There was nobody in the great Metropolis, not anywhere else on earth who could have boasted ever having seen Joh Fredersen with sunken brow.
“I need your advice, mother,” he said, looking at the floor.
The mother’s eyes rested on his hair.
“How shall I advise you, Joh? You have taken a path along which I cannot follow you—not with my head, and certainly not with my heart. Now you are so far away from me that my voice can no longer reach you. And if it were able to reach you, Joh, would you listen to me were I to say to you: Turn back—? You did not do it then and would not do it to-day. Besides, all too much has been done which cannot be undone, you have done all too much wrong, Joh, and do not repent, but believe yourself to be in the right. How can I advise you then...?”
“It is about Freder, mother...?”
“... about Freder?”
“Yes.”
“What about Freder....”
Joh Fredersen did not answer immediately.
His mother’s hands trembled greatly, and, if Joh Fredersen had looked up, the fact could not have remained hidden from him. But Joh Fredersen’s forehead remained sunken upon his hands.