dripped on the ground to-day as on that day. The little boy had not complained, just as little as his--she fought against using the word even in her thoughts--as his father, as Michel Solheid had complained. And still the red blood had gushed out as though it were a spring. How much more natural it would have been for him to have cried. Did Wolf feel differently from other children?
Käte went through the list of her acquaintances; there was not a single child that would not have cried if he had got such a wound, and he would not have been considered a coward on that account. There was no doubt about it, Wölfchen was less sensitive. Not only more insensible to bodily pain, no--and she thought she had noticed it several times--also more insensible to emotion. Even in the case of joy. Did not other children show their happiness by clapping their hands and shouting? Did not they dance round the thing they wanted--the toy, the doll, the cake--with shouts of delight? He only held out his hand for it in silence.
He took it because he had been told to do so, without all the childish chatter, without the rapturous delight that makes it so attractive and satisfactory to give children gifts.