“No, you must obey Sofi!”
“But mummie, why must I always go to bed when people come?”
“That’s enough. Run away now. I’m in a hurry!”
He went slowly, looking troubled, but he stopped at the door:
“May I sit and play in bed a little at least?”
“All right, but run away now!”
Then Georg went to bed. And in bed he sat and drew a picture of his mummie as a hobgoblin. But then he grew frightened of what he had done and drew her as a princess. And when Sofi came to pull down the blind he lay awake in the twilight and listened to the guests. He was accustomed to lie in the darkness and enjoy Laura’s parties through closed doors.
Georg had not always been so lonely.
Just after the divorce, whilst Laura still felt her position to be delicate, she had cultivated the ladies, well knowing that it is they who make one’s position. Then she availed herself of every opportunity to pose as a deserted mother with her little baby. But her baby grew up and the ladies bored Laura. Nor did they feel very much drawn to Laura. It was not that she made any mistakes. On the contrary, at first she was very careful about her reputation. But she made her friends restless in some way. They did not like to see her entertain their husbands. They gradually held aloof. Only the eccentrics and the bohemians among them remained faithful to her, including a fashionable woman sculptor and a middle-aged baroness who wrote causeries on the fashions.
Thus there were mostly men at Laura’s little parties. She realized this with a shrug of her shoulders, a contented shrug. As a matter of fact she always felt at home with men. But little Georg was not an additional attraction for them. He was still exhibited now and then as an almost newborn babe. But in the end the sweet little baby grew too long in legs. And then Laura began to keep him out of sight. She came to think of him more and more as a tiresome encumbrance. She even grew ashamed of this reminder of her age and of her past. Georg was under the care of untidy, uncontrolled and incessantly changing nurses. When Laura was travelling she boarded him out with strangers wherever she might happen to be. And when she entertained he was put to bed to be out of the way.