ully, looked up
at the motionless tops of the pines and then around him--"Here have we
no continuing city"--could not that also mean, here is not your home?
But where then--where?

A strange gleam came into his dark eyes, a look as if seeking for
something. And then his face, which the wine had flushed, grew pale. If
it were true what the two had said? Oh, and so many other things
occurred to him all at once: there had been that Lisbeth, that horrid
woman who had been with them before Cilia came--what was all that
Lisbeth had always been babbling about when she was in a bad humour?
"You've no right here"--"you're here on sufferance"--and so on, only he
could not remember it all now. What a pity! At that time he had been
too young and too innocent, but now--now?

"Hang that woman!" He clenched his hand. But oh, if he only
had her there now. He would not call her names, oh no, he would get it
out of her quite gently and coaxingly, for he must, he must know it
now.

A violent longing, a burning curiosity had suddenly been roused in
him, and would not be repressed any longer. There must be some truth in
it, or how could they have taunted him like that? And he must know the
truth; he had a right to know it now. His figure grew taller. Self-will
and defiance engraved deep, firm lines round his mouth. And even if it
were ever so terrible, he must know it. But was it terrible? The lines
round his lips became softer. "Here have we no continuing city, but we
seek one to come"--very well then, he would seek it.

He gave up sauntering and began to stride along more quickly. What
would Frau Laemke say? And if he should ask her now--she meant so well
by him--if he should ask her in the way a man is asked when he has to
swear to anything, if he asked her whether--yes, but what was it he
really wanted to ask her?

His heart throbbed. Oh, that stupid heart. It often behaved as if it
were a wild bird that has been shut up in a small cage.

He had commenced to run again; now he had to slacken his pace. And
still he was quite breathless when he came to the Laemkes. The father
and son had gone out, but the mother and daughter were sitting there as
though waiting for him.

Frida jumped up, so that the edging she had been crocheting for the
kitchen fell to the ground, seized hold of both his hands, and her blue
eyes sparkled with admiration. "Oh, how fine you are, Wolfgang! Like a
gentleman--awfully grand."

He smiled: that was nic