arents'
child or not? Why should he not be their child? Yes, he was their
child--no, he was not. But why not? If he was not their real child,
would he be very sorry? No, no!--but still, it terrified him.

The perspiration stood out on the excited boy's body, and still he
felt icy-cold. He drew the cover up and shook as though with fever. His
heart behaved strangely too, it fluttered in his breast as though with
restless wings. Oh, if only he could sleep and forget everything. Then
there would be no thought of it next day, and everything would be as it
had always been.

He pressed his eyes together tightly, but the sleep he had driven
away did not come again. He heard the clocks strike, the old clock
resounded hi the dining-room downstairs, and the bronze one called from
his mother's room with its silvery voice. The silence of the night
exaggerated every sound; he had never heard the clocks strike so loudly
before.

Was the morning never coming? Was it not light yet? He longed for
the day to come, and still he dreaded it. All at once he was seized
with an inexplicable terror--why, what was it he feared so much?

If only he were already at church--no, if only it were all over. He
was filled with reluctance, a sudden disinclination. The same thought
continued to rush madly through his brain, and his heart rushed with
it; it was impossible to collect his thoughts. He sighed as he
tossed and turned on his bed; he felt so extremely lonely, terrified,
nay, persecuted.

_If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in
hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea_--alas, he could not escape
from that thought, it was everywhere and always, always there.

As the morning sun stole through the shutters that were still closed
on Palm Sunday, forcing its way into the room in delicate, golden rays,
Kate came into her son's room. She was pale, for she had been
struggling with herself the whole night: should she tell him something,
now that he was to enter upon this new chapter of his life or should
she tell him nothing? Something within her whispered: "The day has
come, tell him it, you owe it to him"--but when the morning sun
appeared she bade the voice of the night be silent. Why tell him it?
What did it matter to him? What he did not know could not grieve him;
but if he knew it, then--perhaps he would then--oh, God, she must keep
silent, she coul