But now Van der Welcke, after his first amazement, suddenly realized the boy's distress and caught him in his arms and took him on his knees, there, in the big chair:
"Addie, Addie, I swear to you, it's not true! My child, it's not true, you are my child, you are my boy, you are mine, you are mine, mine, mine!"
"Is it really true?"
"You're mine, you're mine, Addie! They lie, they lie! Good Lord! My boy, would I love you so madly, if you were not my boy?"
And he pressed his son to his breast, his two arms tightly round him.
"Papa, can I trust you?"
"Yes, yes, my boy! God! Those vile people! Who says it and why do they say it? And it's a lie, Addie; they lie, they lie. You're my child, mine, mine alone, my son and Mamma's son, my child, my darling! Would we, your two parents, your father and your mother, be so fond of you, so passionately fond of you, if it were not so?"
Now Addie believed and he burst into sobs. He sobbed freely, he could no longer restrain himself and he felt as if he were sobbing for the first time in his young life. It melted away, all his young, small, natural manliness melted away; and he became as weak as a child, because Papa assured him that he was the son of Papa and Mamma and because he believed Papa, now. He sobbed wildly on his father's chest, clutching Van der Welcke in his sturdy little arms, until both of them were nearly stifled:
"Daddy, my Daddy!" he said, in little jerks. "Am I really your child? Oh, tell me again: am I your child? The whole day long, Daddy, I believed I was not your child! The whole day long, I was walking with Frans and the Hijdrechts, thinking I was not your son. And I didn't want to come back home, because I thought I was not your son. I wanted just to go away somewhere, because I thought I was not your son. Daddy, tell me, am I your son? Oh, I should have thought it so terrible if I was not your son! I should have thought it so terrible, because I love you so and because everything would have been for nothing then, if you weren't my father. They said that my father was an Italian and that you, that you were not my father. Tell me again, Daddy: are you my father?"
"Yes, my boy, I am your father."