Volume 19 — GAY HEARTS (1909) (continued 2)

"This piece, Countess, if you please," he said, laying a chicken- wing on Billy's plate; "this is a Spanish fowl: my mother is interested in special breeds. But Boris, you are not saying anything, tu n'es pas en train, mon vieux, you are wrong, brother. You have every reason to be of good cheer, a tremendous lot of reason," and he bowed slightly toward Billy, "but we'll manage that all right. Wolf, come here with some of your sinful champagne. You know, our friend Wolf always has champagne on tap, and uses it to bring happiness by secret routes to the barbarians beyond the border."

Billy could not eat; the blue-and-white plates, the knives and forks, the tablecloth, were all repugnant to her. Yonder behind the counter the Jewess was still sitting, her yellow, regular face unmoved; the almond eyes looked at Billy indifferently, proudly, and patiently, seeming to say, "I endure you because I must." These eyes tortured Billy, she felt as if she had never been so looked at. She forced herself to look away from those eyes, and to listen to Ladislas Worsky, who continued his conversation with ardor. Now he was speaking of literature:

"Bourget, oh yes, of course very fine, but he tries to analyze the female heart, like sticking butterflies on pins, but that is just the one thing in this world that cannot be analyzed. You do not know Bourget, Countess? Ah yes, young German ladies do not read novels, they read nothing but Schiller. Well, your Schiller ..."

Billy was grateful to him for thus entertaining her, for the hyper-elegance of his movements, for the white cuffs which he kept incessantly pulling out of his coat-sleeves, and for the slender, feminine, beringed hands. All this put something familiar, something homelike into this alien, hostile environment. Billy answered, laughed a little, endeavored to act as if she were sitting on the porch at Kadullen, even imitated a little the lady-of-the-world manners of her sister Lisa. The champagne was brought.

"There, a different expression, if you please, brother," cried Ladislas to Boris, pouring out the wine. "But he is always that way," turning to Billy, "je connais mon Boris. If something alters his program, his good humor is gone: he always used to spoil half of every Sunday for us with his bad humor, only because the next day was Monday. Well, that couldn't be helped. In our senior year we had a comrade named Andreijsky, you remember, Boris, a mad, merry fellow. All of a sudden he shoots himself. Why! There was talk of sickness and such things. No, I know he shot himself because the vacation was over, simply because the vacation was over, for he hated school like sin. Boris is just like that too."

"I beg your pardon," remarked Boris.

"There, there," said Ladislas, "don't be vexed, brother, you have no cause for it. Tomorrow morning the bridge will be fixed again, and here you are in safety, in the most charming society, the happiest of men: so let us clink glasses, to your health, Countess! to the fulfilment of all wishes!"

They clinked glasses. Boris smiled faintly, and that stimulated Ladislas. "That's right, old boy. You see, Countess, I am such a harmless fellow that when I see somebody else happy it is like an intoxication to me. I never experience anything, but I feel as if this were my adventure, as if you and I, well, all one--" He sprang up from his chair, seized his glass, and began to sing:

Champagne, when thou dost Set our blood whirling, etc.

He sang in a pleasant baritone and with theatrical flourishes. The Jew cried "bravo" and clapped softly. The swarm of Jewish children again appeared in the doorway, and looked into the room out of large, piercing eyes. Boris and Billy listened smiling, and only the face of the Jewess remained impassive, looking with weary scorn at the three yonder by the table.

The light-hearted strains of Mozart's melody filled the room as it were with something splendid and precious. Boris rocked lightly on his chair, beat time on the table with his fingers, and when Ladislas had finished he nodded and said, "Yes, yes, brother, that was the right choice."

"Don't you say so?" cried Ladislas. He was so overjoyed at the effect of his song that he embraced Boris and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he again sat down at the table and filled the glasses. "Permit me, Countess," he said, "to kiss your hand: I am so happy to be permitted to share this happiness here."

Boris laughed a little compassionately. "That was always your forte, my good Ladislas. Sharing. Do you remember how you were forbidden wine for a time as a student, and still were always drunk on your soda-water sooner than we on our wine, out of sheer sympathy? You were born to be happy by proxy."

"Bravo," cried Ladislas, "un mot charmant. You are beginning to be witty again, thank heaven, and you have every reason to,--any one that stands like you on the high end of the see-saw, nor stands alone--quite the contrary."

Boris grew serious again. "All very well, but perhaps we must talk business a little, after all."

But Ladislas was outraged. "Mercy, brother! Why should we talk business! Why should we bore the Countess that way? And what is to be said?--everything is arranged, and everything will go smoothly; no, I know something better, we'll have a little game, here are some cards, I brought them with me. You play, Countess, do you not? Any game at all."

No, Billy played no games, but she would look on; she begged the gentlemen to play. She leaned back against the sofa, the over-heated air and the wine making her head heavy, making her sleepy and quiet; Ladislas' "everything will go smoothly" rang agreeably in her ears. Of course, if only she could sleep now.

"Then a bit of écarté," said Ladislas, shuffling the cards. "You see, Countess, I am very fond of cards. Why? Because card-games are symbolic. Cut, Boris, please."

Billy could not help it, she put her hand to her mouth and yawned.

"You are weary, child," said Boris, "lie down a while."

"To be sure," cried Ladislas, "everything has been provided for." He jumped up and opened the door to a side room: "At your pleasure. But first, Countess, permit me to take leave of you: I shall ride away again at once, for I must be at home early, so that my mother shall find no traces of my nocturnal adventure." He kissed Billy's hand: "I thank you, Countess, for the happiness of these hours." There was so much feeling in his words that Billy was almost touched.

In the side room a candle was burning dimly on a commode. White and gilt china vases stood there full of paper roses, and on the wall hung a Jewish kissing-tablet. But most of the space in the room was taken up by two enormous beds, on which mountains of feather-beds towered high in red cotton cases.

"Yes, lie down," said Boris, brushing his hand across Billy's hair, "Oh Billy, if you would feel as I do."

"Why do you say that I don't," answered Billy a trifle vexed, "that is unkind."

"No, no, I am not unkind," said Boris, "sleep now, I must discuss a number of things with Ladislas."

Billy lay down on the bed and Boris went out. She heard the two young men talking outside; at first they seemed to be playing cards, then they whispered eagerly in the Polish language, rapidly and with many hissing sounds. Billy closed her eyes and lay there motionless, wishing to sleep, but it seemed to her as if something stood beside her, something threatening that was trying to steal up on her, and it seemed as if she must wake, as if she must be on her guard. Again she opened her eyes: the candle-flame was lightly stirred by a draught, somewhere in the house a child was whimpering,--a soft, unspeakably mournful sound,--and round about her lay the red feather-beds with their disagreeable voluptuous swellings, exhaling a sweetish odor of dust. They cast great shadows on the wall, and the round soft shapes quivered gently. Billy shook in boundless disgust: why was she here, what had she to do here? Ah yes, she loved Boris, that was it. Well, how had that been?--could she not feel it again, that hot sensation of compassion and longing which changed everything in her, gave her courage for all possibilities, and made the utterly impossible a matter of course. Even for that she was too tired now. She wanted to sleep now--somewhere where it would be quiet and secure and clean. She closed her eyes again, so as not to see this room, and tried to think of home, but these thoughts also gave her no rest, but pained her. So she wished to think of something quite peaceful, something that could make no reproaches: of the furniture in the sun-parlor, standing in the darkness under their white cotton covers, or of the great bouquets of flowers which were withering there in the vases, and showering their petals on the table with a very soft rustle. Yes, she would think of those, only of those things.

Yet she must have slept a little after all, for as she now started up it seemed to her as if she had been away somewhere where she was quite safe and where she heard familiar voices, and now she was again falling abruptly into this alien dream. It was still here, this room with the stuffy air, the walls with the gently quivering shadows, and the soft red cushions sat round about her waiting, as if they were still present and must be continued in her dreams. And then some one else stood there before the bed, quite motionless. It was Boris, but he too strangely alien and uncanny. The flickering light of the candle sent shadows driving across his face, and it seemed as if it were being distorted and only the dark specks of eyes were unswervingly fixed on her. Weary and discouraged Billy leaned back on the pillows and closed her eyes.

"What has happened," she said quite softly.

"Nothing has happened," answered Boris similarly.

"Is he gone?" queried Billy further.

"Yes, Ladislas is gone."

"Why do you stand there so?"

When Boris did not answer, Billy repeated the question in a whimpering, wailing tone. Then she heard him sink down beside the bed. He flung his arms about her, she felt his face lying cold and heavy on her breast, and felt a strange quiver shake his body, as if he were weeping.

"Didn't you say everything would be all right?" said Billy, and again her voice sounded tearful and vexed. "Why don't you speak? I don't know anything, I thought I must be with you, and that is why I went with you. Didn't you say everything would be all right?"

Boris clung more tightly to Billy's arm and pulled himself up; the upper part of his body rested on her, his face quite close to hers, and now he kissed her with dry hungry lips.

"Yes," he whispered, "everything will be well if you but wish it so. But I am so terribly afraid of one thing ..."

"You are afraid too," replied Billy dully, "well, then--"

"No, listen," continued Boris, and his whispers became strangely hot and passionate, "if you but will. I am afraid of tomorrow, when it grows gray and bright and we must do something and must be burdened with care, and people will come and everything will be so ugly, the others and we, and our love,--O Billy, I have never been able to endure the first morning after such a happiness--"

"Why, we can't help the morning's coming," said Billy, still in her vexed tone.

"Oh yes, we can," said Boris breathless with emotion, and his hands closed around Billy's shoulders so tightly that it hurt her. "We are together, aren't we?--and we can be so happy, so happy, that we shall not wish to see another morning. That we can do. You will see. Come, you and I, and then nothing but dying will be endurable." He stammered this, bent down quite close to her, his face pale and ominous, and his hands pulling feverishly at Billy's dress.

"Why, how can we die?" responded Billy wearily.

"How--is all one," answered Boris impatiently, "you will see, we cannot go on living then."

Billy opened her eyes and looked at Boris keenly and anxiously. "Have you that terrible little revolver that you showed me in the garden at home, and that you said was your friend?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, but why speak of it," replied Boris impatiently, "we are thinking only of ourselves now, of our happiness. Will you, tell me! We are together, each beside the other, and there is nothing here but us, and we had rather die than let anything else come near us."

Billy raised herself a trifle, and pushed Boris's hands, which were ardently passing over her body, away from her like something irksome. Her eyes grew wide and bright with fear, but her lips quivered as in a mocking and slightly contemptuous smile: "Be happy--here among these ugly red cushions. Oh, please leave me now. You--you are like the rest of the things here, I am afraid of you too!"

Boris released Billy and raised himself up. Now he knelt beside the bed, dropped his arms limply, and gnawed at his under lip. His face wore an expression of grieved disappointment. Billy again leaned back on the pillows, turned her face to the wall, and closed her eyes. Motionless she lay there like a frightened child and listened intently for the slightest sound.

Boris was silent for a time, but once he said, "Why Billy," and this was once more the voice she knew; something in it breathed upon her like the odorous exhalation of the garden at home, and the Boris she knew and the Billy she knew, and their love--all this was present again for a moment. She felt like turning around, but she only closed her eyes the tighter, knowing that if she opened them everything would be gone in spite of herself. She heard herself say, with a sullen, superior air, "Die?--no, certainly not. If that is all you can think of!"

Boris was silent again, and Billy waited in anxious suspense. Then she heard him get up, take a few steps, murmuring to himself, "Well, that's another thing, nothing to be done," and then walked slowly and hesitatingly from the room. She could hear that he merely pulled the door to, and that he walked up and down in the adjoining room, stood still, poured something into a glass, and then walked up and down again. She listened attentively to the soft, restless creaking of those steps, listening with that agonizing wakefulness with which we follow something that threatens us, that is about to attack us. For this sound grew strangely expressive. Billy thought she could hear in it quick, angry words, a voice that discontentedly muttered abusive epithets to itself. Then when the rhythm of this voice changed, Billy held her breath with agitation. "Now he is walking on tiptoe," she thought, "now he is approaching the door." Boris cautiously reentered the room and stood still at the foot of the bed. She heard distinctly the faint clink of the charm on his watch-chain, then came utter stillness. Billy did not budge, but waited with the resignation we feel in dreams, upon which we unconsciously base the hope that waking will come and free us from the events of the dream.

Boris began to speak in a hollow, weary voice: "Of course you are not asleep. You are trying to deceive me. Do not let me disturb you, I pray! I never ask a second time. Either people understand me or they do not. You do not understand me: very well, very well, it is always the same story. You women never do understand." He paused and it was strange enough to see how the girlish face with the closed eyes and the tightly clenched lips flushed and paled. "All that surprises me," continued Boris, "is that you came here at all. To be proper, we do not need to come here. Yes, but that is always the way: we think that together we stand on a very high plane, high above everything small and foolish; we think that the great moment is coming now, for which we have been waiting a lifetime; and then it comes to naught again, one is alone after all, and you, you have stayed down below there in the world of--of--Madame Bonnechose."

He was silent again, and Billy thought: "Was he laughing then?" There had been something in his voice that sounded like that. She pressed her eyelids more tightly together; not for the world would she have seen that sad and proud smile of which she had always been afraid, even at moments when she loved Boris most ardently. Boris took a few steps, then stood still again: "Only load myself with responsibility, and have nothing for it?--no thanks! Out of what could have been very beautiful and great you make something ugly and silly. That's a game I won't play. I don't understand being ridiculous, we Poles have no talent for that." Again he paced awhile, again he waited; yes, he was waiting, Billy knew he was, but not for a moment did the thought come to her that she might open her eyes, speak to him, or call him back: she had but one idea, to lie quite still and not move, then perhaps this too would pass. Boris was now at the door; she heard the soft creaking of the rusty hinges, and on the threshold he stopped to say in a voice that sounded strangely alien and altered, the voice of a man who is all alone somewhere or other, and who is speaking to himself sadly and hopelessly, "No, not that, I am so tired of having nothing but misunderstandings to live for." He went out and pulled the door to again, and Billy heard him stride to and fro in the adjoining room, and then fling himself on the old cracking sofa.

The thunderstorm was over, and a fine rain trickled down quietly and evenly, beating quite gently on the window-panes. Billy still lay there very quietly. Why should she move? Why should she open her eyes? Round about her was nothing that belonged to her, nothing that partook of her, nothing that she felt to be Life. A feeling of aloneness, never before experienced, took physical hold upon her, something that made her ill, that chilled her.

Boris had spoken in his strangely altered voice of being happy and dying. These words she had heard once before, at home among the currant bushes, but there it had had a different sound, there it had sounded sad and sultry and sweet; she had understood it there, and it seemed to her to be something possible and easy, if Boris wished it. But to die--here, that was incomprehensible and repulsive like everything else here: for that was just the result of this terribly puzzling feeling of loneliness which was icily creeping over her. She must lie here, and life was infinitely far away; she saw it like a spot quite yellow with sunshine, quite gay with autumn flowers, and familiar figures were passing through this sunshine: before the wash-house knelt the washwoman with her white apron, at the bed of carnations knelt the gardener with his yellow straw hat, and under the pear-tree stood her father, drawing the scent of the early pears and the plums into his long white nose.

Billy saw this, felt it, smelt it, and yet all of it was living without her: or rather, she herself was there, and she could see herself, also her love was there, Boris, and everything, but she could not cross over to join herself there. Billy raised herself, her eyes wide open, her mouth very red against the white face, and about her lips the resolute, obstinate lines which they were wont to assume when Billy felt that she must have something for which she longed.

She climbed softly out of the bed, crept to the unclosed door and peeped through the crack. Boris was lying asleep on the sofa. His tangled hair hung down on his forehead, and his pale face wore the grief-stricken and at the same time helpless expression with which sound sleep overspreads a face. On the table stood the champagne bottle and a half-emptied glass. The candle had burned very low, and the only sound in the room was a faint moaning that issued from Boris's half-open mouth, wailing and then changing to short, high-pitched, and as it were mocking sounds. Billy cautiously pulled the door shut. Then she bustled about, took her cloak and hat, went to the window, and opened it. The draught put out the candle; outside it still seemed dark, the rain was whispering in the gloom, the great pines were rustling, a deep, loud rustle, a glorious untrammeled breath from a breast of infinite capacity, and Billy too had to breathe, quite deeply, before she swung herself upon the window-sill and jumped out.

The wind drove the rain into her face and took her breath. One moment she stood there, bending forward slightly, like one who stands in the ocean waiting for a wave to break over him. Then she ran into the darkness with firm, obstinate steps. On the wet road lay a dull, dead light. Billy followed it. Water leaped up against her legs with a splash when she stepped into the puddles, and from her hat tiny cold rivulets trickled down inside the collar of her cloak. Everything was against her, everything that whispered, gurgled, snickered, and murmured round about her, was hostile. It was frightful, and she was frightened, but she had expected nothing else and she simply had to advance. And in doing so she found in herself something that she had never known there before, she found in herself the agitating feeling of angry watchfulness and as it were sullen curiosity, which are of the essence of courage. Thinking was impossible, she merely had to be on her guard. So she rushed on. The road now grew dark. The great pines murmured about her quite near at hand, and at times a wet branch struck at her or tried to catch her, whereupon she would thrust it from her fiercely and pugnaciously. A vast, dreamy resignation toward the lurking Unknown made her almost apathetic. At the same time it was queer enough that through all this time an image stood before her, trying to be felt and seen. She saw herself clearly as if she were walking by her own side: the slender figure in the brown rain-coat, the wet hat on her head, bending forward slightly and running along the unfamiliar black roads as resistlessly and unconsciously as a bullet hurled by a powerful hand, forward over the roots that treacherously placed themselves in her way, under the branches that tried to hold her fast and drenched her with water, past great dusky birds that whirred across the road, sending terrifying, wailing notes into the night. But that had to be, life outside the garden-gates of Kadullen was like that, and only thus could you fight your way back to those garden-gates. And it seemed to Billy as if she could feel that here in the gloomy world about her many such solitary figures were running down black roads, quickly, quickly. She felt so strongly the presence of these nocturnal comrades that they were uncanny and yet a trifle consoling to her. The road grew steadily clearer and more shiny, trees and bushes now stood out distinctly in a gray light, night-ravens flapped their wings: day was coming. But Billy did not look up. Though it was frightful to dream this dream, yet she was afraid to wake out of it. She knew that if she did, this fever of courage and of thoughtless resignation would forsake her, and that she would then have no strength left. Her head bowed low over the road, she rushed on; now she was in the midst of a white mist, then again she would be walking on moss like red and green velvet. It had grown remarkably still about her; rain and wind must have ceased. Suddenly she was walking all bathed in a ruddy light. She felt this light like something that causes pain, and she narrowed her eyes and bowed her head lower. Gradually the light became golden, there was a flaming radiance and flicker everywhere, and a humming began in the air, and a rustling in the moss. Billy felt how a busy life had awakened about her, and she walked faster: it was like a race with this Day, that was advancing so calmly and wakefully in all his glory.

How long Billy had walked this way she did not know, but it seemed an interminable time. The sun was already high in a pure blue sky and beat down pitilessly. Billy felt as if she must be carrying a very warm burden along with her, and moreover her feet grew so heavy, moving slowly and mechanically like things that did not belong to her; they were indifferent to her like everything else about her, and for her own feeling she was some strange thing that was being laboriously driven forward through the sunshine. Then suddenly, in a small forest clearing, she sank down on a mossy knoll in the glaring sun. It was delicious to stretch out her legs, to lay her back against the warm huckleberry bushes. There could be nothing nicer in life. Around the clearing stood young firs and pines, as shiny as metal, and so motionless that the drops which still hung here and there on their needles seemed frozen. Everything was motionless under this yellow light, the grass-blades, the moss-blossoms, and the little blue butterflies, and a bumble-bee crawled into the bell of a bennet and hung there as if enchanted. In the thicket a fox drew near, his head lowered to sniff the ground, and suddenly he too stood still without stirring a muscle and stared into space, his eyes transparent as green glass, spell-bound by the overpowering silence of the hour.

Billy sat there, and on her too was the burden of this motionlessness which was so soothing, this delicious intoxication of light, of silence, and of all the hot odors which the leaves, the pine-needles, and the great sun-basking mushrooms exhaled. She too stared into space, feeling how her eyes also grew as glassy bright as the eyes of yonder fox, and how everything in her merely existed to drink in the sunlit stillness. Now the cry of the jay rang out excitedly, as if he would waken some one whether or no. The fox was gone, and Billy also started up; then she leaned back, lifted her arms, stretched herself, and screwed up her face as if to cry. Something very beautiful was over. Painfully she got up: what was the use, she must go on in any case.

A wide forest road, covered with short grass, led her through a young fir-nursery, and when the road took a turn, a bit of heath lay before Billy, in the midst of which stood some cottages, standing there with their golden-brown timbers and silver-gray roofs like tiny, gleaming caskets on the red-blooming heath. Over there a cow was lowing in long-drawn, sleepy tones; a cock crowed; smoke rose straight from the chimney into the sky. Billy stopped short; all this moved her so powerfully, she did not know why; her eyes grew moist, and yet she could not but smile. She went straight toward the house; a low lattice fence inclosed a garden which Billy entered through the half open gate. Long beds of vegetables, gooseberry bushes. Here and there blue flowering chicory and dark red poppies laid flaming spots of color on the uniform brightness of the midday light. Beehives stood around everywhere. Before one of these a man was kneeling, busied with the bees. Billy went up to him; doubtless he heard the gravel crunch under her feet, and he raised his head: a small old face, looking as if it had been compressed in an upward direction, gazed at Billy calmly out of dull, very light blue eyes.

"Good morning," said Billy.

"Good morning," answered the man, holding his hands out cautiously before him, for they were thickly covered with bees as with golden-yellow velvet gloves. As Billy said nothing, he turned to his hive again.

"Am I far from Kadullen?" Billy began again.

"Three hours' walk," answered the man without looking up.

Again both were silent. The strong scent of the potherbs in the garden-beds, the sourish smell of the honey, the faint buzzing of the bees, all this enveloped Billy like boundless, delicious indolence. "To rest here," thought she.

"May I sit here?" she asked, pointing to a wheelbarrow which lay upturned on the gravel path. The old man merely nodded, as he cautiously stripped the bees from his hands, and Billy sat down, stretched out her feet, let her arms hang heavily, and sighed deeply: this was all she needed. Oh, it wasn't so hard to live, after all.

"You're the young lady at Kadullen?" the old man finally said again, "I often go there with honey. S'pose you're wet, hey?"

"Yes."

"S'pose you've been out in the rain during the night, and now I s'pose you want to go home?"

Yes, Billy wanted to go home. The old man took off his straw hat and thoughtfully rubbed his hand over his bald, shiny pate. "We could hitch up," he said. Then he turned toward the other side and cried, "Lina!" Over there before the little stable a red cow was standing, and in front of her squatted a girl in a blue linen dress, milking her. The girl got up slowly and a little laboriously, stood there a moment, screwed up her face at the sunlight, looked crossly over at Billy, and wiped her big red hands on her white apron.

"Come on," said the old man.

So Lina came slowly along the vegetable beds; on the big, stout body perched a small head, with a puffy-cheeked, very heated childish face under a heavy mass of oily brown hair. She still kept her hands on her apron, as if wishing to conceal the fact that she was pregnant. She stopped short before Billy and asked ill-humoredly, "What is it, father?"

"Take the young lady in with you," said the father, "put some dry clothes on her, and give her something to eat; afterward, young lady, we'll drive on."

Lina turned and strode toward the house.

Billy got up to follow her, when the old man looked slyly at the two with a sidelong glance, pointed at his daughter with his thumb and said, "She's lost her good name too." Lina looked back at Billy, passed the back of her hand across her eyes, and smiled faintly.

The living room into which Billy was conducted must have been freshly calcimined, for it seemed so surprisingly, glaringly white. The sunshine was so strangely heavy and honey-yellow as it rested on the red and white chintz covers of the furniture and the pine boards of the floor. Then, too, there was an eager, loud medley of bird-voices trying to outsing each other, for all over the ceiling and at the window hung canaries in cages; there were perhaps ten or twelve, and the little creatures, excited by the light, trilled as if they were intoxicated by their own singing.

"Oh, the birds," said Billy surprised.

"Them!" said Lina peevishly, "they yelp all daylong."

Billy had to sit down on the sofa, and Lina began to undress her. She drew off her shoes, then her stockings. "The little feet," she murmured, "I can hold one of 'em in my hand like a little bird." She was quite absorbed in her task, and talked to herself like a child playing quietly in a corner with its doll. "The lovely underwear, and wet through and through, and we have a skin like silk, there, there, and now comes the shirt, brand new it is, I made it for my wedding."

"For your wedding!" asked Billy, who obeyed mechanically the big, careful hands.

"The wedding, well, that's all up now anyhow," said Lina, bustling back and forth between her chests and Billy. "There, this dress here, it's a bit tight for me, for the young lady it'll be all right. Nope, it's too big after all, we'll have to pin it together," and the two girls began to laugh at the loose dress, quite loudly, quite helplessly. Lina sat down, slapped her knees, and held her sides. The canaries tried to outsing the laughter of the girls. Now Billy was ready. She asked for a mirror, surveyed herself attentively, then put away the mirror satisfied and said, "Very good, your clothes are as soothing as smelling-salts."

Lina went out to prepare something to eat, and Billy leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. Yes, she really felt as if she had put away with her clothes the cares and unrest of the former Billy. With the dotted blue and white linen dress, with the big collar and the coarse shirt that scratched her skin, it seemed as if she had imbibed something of the carefree, almost shameless peacefulness with which Lina had lazily and indolently moved her body, distorted by motherhood, along the vegetable beds of the garden.

Now Lina brought milk, a shiny, brown loaf, and a great deal of honey. Billy began to eat; at first with ravenous hunger, then slowly with enjoyment, almost with devotion: she could not remember ever having had anything taste so good to her.

When she was satisfied, she rested her arms heavily on the table. In these unwonted clothes she had an impulse to go through motions which were otherwise never characteristic of her, which perhaps were Lina's. Her cheeks were flushed again, her eyes shining, and impatience for life warmed her blood. Lina sat facing her, her hands laid flat on her knees, and looked at her steadily and patiently out of her small blue eyes.

"I think," remarked Billy, "we will go and see the cow, the chickens, and the bees now."

That was it: in this comical blue dress she felt like going about the farm outside; yes, she was convinced that she would be able to walk along between the vegetable beds quite as lazily and cheerfully as Lina. But when she stood up she felt that her legs were stiff and pained her.

"Oh, no, let us stay here," she said, "and let us talk instead."

But the calm of the big, heated girl facing her made her impatient. Could one not poke up this calm, as the child Billy had poked up the small, quiet ant-hills, so that they immediately teemed with excited life. "Are you not afraid?" asked Billy suddenly.

"Afraid?" answered Lina, "why? Oh, I see, you mean about that; naw, what is there to be afraid of?"

"But some die of it," Billy went on probing.

Lina drew the back of her hand across her eyes and smiled faintly. "Yes, some die." The two girls were silent for a time, listening to the clamor of the canaries. Then Lina began to ask in her deep, somewhat singing voice, "And yours is gone too?"

Billy blushed. "Yes, gone," she murmured uncertainly.

Lina sighed. "Yes," she said, "men are a cross, they always go away. That's what happens to all of us."

Billy was silent, but it was like security and peace to her, this "us" which placed her in the ranks of the girls who with calmness and strength take the burden of life upon them.

The rumble of a wagon was heard outside. Immediately thereafter the old man appeared in the door with a whip in his hand, saying, "We can start now, young lady." Billy had to put on a very large yellow straw hat, and then they drove away.

The little wagon rattled violently, the heavy white horse trotted along imperturbably, patiently shaking off the gadflies that circled about him. The little bells fastened to his harness tinkled a sleepily monotonous tune. For a time the wagon continued to roll through the fir nursery as between quiet blue walls, then the forest came to an end, and the high road was before them and broad fields. Over all of it lay a hot, pale yellow dust-film. The countryside seemed to Billy so awesomely bare. "We see no people," she said.

The old man began to laugh softly and long. "'Cause it's Sunday. Ah yes, when we go walking by night we don't know what day it is any more, but that's the way with girls; Lina's got that far too."

"Can't he marry her?" asked Billy timidly.

The old man struck angrily at his white horse. "Marry? Marry who? Where is the man to marry? Where is our handsome machinist at the saw-mill? 'Cause he's got yellow cat's-eyes, they all run after him. Anna at the watermill has come to it too now. Ye-ep, you can't stop it; soon as spring comes, the young hussies are out o' nights, as restless as the bees before a thunderstorm, and you can beat 'em, you can tie 'em, but in a jiffy--off they put. Now at this time o' year it don't happen so often," added the old man with a sidelong glance at Billy.

She smiled. "Yes," she thought, "in a spring night, when we grow as restless as the bees before a thunderstorm, then maybe there is this Being-happy and this Dying, that Boris was talking about, but there"--she shrank and shuddered: she did not even wish to think of it, she still had a long ride before her, and later she would think it all over. Good, good, but no thinking now, just listen to the sleepy tinkle of the little bells.

Gradually however the region became more familiar, here and there stood a farmer in Sunday coat among his fields, whose face Billy recalled, and finally Kadullen rose in the distance between the great trees of the park; a cool green spot in the sun-yellow land.

Billy drew herself up; she suddenly became quite wakeful; it was almost torturing, how abruptly all her dream world fell away from her and the former Billy was present once more with the responsibility for what she had done, with the fear and shame before all those people yonder. She saw distinctly Marion's eyes, Aunt Betty's helpless little face, and her father's severe white nose. They had probably found the slip of paper she had left behind. She tried to think what was on it. "I am with him." Lord, how stupid that sounded! And now they were coming closer and closer to the house. If only she could get to her room unnoticed by way of the little staircase: no one would recognize her in Lina's clothes, and once upstairs in her room she would lock the door and let nobody in and sleep--sleep. Perhaps that would take some burden from her; perhaps when she then awoke everything would be different, everything better.

"Oh please," she said, "we'll stop at the little gate in the park wall over there."

The old man nodded indifferently, turned into the side road, and stopped before the small gate in the park wall. When Billy had got out, she stood still a moment and said hesitantly: "I suppose I must pay."

"'s all right," answered the old man with a bad grace, "I'm going to deliver some honey in the courtyard anyway."

"But not right away," pleaded Billy.

"I know, I know the game," murmured the old man, "needn't tell me."

Billy disappeared behind the gate. Cautiously she hurried up the little paths: everything was silent and unpeopled, and the house stood there as if asleep, with lowered blinds. Cautiously Billy approached the back stairs. From the windows of the servants' quarters resounded the long- drawn notes of a hymn: the servants were having their Sunday worship. Before the washhouse stood the washwoman, putting her hand to her eyes and looking out into the sunshine. Where had Billy just seen that? Oh yes, over yonder in her dream. Now she softly ran up the stairs, now she was in her room. Here too everything had waited for her unchanged, and the familiar scent of the room, the familiar light, all moved her so deeply that tears streamed down her face without effort or pain. She locked the door, hastily pulled off her clothes, and crept into her bed. Tears and sleep she craved, nothing else. Then when she awoke, simply to belong again to all this that had waited here for her so unchanged, so quietly and proudly.

Strange enough was the Sunday that had broken upon Kadullen. The news of Billy's return home spread quickly. The washwoman had told the butler, the butler reported it to Countess Betty, and then the old beekeeper came into the servants' room and told his story. He was taken to the Count and there cross-examined; but to no avail, for the affair remained as incomprehensible as before. Why had she gone away? What had happened? Marion was sent up to Billy's room, but reported that Billy would admit no one and wished to sleep. Full of trouble Countess Betty and Madame Bonnechose sat on the garden-steps beside Lisa, who had stretched herself out on a reclining chair, for she felt very weak from all these excitements. The two old ladies were silent: what should they say?--they no longer understood la chère jeunesse. Only Madame Bonnechose murmured from time to time, "C'est incompréhensible." Countess Betty nodded, but Lisa would smile dreamily and say, "Understand?--Oh, I can understand it all."

"Mais chère little Lisa, dites-nous donc, ce que vous savez," urged Madame Bonnechose.

Lisa shook her head. "There are things which we understand and yet for which there are no words. When I stood on the plain of Marathon with Katakasianopulos that time, it seemed to me as if I distinctly understood all the pain that was to come upon us, but express it--that I could not have done."

"Ah, dear child," said Countess Betty dejectedly, "that will not help us now."

Marion came and reported once more that in Billy's room everything was quite still.

"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Countess Betty; she could not calmly sit still, so she rose and went over to see her brother.

Count Hamilcar lay in his room on the sofa; he was keeping his eyes shut, his face was strangely sallow, and the features seemed sharper and more pointed than usual. When his sister came to a stop before him, he opened his eyes and looked at her with a glance which had the indifference of a man who to be sure surveys us, but whose thoughts and dreams are very far from us.

"Still no certainty," said Countess Betty whimperingly. "She admits nobody, saying she wants to sleep."

"Let her sleep," answered the count.

"Yes, but she might let us in," wailed the old lady further, "what is all this? all these affairs? the whole house is whispering. The Professor's family will leave today and carry the story all over the country, and you, Hamilcar, you don't say anything either."

The count raised himself slightly. "No, Betty," he said, "I say nothing, because I know nothing. We cannot prevent others from talking, but we ought not to speak until there is need for it. Let the child sleep, then she shall tell you everything, and then, Betty, I shall say my say too. Will it soon be time for breakfast?"

"Oh, Hamilcar," replied Countess Betty intimidated, "you surely won't come to breakfast, you are so unstrung."

The count laid his finger along his nose and said sharply, "I shall come, and I hope it will be on time as usual. Also I did not hear you sing a hymn: did you not have the accustomed worship?"

"No, we were so excited, you see," the old lady excused herself, but the count was dissatisfied.

"You are wrong, Betty, have your worship as you do every Sunday; but if I may request it, no reference to these happenings in the Bible reading or in the prayer, just ordinary devotions. It is not our fault that something has come in here which does not belong to us, but there is no reason why we should surrender to it: we insist on our way, and that ends it."

Wearily the count leaned back and shut his eyes; his sister looked at him with alarm. "What ails you, Hamilcar?" she asked, "you are so pale."

The count motioned impatiently with his hand. "I shall manage," he said, "circulation and heart-beat simply won't listen to us, and the only trouble is that they are forever meddling with our affairs. There is an error here in the contract that we call our life. But for the rest, it is old age, Betty, just that, and that is after all comprehensible."

Countess Betty softly left the room, and outside she said to Madame Bonnechose, much troubled, "Chère amie, my brother requires of us that we have devotions; there is nothing to be done, so please call the chamber-maids and the butler, ô ma chère, il est terriblement philosophe."

Life at Kadullen did not surrender; there were devotions, Count Hamilcar appeared at breakfast, pale and weary, but his conversation with the Professor did not falter. They spoke of the yellow race, and, as if even that were not sufficiently remote, of the Bismarck Archipelago. Embarrassed silence burdened the remaining company. Egon's and Moritz's places were vacant, for at the news of Billy's disappearance they had ridden away and were not back yet. Lisa rejected all food, and looked out and away over the heads of the breakfasters with her beautiful eyes. "Today Lisa is altogether in 'Marathon,'" Bob whispered to Erika. Even Mr. Post and Miss Demme wore a serious, even somewhat proudly repellent mien. Mr. Post had said to Miss Demme before breakfast, "It is plain to see that this so-called aristocratic culture cannot hold its ground: there is much that is rotten at the core after all." Whereupon Miss Demme, shaking her short curls, had answered, "There is simply a lack of inward freedom."

After breakfast the professorial family drove away, taking a hasty and over-affectionate farewell. Countess Betty had tears in her eyes.

"I felt," she said later, "as if Billy had died and they had just paid a visit of condolence."

Then came the afternoon hours with the steady brightness of the mid-summer day, with the quiet flaming of the bright colors in the garden-beds, the Sunday lack of happenings, the troubled sitting-together-and-waiting.

"Oh dear, if you only know what you were waiting for," sighed Countess Betty.

But upstairs behind the locked door lay the poor puzzle, and before the door stood Marion, her head leaning against it, her eyes too large for the small yellow face.

Once the quiet was disturbed by the hurrying hoof-beats of a horse; a rider galloped into the courtyard, dismounted and carried a letter in to Count Hamilcar, then rode away again, and once more Sunday stillness rested on the house.

"Now what is this new thing," wailed Countess Betty, "Hamilcar doesn't say anything either; every one sits like a sphinx, guarding his own secret."

And Lisa in her reclining chair said, lost in thought, "Even when they go and leave us they have something that pleads for help, as if they were trying to tell us: help me against myself."

"Qui? monsieur Boris?" asked Madame Bonnechose.

"No," replied Lisa, "Katakasianopulos."

"Ah, ma chère, maintenant il ne s'agit pas de monsieur de Katakasianopulos," said Madame Bonnechose with vexation.

At last after dinner, when the sun was already shining red above the rim of the forest, the news spread, "Marion is in Billy's room."

Billy had slept very soundly. Now she was lying on her bed, her hands clasped behind her neck, her cheeks reddened, her eyes wonderfully bright. She looked searchingly up at Marion, who stood before her and gazed anxiously at her.

"First of all," said Billy, "don't look at me as if I had died. You have eyes that can look at a person as if he were a spider."

--"Oh Billy, that is only because you are so wonderfully beautiful this minute."

Billy smiled a little: "Oh well, that may be so; sit down and tell your story.--So you found the slip?"

"Yes."

"Of course you took it to Auntie and your mother?"

"Yes."

"What did they say?"

"Mama said, 'la pauvre petite, elle est perdue.'"

"Ah, she said perdue. Do go on." Marion was ready to cry. "Why, I don't know; Auntie went in to see your father. Your cousins rode away to look for you, and Moritz said, 'If I only had that Pole in reach of my pistol.' I made camomile tea for Auntie and Mama."

"Marion, Marion," Billy interrupted, "you're not much on story-telling."

"No," said Marion, "you know you are to do the telling."

Billy grew serious: "Oh, I see, that is what they sent you here for; very well. Pull down the shades and sit down by the window and don't look at me." She shut her eyes and her face took on a tortured expression. "I went away in the night, you know; I had to. And it was quite easy. I could not let him go away alone and insulted, I should have died for pity. And then we rode, and it rained and lightened, and finally we couldn't go any farther. We went into a little inn: one of Boris's friends was there, and an old Jew, and a Jewess sat there without moving and looked at me as people sometimes look at us in frightful dreams. Then we ate something and drank champagne, Boris's friend sang and the two men played cards; but that was when it began, everything grew different then, and quite sad, and I didn't understand any more why I was there. I went into the adjoining room and lay down on the bed. Everything smelled of dust and very bad perfume; there were terrible red cushions, a child cried somewhere, and everything was horribly ugly and sad. I never thought anything could be so ugly. Boris came in. He was quite strange too. Here among the barberries he had talked before about being happy and dying, but there, there it sounded awful. And he was angry and went out and I pretended to sleep. Tell me, Marion, could you love and be tragic, or be happy and die, when one of the fat green caterpillars that we are so afraid of falls on top of you and crawls over you and you can't pull it off you and it keeps on crawling over you? See, that is the way everything was there, everything. When all was still and Boris was sleeping, I jumped out of the window and ran and ran."

"Don't you love him any more?" asked a timid voice from the window-niche.

Billy was silent a moment, then she cried passionately, "Marion, don't ask such questions. Yes, probably--of course I shall love him again, here. But I will not talk about it any more, and they are not to torment me. Go, tell them what you like, but for today I wish to be left in peace. Auntie can come and sit beside my bed, but she mustn't ask me anything, or mustn't talk about disagreeable things; she can tell about her youth if she likes."

Billy turned her face to the wall, and Marion stole softly out of the room.

Twilight was already falling when Countess Betty timidly entered her brother's room. Count Hamilcar was sitting on his sofa, somewhat shrunken, and was looking out of the window. "Well, Betty," he said without looking up.

The old lady stood still before him, supporting herself by her hands on the back of a chair; the pale face of her brother alarmed her, it looked so unapproachably angry, as if he were looking down at something he despised there outside the window.

"Well?" he said again.

"She has told Marion about it," began Countess Betty, and she narrated in a low, faltering voice, with something queerly helpless in it. "The poor child," she finished, "all alone in the night, what she suffered, the wicked fellow! What do you say, Hamilcar?"

"I?" he said, turning toward his sister. His words issued now with extreme clearness, sharp and nasal. "I say, Betty: What sort of beings are we rearing here?--why, they cannot live. Why, we simply cannot intrust to them the thing that we call life. A housemaid who steals out to the stable-boy and lets him seduce her knows what she is after; but what we are bringing up is little intoxicated ghosts that tremble with longing to haunt the outside world and cannot breathe when they get out there. That is what we are rearing, Betty."

"I do not understand you, Hamilcar," said the old lady, who had grown quite pale, "she is a child, she does not know, she will forget, the others will forget, everything will come out all right. God has shielded her."

A faint flush rose into the count's pale face, and a powerful agitation made him a trifle breathless: "Our interesting gentleman has seen to it that she will not forget it, he has seen to it that this ridiculous tragedy will cling to the girl like an ugly sickness. He has deemed it proper to shoot himself yonder in the Jew's tavern--here."

He held out to his sister a piece of paper which he had been holding in his fist all the time, and which he had crumpled into a little round ball. Countess Betty took this little ball; mechanically she unfolded the paper with trembling fingers, smoothed it out, and tried to read. There were a few lines from Ladislas Worsky announcing Boris's death. Inclosed was a little slip on which Boris had written, "To Billy. Then I shall go alone. Boris."

Countess Betty let the paper drop on her knee and looked into space vacantly, almost blankly, and only when the count now burst into an angry laugh did she start up in terrible affright.

"That is a departure for you, eh?" he said, and now he spoke quickly and pantingly: "These are the people that spend their lives in standing like actors before the mirror and practising gestures for their audience. I love--how does that become me? I am unhappy, I die--how does that look, what will the others say to that? Death and life--a question of attire, and a pretty girl that loves us is also simply a part of our toilet, like a gardenia that we put into our button-hole: and we are bringing up our girls to be gardenias for such worthless fops. And then they call it Love; with that word they are fed and made drunk. A pretty estate this love and life and dying have reached, if they have come to be affairs for the nursery and for fops." He broke off, for his agitation took his breath. He leaned back wearily and shut his eyes. Countess Betty wept quietly into her handkerchief. After a pause the count began again in his quiet, slow way, "Do not cry, Betty, I lost my temper, excuse me."

Countess Betty lifted her tear-wet face to him and said beseechingly, "But she must not find it out today."

Count Hamilcar shrugged his shoulders--"Today or tomorrow, that belongs to her and to us once and for all."

Countess Betty rose, dried her eyes, and said, "How pale you are, Hamilcar, you ought to go to bed."

Again the count smiled his restrained, kind smile: "Yes, Betty, I shall go to bed. In all our distress this expedient is always left to us."

Again Billy had slept deeply and soundly. It must have been about midnight when she awoke; she felt rested and wakeful, and was hungry. Throughout the day she had crossly refused all food, now she reflected that she must eat. She resolved to go down to the housekeeper, Miss Runtze, and get something from her. Softly, so as not to waken Marion, she dressed and went down to the lower floor to knock at the housekeeper's door. It took Miss Runtze a long time to understand who was knocking, and when she did she was greatly alarmed. "Oh dear, Countess Billy! what is it? another misfortune? you want something to eat? Yes, yes, that's what comes when you won't eat anything all day."

Scolding softly to herself she preceded Billy into the pantry. There some cold chicken and a little Madeira were found. Billy began to eat ravenously. As she took the glass and sipped the Madeira with puckered lips, she blinked over the brim of the glass at the housekeeper, who stood before her, the large face, heated from sleeping, closely framed by the white night-cap, the corners of the mouth drawn down severely and disapprovingly.

"Well, Runtze, what do you say to all this?" asked Billy.

"I was very sorry for it," answered the housekeeper coldly and formally.

"Why?"

Runtze turned to the wooden frame on which the sausages hung, and began to stroke one of them gently with her hand. "Why, it's this way," she said, "a countess must be like an almond that I have soaked well in hot water and slip out of its skin, beautiful and white."

Billy had once more bent over her chicken-wing. "Oh, that is it," she said as she ate, "but Bonnechose says, cette pauvre Runtze has had her own romance and her own unhappy love-affair."

The corners of the housekeeper's mouth were drawn down still lower and more tartly. "In our station all sorts of things can happen: we love for a while and then again we don't and are at peace. But with our mistresses it is different. If there is a hole in the cover of the old sofa down in my room, I don't care, and some time when I have time I mend it; but the company rooms upstairs must be spick and span, and that's what I look out for every morning."

"I believe he was a miller?" asked Billy in a businesslike tone.

"Yes, a miller."

"Fair-haired?"

"No, red-haired."

Billy, her hunger now appeased, leaned back in her chair. "Oh, red-haired, that's very pretty sometimes, and his face powdered with flour and the red hair with it. But I am done now." She stood up. "I thank you, Runtze, your meal was very good."

"That is the main thing," said the woman, "you are in love, and then again you are not, but you always have to eat."

Billy went out, but she did not feel like going back up to her room, which was so full of terrifying dreams. She walked down the corridor to the outside door which led into the garden. It was the hour at which she had been accustomed to go about of late anyway. Even to herself she seemed ghostly and uncanny. But the garden was delicious, homelike. A bit of a moon and very bright stars were in the sky. The mist had advanced from the meadow into the garden. It was creeping over the patches of turf and the beds. The flowers looked black, standing in the white mists. A very intense joy warmed Billy's heart as she found that this familiar reality had waited here for her and that she once more belonged to all this. She walked along the gravel paths, she passed her hand over the dew-laden tops of the roses and dahlias, she ate some of the currants, she stood under the barberry bushes and breathed in the moist, earthy smell that rose out of the old box there. But as she walked thus, a more powerful agitation came over her. All these spots spoke of Boris; she saw him and felt him again, and longing for him again made her wretched and sick. Slowly she had returned to the house, now she stood before the quietly sleepy garden-facade, saw Boris standing on the porch again, or coming down the garden-paths and looking into the evening sun with his dreamy eyes, and she again heard him speaking in his solemn, singing voice of the pain suffered for the mother-country. How could she go on living without all that? Suddenly it struck her that a kind of noiseless unrest was going through the sleeping house. There was light at Lisa's window, and behind the shades Lisa's shadow moved back and forth. Billy recognized distinctly the figure in the long nightdress, her loose hair hanging down her back. "Why doesn't she sleep," she thought, "why is she walking around?--after all it's my love-affair, not hers." But Aunt Betty's window next door was also lit up. And there was the shadow of Aunt Betty's big nightcap, too, and beside it another big nightcap. How the two nightcaps gently moved toward each other, swaying and quivering. Why weren't they sleeping, all of them? Was it on her account? And there on the other side, light there too, and behind the shades another shadow walking restlessly to and fro. Now the shadow approached the window, the shade was raised, the window opened, and Billy saw her father lean out: his hands tore open the shirt at his breast, and in the scanty moonlight his face seemed quite white, only the open mouth and eyes laying black shadows on it. So he stood there, drinking in the night air greedily and anxiously. Billy retreated behind the box-hedge. She was shivering with fear. Good heavens, what ailed them all! Was it not as if she had died and were now stealing about the house as a spirit, to see how all of them were mourning for her in there. Cautiously keeping to the shadows, she walked over to the avenue of maples. She felt impelled to look up from there at her balcony and the window of her room. On the bench facing her window some one was sitting asleep, his head drooping on his breast. It was Moritz. Billy stood still before him. The good lad, he had sat here and looked up at her window; the thought gave her the feeling of a delicious, warm shelter. Moritz grew restless, opened his eyes, and looked at her.

"Ah, you, Billy," he said, as if he had expected her.

Billy smiled at him. "Have you been sitting here, Moritz, to look up at my window?"

"Yes," answered Moritz crossly.

"That is nice," said Billy. She sat down on the bench beside him and leaned slightly against his arm. "Do you still love me?"

"Yes," said Moritz in the same cross tone, "but why should that matter to you?"

"Oh," said Billy plaintively, "it is very important, for I feel as if I had died, and when a person is very much loved, then ... then I think he comes to life again."

Moritz was silent a moment, and when he began to speak a great agitation made his voice hesitant and awkward. "Oh Billy, if I could help you."

"How can you, Moritz?" answered Billy, and he could hear from her voice that she was weeping. "I--I--am longing so terribly for Boris." The arm against which Billy was leaning trembled slightly; it was as if its muscles tightened.

"That--" hissed Moritz between clenched teeth, "you must not think of him ... how could he do that to you ... he had no right to die ... and not die that way, even if life had been twice as loathsome to him ... a man who loves doesn't do such a thing; that was base."

For a moment it grew quite still. Moritz merely felt the girlish body lean a little more heavily on him. At last Billy began, and it sounded like the faint wail of a child: "Is he dead?"

"What, Billy, you didn't know--"

"Yes I did, I knew it, I feel now that I knew it all the time--and even over there when I came away from him." She was silent a while, and it grew so still that they heard the night-dew trickling through the leaves. Suddenly Billy raised herself, stood before Moritz white and erect, brushed the hair from her forehead, while the moonlight rested on her face, which seemed queerly pale and calm, and said in almost a matter-of-fact tone, "Will you come along, Moritz?"

"Where to, Billy!"

"I must go to him, you can see that; I left him once before. He can't stay there alone in that terrible room. The Jewess is looking at him and the children are standing in the door. No, I will not forsake him again; but alone through the forest again--please, Moritz, come along." She swayed slightly, propped herself on Moritz's shoulder, and then sank down quietly and heavily before him.--

Billy had been sick for a long time. Now it was a sunny September afternoon, and she was for the first time permitted to go out into the garden. On the patch of turf under the pear-tree Billy sat wrapped in shawls, her face haggard and transparently pale, and in her eyes the lazily relishing glance of the convalescent, who likes to let his eyes rest a long time upon objects. On the other grass-plot Lisa was lying in her reclining chair, and Madame Bonnechose sat beside her, knitting a red child's stocking. Countess Betty and Marion never stopped running along between the rows of dahlias to and from the house and the grass- plots. Count Hamilcar was taking his afternoon stroll. He walked slowly down the garden-path, leaning heavily on his cane; from time to time he stopped, sniffed the scent of the ripe fruit, the flowers, and the fading leaves, and put on a stern, angry face, for he was indeed vexed. Here lay these two beautiful creatures now, blighted by life, crumpled up, attacked from ambush. Why? Why this barbarity? Why this waste? He drew up his gray eyebrows discontentedly and blinked out at the fringe of forest which lay far away in a violet haze. Was it not perhaps a misunderstanding, his misunderstanding, this charming culture that he had carefully erected like a fence about himself and his dear ones? Could one learn how to live here? As he passed Lisa, he heard her say in her elegiac fashion,

"I do not believe that Billy can understand a great pain, or that she can enjoy it, for we must be able to enjoy even our pain."

"Enjoy, ma chère, quelle idée," said Madame Bonnechose, without looking up from her knitting.

The count passed on and came to a stop before Billy. "Well, how are you?" he asked a little sternly.

Billy flushed. "Thank you, papa, well. I wanted to tell you something."

"Oh, you did." The count sat down on a garden-chair facing his daughter and looked attentively at her.

"I wanted to ask you," began Billy, looking up into the pear-tree, "I wanted to ask you if you have forgiven me."

"Yes, certainly," the count slowly replied, as if he had been given a problem to solve. "When we pardon some one, we wish by doing so to help him get over something he has experienced or done. In this case, of course, that is my liveliest wish."

Billy leaned her head back satisfied, and gently moved it to and fro on her pillow as fever-patients are wont to do. "When we are sick," she said, "time goes faster, I think; what went before the sickness lies so far away. It seems to me as if I had done so much during this time of sickness, and especially I have walked a great deal, always walking, always on the way, and always such wonderfully strange roads. I don't remember much of it all, I only know one thing: I was walking along a yellow country road and ahead of me some one was walking, and somebody ahead of her, and so on; there were many figures, and they were all wearing my brown rain-coat and my muslin dress with the pink carnation figure, in fact they were all Billys, and I knew the point was for me to catch up with the Billy that was ahead of me. That seemed very important to me."

"H'm," remarked the count, "an interesting dream. Those are our mirrored images that become emancipated in our dreams. And now," he smiled at his daughter, "now you think you have caught that other Billy."

Billy still kept looking up at the pear-tree, and gently rocked her head. "Now I am quite happy," she said meditatively, "but perhaps I ought not to be. Lisa says that any one who has a great grief should stand before it like a soldier on guard."

Count Hamilcar angrily thrust out his underlip and said sharply, "To stand before one's follies like a soldier on guard is certainly not commendable."

Billy did not seem to hear him. She still kept on dreamily talking to the little golden-yellow pears that hung over her: "And to be faithless, to be faithless is so terribly villainous."

The count bent forward, lifted his extended index finger in the sunshine, and said slowly and impressively, "My daughter, provision is made that we shall not be faithless, but remain true, to our sad or foolish experiences. They run after us in any case. Perhaps we are continually changing, and that is well. But the score always remains the same. To come back to your remarkable dream, when the one Billy has successfully caught the other Billy, you can be sure that the old Billy gives all the burdens she has had to carry to the new one to take with her. That is and must be so."

"All--for ever," said Billy under her breath, and she looked at her father with a glance of such helpless fear that he dropped his eyes, for a keen compassion caused him almost physical pain.

"Well, well," he rejoined, "when there are as many Billys as you have before you, there cannot fail to be many pleasant things to take along."

"Yes, don't you think lots of good things must still come?" cried Billy. The count looked up in surprise. He saw that Billy had raised her arms and clasped her hands over her head, and she was smiling a wonderfully expectant smile.

"Oh, that's it," he murmured, "why, then, in that case--" He rose, brushed Billy's cheeks hastily with two fingers, and slowly walked back up the garden-path. Not much need for consolation in that quarter. This child was far ahead of him in her faith in life; there was nothing further for him to say. He sat down on the bench at the edge of the meadow, wishing to sun himself. How they loved life, these poor children, and how they trusted it! Yes, and life wants that: to be loved, so as to be cruel. Perhaps a good method, always supposing there is a purpose in it. He gently passed his hand over brow and eyes: if only sympathy were not so exhausting, always to share the lives of others, although--to be sure, three-fourths of our life lies somewhere in the lives of others. If we cannot share that, only one-fourth is left to us, and that is too little for intoxication, that is almost abstemiousness. Oh, very well, abstemiousness generally results in comprehension, only in this case comprehension is not so simple. He squeezed his eyelids together as if wishing to gather into his eyes and crush to powder the flaming gold of the afternoon light. How was that?--he was trying to recall a verse in Homer. His memory left him in the lurch, too: how does it go where Hector's soul is wailing aloud because it must give up its beloved life? He could not recall it. Poor devil, by the way, right out of the midst of his intoxication. One of the great flies now came flying past Count Hamilcar with softly buzzing wings. He went "brrr" with his lips and smiled a really cheerful smile as he watched how this queer bundle of gauzy wings and golden gossamer floated deliriously through the sunshine. "Mad with life," he thought, "if all this only has some object. At any rate there is more chance for meaning than for the lack of it, although--if I am a digit in the great calculation, then to be sure I have a meaning, but that is no reason at all why the result under the black line must have a significance for me." The point was to be a digit in the result under that line. However, thinking exhausted him. Why must we always think?--another prejudice. Let us not think, but breathe. He leaned back and opened his mouth a little. Breathing too might have been made an easier and simpler affair. He was cold, doubtless he would have to walk a little further; he tried to rise, but his legs would not carry him. He stretched out his long arms as if wishing to get an armful of sunshine, and his face assumed a vexed, anxious expression; then he fell back, became quite still, and collapsed, leaning a trifle crookedly over the arm of the bench in that weary movement which the first moment of death brings to man, before its chill severity comes. The sun was already low, bathing the mute figure in ruddy light, a gentle zephyr stirred a gray tuft of hair on the pale temple, and the big fly flew back again with a buzz past the white nose, motionless now. Round about, the ripe fruit fell heavily upon the turf, making the whir of the field-crickets cease for a moment. But yonder under the pear-tree sat Billy, looking into the evening sun with feverishly shining eyes, and still smiling her expectant, longing smile.