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316 sobbed freely, he could no longer restrain himself and he felt as if he were sobbing for the first time in his young life. It melted away, all his young, small, natural manliness melted away; and he became as weak as a child, because Papa assured him that he was the son of Papa and Mamma and because he believed Papa, now. He sobbed wildly on his father’s chest, clutching Van der Welcke in his sturdy little arms, until both of them were nearly stifled:

“Daddy, my Daddy!” he said, in little jerks. “Am I really your child? Oh, tell me again: am I your child? The whole day long, Daddy, I believed I was not your child! The whole day long, I was walking with Frans and the Hijdrechts, thinking I was not your son. And I didn’t want to come back home, because I thought I was not your son. I wanted just to go away somewhere, because I thought I was not your son. Daddy, tell me, am I your son? Oh, I should have thought it so terrible if I was not your son! I should have thought it so terrible, because I love you so and because everything would have been for nothing then, if you weren’t my father. They said that my father was an Italian and that you, that you were not my father. Tell me again, Daddy: are you my father?”

“Yes, my boy, I am your father.”

He said it now with such conviction that Addie believed him absolutely. But the child still clasped his father to him, as though he would never let him go.