The Son of His Mother Part 41

He nodded in reply and shook her hand once more, and then he went.

He preferred to go and meet Frida, that was better than sitting in that room. His heart was throbbing. Then he saw her coming towards him.

Although it was dark and the street lamps not so good as in the town, he recognised her already far off. She was wearing the same sailor hat with the blue band she had had the summer before; it was certainly rather early in the year, but it suited her--so fresh and springlike.

A feeling surged up in Wolfgang, as she stood before him, that he had never known in the presence of any woman: a brotherly feeling of great tenderness.

He greeted her in silence, but she said in a glad voice: "Oh, is it you, Wolfgang?" and held out her hand to him.

He strolled along beside her as he had done before; she had slackened her pace involuntarily. She did not know exactly on what footing they were with each other, but still she thought she could feel that he was no longer angry.

"We are going away to-morrow," he said.

"Well, I never! Where?"

And he told her.

She interrupted him in the middle. "Are you angry with me?" she asked in a low voice.

He shook his head in the negative, but he did not say anything further about it.

All she had intended saying to him, that she had not been able to do anything else, that Hans had found him out, that she had promised his mother and that she herself had been so extremely anxious about him, remained unsaid. It was not necessary. It was as if the past were dead and buried now, as if he had entirely forgotten it.

When he told the girl, who was listening with much interest, about the Riviera where he was going, something like a new pleasure in life seemed to creep into his heart again. Oh, all he wanted was to get away from his present surroundings. When he got to the Riviera everything would be better. He had not got an exact impression of what it would be like there; he had only half listened, no, he had not listened at all when his mother told him about the south, it had all been so immaterial to him. Now he felt himself that it was a good thing to take an interest in things again. He drew a deep breath.

"Are you going to send me a pretty picture post-card from there, too?" she asked.

"Of course, many." And then he laid his arm round her narrow shoulders and drew her towards him. And she let him draw her.

They stood in the public street, where the bushes that grew on both sides of it were already in bud and the elder was swelling with the first sap, and clung to each other.

"Come back quite well," she sobbed.

And he kissed her tenderly on her cheek: "Frida, I really have to thank you."

When Frida went to business next morning--it was half past seven--she said to her mother: "Now he's gone," and she remained thoughtful the whole day. She had not spoken to Wolfgang for many weeks and she had not minded it at all during the time but since the evening before she had felt sad. She had thought much of him, she could not forget him at all.

CHAPTER XVIII

Kate was alone with her son. Now she had him all to herself. What she had striven for jealously before had now been given to her. Not even nature that looked in at the windows with such alluring eyes could attract him. It surprised her--nay, it almost saddened her now--that he did not show more interest. They travelled through Switzerland--he saw it for the first time--but those high mountains, whose summits were lost in the snow and the clouds and that moved her to tears of adoring admiration the first time she saw them, hardly wrung a glance from him.

Now and then he looked out of the carriage window, but he mostly leant back in his corner reading, or dreaming with open eyes.

"Are you tired?"

"No," he said; nothing but "no," but without the surly abruptness which had been peculiar to him. His tone was no longer unpleasant and repellent.

Kate looked at her son with anxious eyes: was the journey tiring him? It was fortunate that she was with him. It seemed to her that she was indispensable, and a feeling of heartfelt satisfaction made her insensible to the fatigue of the long journey.

Wolfgang was not much interested in the cathedral at Milan. "Yes, grand," he said when she grew enthusiastic about the marvellous structure. But he would not go up to the platform with her, from which they would have a magnificent view all round as far as the distant Alps, as the weather was so clear. "You go alone, leave me here."

At first it seemed ridiculous to her that she, the old woman, should go up whilst he, the young man, remained below. But at last she could not resist the desire to see all those marvellous things again that she had already once enjoyed. She took a ticket for the platform, and he opened one of the camp stools that stand about in the enormous empty cathedral and sat down, his back against a marble pillar.

Oh, it was nice to rest here. After the market outside, with its noise and the buzzing of voices and all the gaudy colours, he found a twilight here filled with the perfume of incense. It did not disturb him that doors opened and closed, that people came in and out in crowds. That here a guide gave the visitors the information he had learnt by heart, drawling it quite loudly in a cracked voice without heeding that he meanwhile almost stumbled over the feet of those who were kneeling on low benches, confessing their sins in a whisper to a priest seated there. That there someone was celebrating ma.s.s--the priests were curtsying and ringing their bells--whilst here a cook chattered to a friend of hers, the fowls that were tied together by their legs lying beside her.

All that did not disturb him, he did not notice it even. The delicious twilight filled his senses, he was so sleepy, felt such a blessed fatigue. All the saints smiled before his closing eyes, sweet Marys and chubby little angels resembling cupids. He felt at his ease there. Milan Cathedral, that wonder of the world, lost its embarra.s.sing grandeur; the wide walls moved together, became narrow and home-like, and still they enfolded the world a peaceful world in which sinners kneel down and rise again pure. Wolfgang was seized with a great longing to kneel down there also. Oh, there it was again, the longing he had had in his boyhood. How he had loved the church their maid Cilia had taken him to. He still loved it, he loved it anew, he loved it now with a more ardent love than in those days. He felt at home in this church, he had the warm feeling of belonging to it. _Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum._ The golden monstrance gleamed as it was raised on high, those who were praying bowed low, blissful harmonies floated under the high arched dome, ever more and more beautiful--more and more softly. His eyelids closed.

And he saw Cilia--as fresh, as beautiful as life itself. Oh, how very beautiful. Surely she had not looked like that before? He knew that he was dreaming, but he was not able to shake off the dream. And she came quite close to him--oh, so close. And she made the sign of the cross--over him the organ played softly--hark, what was she saying, what was she whispering above him? He wanted to seize hold of her hand, question her, then he heard another voice:

"Wolfgang, are you asleep?"

Kate had laid her hand lightly on his hands, which were folded on his knees. "I suppose I was a long time up there? You have felt bored?"

"Oh no, no." He said it enthusiastically.

They went out of the cathedral together, whilst the organ sounded behind them until they reached the market-place. Kate was in ecstasies about the view she had had, so did not notice the mysterious radiance in Wolfgang's eyes. He was quiet, and seemed to agree to everything.

His manner began to cause his mother some uneasiness. What would have made her happy before--oh, how she had longed for a more docile child in bygone days!--saddened her now. Was he, after all, worse than they had any idea of?

They had now reached the coast, had got to Sestri. Those were the same stone pines under which she had sat and painted as a younger woman eighteen years ago. But another hotel had come into existence since then, quite a German hotel, German landlord, German waiters, German food, German society, all the comfort the Germans like. Kate had wanted to live a retired life, to devote herself to Wolfgang; but now she felt she needed a chat with this one or that one at times, for even if she and Wolfgang were together, she felt alone all the same. What was he thinking of? His brow and his eyes showed that he was thinking of something, but he did not express his thoughts. Was he low-spirited--bright? Happy--sad? Were there many things he repented of and did he ponder over them, or did he feel bored here? She did not know.

He kept away from everybody else with a certain obstinacy. It was in vain that Kate encouraged him to play tennis with young girls who were on the look-out for a partner; if he did not overdo it he might certainly try to play. He was also invited to go out sailing, but he did not seem to care for that sport any longer.

Wolfgang lay right out on the mole for the most part, against the rocky point of which the blue sea flings itself restlessly until it is a ma.s.s of white foam, and looked across at the coast near San Remo swimming in a ruddy violet vapour or back at the naked heights of the Apennines, in whose semi-circle the white and red houses of Sestri nestle.

When the fis.h.i.+ng boats glided into the harbour with slack sails like weary birds, he got up and sauntered along to meet them at the landing-place. Then he would stand there with his hands in his trouser pockets, to see what fish they brought ash.o.r.e. The catches were not large. Then he took his hands out of his pockets and gave the fishermen what money he had with him.

If his mother had known what her son was thinking of! If she had guessed that his soul flew away with weary wings like a gull drifting over a boundless sea!

Wolfgang was suffering from home-sickness. He did not like being there. Everything was much too soft, much too beautiful there; he felt bored. The stone pines with their pungent smell were the only things he liked; they were even better than the pines in the Grunewald. But he was not really longing for the Grunewald either. It was always the same, whether he was here or there he was always racked with longing.

For what? For what place? That was what he pondered over. But he would not have liked to say it to his mother, for he saw now that she did all she could for him. And he found an affectionate word to say to her more frequently than he had ever done before in his life.

So at last, at last I Kate often gave him a covert side-glance: was this the same boy who had resisted her so defiantly as a child, had refused her love, all her great love? This boy whose face had moved her so strangely in Milan Cathedral, was he the same who had lain on the doorstep drunk?--ugh, so drunk! The same who had sunk, sunk so low, that he--oh, she would not think of it any more.

Kate wanted to forget; she honestly tried to do so. When she found him in the cathedral sitting near the pillar, his hands folded, his eyelids closed dreamily, he had seemed to her so young, still touchingly young; his forehead had been smooth, as though all the lines on it had been wiped away. And she had to think: had they not expected too much of him? Had they always been just to him? Had they understood him as they ought to have understood him? Doubts arose in her mind. She had always deemed herself a good mother; since that day in the cathedral she felt as though she had failed in something. She herself could not say in what. But sadness and a large amount of self-torturing pain were mingled with the satisfaction that her son had now come to her. Ah, now he was good, now he was at least something like what she had wished him to be--softer, more tractable--but now--what pleasure had she from it now?

"Wolfgang still causes me uneasiness," she wrote to her husband.

"It's beautiful here, but he does not see it. I am often frightened."

When her husband had offered to go with them he had done so because he wished to save her in many ways--Kate had opposed it almost anxiously: no, no, it was not at all necessary. She would much prefer to be alone with Wolfgang, she considered it so much more beneficial both for him and for herself. But now she often thought of her husband, and wrote to him almost every day. And even if it were only a few lines on a postcard, she felt the need of sending him a word. He, yes he would find it just as beautiful there as she found it. As they had both found it in the old days. They had once climbed that path over the rocks together, he had given her his hand, had led her so that she should not feel dizzy, and she had eyed the blue gla.s.sy sea far below her and far above her the grey rocky promontory with the deep green stone pines that kissed the blue of the sky with a blissful shudder.

Had she grown so old in those eighteen years that she dared not go along that path any more? She had tried but it was of no use, she had been seized with a sudden dizziness. That was because the hand was not there that had supported her so firmly, so securely. Oh yes, those had been better days, happier.

Kate entirely forgot that she had coveted something so ardently in those days, that she had saddened many an hour for herself and him, embittered every enjoyment. Now she looked past the son who was strolling along by her side, looked into the distance with tender eyes in which a gleam of her lost youth still shone--her good husband, he was so alone. Did he think of her as she of him?

That evening when Wolfgang had retired to his room--what he did there, whether he still sat up reading or writing or had already gone to bed she did not know--she wrote to her husband.