Did he worry his mother? Wolfgang looked very blank. And surely it was not naughty of him to want to go to the Laemkes? It worried him to have to sit indoors, whilst the wind was whistling outside and playing about with one's hair in such a jolly manner. And it worried him, too, that he was not going to the Laemkes that day. "Well then, go," said Kate. She even drove into Berlin before dinner and bought a doll, a pretty doll with fair locks, eyes that opened and shut, and a pink dress. "Take it to Frida for her birthday when you go," she said in the afternoon, putting it into the boy's hands. "Stop! Be careful!" He had seized hold of it impetuously, he was so delighted to be able to bring Frida something. And in a rare fit of emotion--he was no friend of caresses--he put up his face in an outburst of gratitude and let his mother kiss him. He did not want her kiss, but he submitted to it, she felt that very well, but still she was glad, and she followed him with her eyes with a smile that lighted up her whole face. "But you must be home again before dark," she called out to him at the last moment. Had he heard her? How he ran off, as light-footed as a stag. She had never seen any child run so quickly. He threw up his straight legs that his heels touched his thighs every time. The wind blew his broad-brimmed sailor hat back, then he tore it off and ran on bareheaded, he was in such a hurry. What was it that drew him so powerfully to those people? The smile disappeared from Kate's face; she left the window. Wolfgang was happy. He was sitting with the Laemkes, in the room in which they also did the cooking when the weather was cold. The parents' bed was divided off by means of a curtain, Frida slept on the sofa, and Artur in the little room next to it in which were also kept the shovels and brooms which Laemke used for cleaning the house and street. It was not winter yet, still pleasant autumn, but the room was already warm and cosy. The stronger smell of the coffee, which Frau Laemke was making in the large enamelled pot, mingled with the delicate fragrance of the pale monthly rose and carnation, myrtle and geranium, which had been pushed close to the window that was almost level with the ground and were all in flower. At home Wolfgang never got coffee, but he got some there; and he sipped it as he saw the others do, only he was even more delighted with it than they. And no fine pastry had ever tasted so good as did that plain bun, that was more like bread than like a cake. He ate it with his mouth open, and when Mrs. Laemke pushed a second one to him, the guest of honour, he took it with radiant eyes.