e
storm.

A flight of birds swam through the sea of mist. They rowed to the
right, they rowed to the left, looked down uneasily at the strange
carriage, remained poised above it for some moments with wings spread
out ready to strike it to the ground, and then uttered their cry, the
startled, penetrating cry of a wild bird. There was nothing triumphant
about it to-day--it sounded like a lamentation.

And the Venn wept. Large drops fell from the mist. The mist itself
turned into tears, to slowly falling and then to rushing, streaming,
never-ending tears.

CHAPTER VI

The Schliebens had reached Berlin safely. Kate was exhausted when she
got out of the train; her hair was untidy, she did not look quite so
smart as usual. It had been no trifle to make that long journey with
the child. But they had been fortunate hi finding a good nurse so
quickly in Cologne--a widow, fond of children and experienced, a
typical, comfortable-looking nurse; however, the mother had had enough
to see to all the same. Had the child caught cold, or did it not like
its bottle? It had cried with all the strength of its lungs--no
carrying about, rocking, dandling, singing to it had been of any
avail--it had cried with all its might the whole way to Berlin.

But, thank goodness, now they were at home. And everything was
arranged as quickly as if by magic. True, the comfortable house they
had had before was let, but there was villa after villa in the
Grunewald, and, as they required so much more room now, they moved into
one of those. They rented it to begin with. Later on they would no
doubt buy it, as it was quite impossible to take a child like this one
into a town. It would have to have a garden.

They called him Wolfgang. "Wolf" had something so concise, vigorous,
energetic about it, and--Kate gave a slight happy shudder as she
thought of it--it was like a secret memory of the Venn, of that
desolate spot over which they had triumphed, and to which they made
only this slight concession. And did not "Woelfchen"--if they made
that the diminutive of Wolf--sound extremely affectionate?

"Woelfchen"--the young mother said it about a hundred times every
day.

The young mother? Oh yes, Kate felt young. Her child had made her
young again, quite young. Nobody would have taken her for thirty-five,
and she herself least of all. How she could run, how she could fly
upstairs when they said: "The child is awake. It's screaming for its
bottle."