“My boy, my own boy!.... Well, you see, when your father had got so far ... then he felt....”
“What?”
“That he cared more for you ... than for Marianne, poor darling. Differently, you know, but more. Much more. Poor darling!”
A passion of joy swept through the lad; his chest, on which his father’s head lay, heaved. But he felt that it was wicked to have that joy:
“Dad, once more, if it means your happiness....”
“No, old chap ... for there would be something severed in me, something broken: I don’t know how to put it. I should miss you all the time that you were not with me. I couldn’t do it, Addie. It’s an impossibility, Addie.... You know, old chap, I oughtn’t to talk like this to a son of fifteen. Fifteen? No, you’re only fourteen. Well, you look sixteen. But that’s nothing to do with it. I oughtn’t to talk like this. I’m a queer father, eh, Addie? I don’t give you a proper upbringing: I just let you go your own way. Lord, old chap, I can’t do it, I can’t give you a proper upbringing! I shouldn’t know how. You’ll bring yourself up, won’t you? You’re sure to be good and clever and honourable and all the rest of it. I don’t know how, you see: I just let you run wild, like a colt in a meadow. Well, you promise me to turn out all right, don’t you? To do nothing mean and so on? You know, if Grandpapa were to hear all this, were to hear me talking like this, he would think it very odd. And it is odd. It’s not right. But your father, Addie, is like that: he’s hopeless, quite hopeless. So now you know all about it. I couldn’t do it.... Poor Marianne, poor darling! But she’s young still; she’ll have her happiness one day, a different happiness.... Well, Addie, tell Mamma to-morrow. Tell her I would rather, if Mamma agrees, leave everything as it is, old chap, even though it’s not always a paradise, that I’d rather leave everything as it is, old chap, for your sake ... and also for my own: I could never do without you for six months. You may be going away quite soon: Leiden ... and then your service ... but, for the present ... for the present.... Will you tell Mamma to-morrow? Those serious conversations make me feel so tired ... in my head. I would rather cycle for a week on end without stopping than spend one day thinking as I have done to-day.... And now I’m going to bed, old chap, for I’m dead tired....”
He caught his son in his arms, held him closely, kissed him and went away abruptly. The boy remained alone in the dark room. The yellow shaft of light from the other villa died away. The house was quite silent; the servants had gone to bed. And the boy stayed on, knowing all the time that his parents upstairs, in their own rooms, were still separated, in spite of so much that might have united them; he sat there, still and silent, staring out into the hot summer night, through which the trees loomed like ghostly giants, sombre and oppressive....
Yet his soul was flooded with a great joy: his father loved him best!