ed his hands to his hot
forehead--ah, now he noticed he had not even a cap on. But what did
that matter? He was free, free! He hurried on, shouting with glee, and
then he got terrified at the sound of his own loud voice: hush, be
quiet! Let him only not be shut up again, let him be free, free!

He did not feel any more longing now. He was filled with a great
repose, with a boundless happiness. His eyes sparkled--he opened them
wide--he could not stare enough at the world, it was as though he saw
it for the first time to-day. He ran up to the trunks that seemed to be
supporting the heavens, and threw both arms round them; he pressed his
face against the resinous bark. Was it not soft? Did it not
cling to his glowing cheek like a caressing hand?

He threw himself down on the moss and stretched his limbs and tossed
from side to side in high glee, and then jumped up again--he did not
like being there, after all--he must look about, enjoy his liberty.

A single red stripe over the wood that was turning blue still showed
where the sun had been, when he became conscious of his actual
whereabouts for the first time. Here the former high-road from Spandau
to Potsdam had been; ruddy brown and yellow chestnuts formed an avenue
through the desolate country. The sand lay a foot deep in the ruts that
were seldom used now. Ah, from here you came to Potsdam or Spandau,
according to the road you took--alas, could you not already hear cocks
crowing and a noise as of wheels turning slowly?

Deciding quickly, the boy turned off from the old high-road to the
left, crept through a bent barbed wire fence, that was to protect a
clearing which had lately been replanted, bounded like a stag over the
small plants that were hardly a hand's-breadth high, and looked out for
a cover.

He did not require any, nobody came there. He walked more slowly
between the small trees; he took care not to tread on them, stooped
down and examined them, measured them out by steps as a farmer does his
furrows.

And all at once it was evening. A mist had crept over the earth,
light and hardly visible at first, then it had risen and increased in
size, had slipped across the piece of clearing on the night wind that
was coming up, and had hung on to each gnarl like the beckoning veils
of spectres.

But Wolfgang was not afraid; he did not feel any terror.
What could happen to him there, where the distant whistle of a train
was only heard at intervals, and where