Käte stood rigid, overcome by a terror that paralysed her: what did she know? She became glowing hot and then icy cold. "Not from such a rude boy--what has he got to do here?" oh, God, was that the way she spoke about him?
She ran up to the nursery; Wölfchen was still kneeling at the window.
No other villa obstructed the view there as yet; from the window one looked out on a large piece of waste ground, where dandelions and nettles grew in the sand between hedge mustard in the summer time, but where the snow lay now, deep and clean, untouched by any footstep. The short winter evening was already drawing to a close, that white field was the only thing that still glittered, and it seemed to the mother that the child's face was very wan in the pale light of the luminous snow.
"Wölfchen," she called softly. And then "Wölfchen, how could you say 'goose' and 'hold your tongue' to Lisbeth? Oh, for shame! Where did you get those words from?" Her voice was gentle and sad as she questioned him.
Then he turned round to her, and she saw how his eyes burned. Something flickered in them, that looked like a terrified, restless longing.
She noticed that as well, and quite against all rules of pedagogy she opened her arms and whispered--after it had escaped from her lips she did not know herself why she had said it, for he had everything, everything his heart desired--"You poor child!"
And he ran into her arms.
They held each other tightly, heart beating against heart. They were both sad, but neither of them knew the reason why, nor why the other one was sad.
"It's not the whipping," he murmured.
She stroked his straight hair away from his forehead with her soft hand; she did not ask him any more questions. For--did not something rise out of that field covered with snow, hover outside the window and lay its finger on its lips: "Be quiet, do not ask, do not touch it"?