"You've been wrongly informed. If I had had my way, I would have told you the truth long ago. But as the right moment--unfortunately--has been neglected, I will tell you it to-day. I tell you it--on my word of honour, as one man speaking to another--I am not your father, just as little as she is your mother. You have nothing to do with us by birth, nothing whatever. But we have adopted you as our child because we wanted to have a child and had not one. We took you from----" "Paul!" Kate fell on her husband's breast with a loud cry, as she had done at the time when he wanted to disclose something to the boy, because he was indignant at his ingratitude. She clasped her arms round his neck, she whispered hastily, passionately in his ear with trembling breath: "Don't tell him from where. For God's sake not from where. Then he'll go away, then I shall lose him entirely. I can't bear it--have mercy, have pity on me--only don't tell him from where." He wanted to push her away, but she would not let go of him. She repeated her weeping, stammering entreaty, her trembling, terrified, desperate prayer: only not from where, only not from where. He felt a great compassion for her. His poor, poor wife--was this to happen to her? And then he was filled with anger against the boy, who stood there so bold--arrogant--yes, arrogant--who demanded where he had to ask, and looked at them unmoved with large, cold eyes. His voice, which had hitherto been grave but gentle whilst speaking to Wolfgang, now became severe: "Besides, I won't allow you to question me in this manner." "I have a right to question you." "Yes, you have." The man was quite taken aback. Yes, the lad had the right. It was quite clear who was wrong. And so he said, thinking better of it and in a more friendly voice again: "But even if you are not our son by birth, I think the training and the care you have received from our hands during all these years have made you our child in spirit. Come, my son--and even if they all say you are not our son, I tell you you are our son in truth." "No," he said. And then he walked slowly backwards to the door, his dry eyes fixed on those he had called parents for so long. "Boy, where are you going? Stop!" the man called after him in a kind voice. The boy was certainly in a terrible position, they must have patience with him. And he called out once more "Stop, Wolfgang!" But Wolfgang shook his head: "I cannot. You have deceived me. Let me go." He shook off the man's hand that he had laid on his sleeve with a violent gesture. And then he screamed out like a wounded animal: "Why do you still worry me? Let me go, I want to think of my mother--where is she?" BOOK III CHAPTER XIII The clocks in the house ticked terribly loudly. They could be heard through the silence of the night like warning voices.