If only she could see him. But she dared not light a candle. What should she say to her husband if he, awakened by the light, asked her what she was doing there? And Woelfchen would also wake and ask her what she wanted. Yes, what did she really want? She had no answer ready even for herself. She would only have liked to know what was occupying his mind in his dream to such an extent that he sighed and struggled. Of what was he dreaming? Of whom? Where was he in his dream? She trembled as she stood at his bedside on her bare feet listening. And then she bent over him so closely that his breath, uneven and hot, blew into her face, and she breathed on him again--did not they mingle their breath in that manner? Was she not giving him breath of her breath in that manner?--and whispered softly and yet so earnestly, imploringly and at the same time urgently: "Your mother is here, your mother is near you." But he threw himself over to the other side with a jerk, turned his back on her and mumbled something. Nothing but incomprehensible words, rarely anything that was distinct, but even that was enough; she felt he was not there, not with her, that he was far away. Did his soul seek the home he did not know in his dreams? that he could not even know about, and that still had such a powerful influence that it drew him there even unconsciously? Kate stood at Wolfgang's bedside tortured by such an anxiety as she had never felt before: a mother and still not mother. Alas, she was only a strange woman at the bedside of a strange child. She crept back to her bed and buried her throbbing brows deep in the pillows. She felt her heart beat tumultuously, and she scolded herself for allowing her thoughts to dwell on such unavailing things. She did not change anything by it, it only made her weary and sad. When Kate rose after such a night she felt her husband's eyes resting on her anxiously, and her hands trembled as she coiled up her thick hair. It was fortunate that she dropped a hair-pin, then she could stoop quickly and withdraw her tired face with the dark lines under the eyes from his scrutinising glance. "I'm not at all satisfied with my wife's health again," Paul Schlieben complained to the doctor. "She's in a terribly nervous state again." "Really?" Dr. Hofmann's friendly face became energetic. "I'll tell you one thing, my dear friend, you must take vigorous measures against it at once." "That's no use." The man shook his head. "I know my wife. It's the boy's doing, that confounded boy!" And he took Wolfgang in hand. "Now listen, you must not always be worrying your mother like that. If I notice once more that she is grieving about you because you are naughty, you shall see what I'll do to you."