The Son of His Mother

The husband and wife were of a literary turn of mind, and as they had the money to cultivate their artistic tastes he wrote a little and she painted. They also played and sang d...

But it seemed to the woman as though every joy had disappeared with the emerald green meadow in the Alps, in which she had painted the lovely children. There was the same old ne...

The vestryman of the small village in the Venn felt somewhat surprised and embarrassed when such a fine lady and gentleman drove up to his house and wished to speak to him. He w...

Like all the houses in the village, the Solheids' cottage stood quite alone behind a hedge that reached as high as the gable. But the hedge, which was to protect it against the...

They had hastened away with the child as though they were running away. They had bundled it into the carriage--quick, quick--the coachman had whipped up the horses, the wheels h...

The Schliebens had reached Berlin safely. Käte 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...

Those were days of the purest happiness at the Schliebens'. The villa had been bought now, some rooms had been built on to it, and another piece of land had been added to the ga...

It was Frida Lämke's birthday. "If you may come we are to have buns with raisins in, but if you mayn't there'll only be rolls like we have every day," she said to her friend Wol...

The boy's friendship with the Lämkes was restricted. Her boy should never go there again. In a manner Käte had grown jealous of the woman who spoke of such improper things and d...

Käte did not know herself how she got over those weeks in which she was separated from her home. It was not so bad as she had imagined. She felt that a greater tranquillity had...

The woman was quite taken aback: was that Wolfgang? He was hardly to be recognised after his illness so approachable. And although he had always been a good boy, he had never be...

Frida Lãmke had now been confirmed. She wore a dress that almost touched the ground, and when she saw Wolfgang Schlieben for the first time after a long interval, her greeting w...

The lonely woman pressed her hands to her temples with a shudder. How they throbbed, and how her thoughts--torturing thoughts--hurried along, madly, restlessly, like the hasty t...

Paul Schlieben was sitting in his private office, in the red armchair he had had placed there for his comfort. But he was not leaning back in it, he was sitting very uncomfortab...

"Wolfgang not here again?" said Paul Schlieben as he joined his wife in her room. "He comes so little to the office too. They always assure me that he has just been--but why doe...

They had agreed that Wolfgang should not live at the villa with them any longer. True, he was still very young, but the time for independence had come, his parents realised. Two...

Whenever Frida Lämke met Wolfgang Schlieben now, she cast down her eyes and he pretended not to see her. He was angry with her: the confounded little minx to betray him. She was...

Käte was alone with her son. Now she had him all to herself. What she had striven for jealously before had now been given to her. Not even nature that looked in at the windows w...