The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xix Part 17

On the veranda, again, Countess Betty and Madame Bonnechose were sitting together, folding their hands in their laps and saying reverently, "_Ah, la jeunesse, la chere jeunesse._"

Only the two children were dissatisfied. Bob and Erika stood on the garden-walk, grumbling because there was no prospect of some amus.e.m.e.nt: a walk, or a general game.

"If all of them never do anything but get engaged," said Bob, "then of course there's nothing doing. Boris takes possession of Billy as if she was Poland."

"That won't do him any good," remarked Erika, "papa is against the marriage, I know he is."

The sun had set. From the forest and across the meadows came a damp breath that shook the branches of the old fruit-trees. Monotonous and plaintive was the singing of the peasant-girls walking down the dusky country-road.

Bob had achieved his general game. One person stood by a tree and counted, the others hid. Billy ran over to the dense barberry-bush.

There it was dark, and one smelled the boards of an old wooden box that stood there, garden loam, and the sourish barberries. Billy was a little breathless, her heart beat so violently, she heard it beat: it sounded like soft steps running, hurry, hurry, toward an unknown goal. A great agitation made Billy shrink and shudder, such an agitation as makes the universally familiar things round about seem strange,--significant and as it were pregnant with secretly, noiselessly advancing events. Billy was ready for any experience.

Boris' mellow voice seemed to raze all the barriers with which this child had been solicitously hedged in. Ah yes, to be able to share Boris' life, so full of great feelings and great words--this was what Billy now must have.

"Billy," she heard a low voice in the darkness.

It was Boris. Billy was not surprised; she had felt him so pa.s.sionately all this time that his presence seemed to her a matter of course.

"Yes, Boris," she answered as softly.

He now stood quite close to her, she detected the strong, sweet perfume he liked to use.

"Billy," he said, "I come to obtain certainty from you." He was silent, but Billy could say nothing, and waited. The event whose noiseless advance she had felt now stood before her.

"Look, Billy," continued Boris, and his voice sounded a trifle dry and pedagogical, "I must know whether you are in my life that on which I can absolutely rely. I cannot imagine my life without you, but for that very reason I must not delude myself, for if I should be deluded in this, it might be my destruction."

He waited again.

"But Boris, you surely know--" began Billy, but he interrupted her irritably:

"No, I don't know, I can't know. You don't understand me, all that is quite different."

Billy was ready to weep; the stern voice that challenged her out of the darkness was torturing her unspeakably. "I do understand, certainly I do. Why should I not understand you? Why do you say that? Go and talk to papa tomorrow: they are all getting engaged, why must it be so terribly sad in our case?" She was ready to weep; wearily she sat down on the old box. Then she heard Boris laugh softly, it was the quick, proud laugh with which he loved to conceal his agitation. Now he too sat down on the box, took Billy's hand, this cold girlish hand, into his own, as if it were something fragile and precious, and began to speak again.

"No, no, you don't understand me. Of course I shall speak with your father, for I want to be correct; but what good will it do?--your father hates me. I have always had to fight for my happiness, and that is what I want and you must want the same. Everything is immaterial, do you hear?--everything: only one thing matters, that you and I may be united. I see only you, and you must see only me, and what comes of it must not affect us, only you and I, you and I." He was still speaking softly, but his voice resumed its pa.s.sionately singing tone. He intoxicated himself again with his own words, his own Self. "If you cannot do that, then say so at once, for then it is better for me to go away, no matter what becomes of me. I can die, but to be deceived, that goes beyond my strength. Can you do it? Speak, speak!" And he pressed her hand and shook it.

"Yes, I can," replied Billy obediently.

"Then," continued Boris, "we are going toward each other on the same road: on both sides there are high walls and we can see nothing but this road, and you see me and I see you and we are going toward each other, that is all. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Billy, and she actually saw this yellow road between the gray walls under a pale-gray sky, and two solitary figures going toward each other.

"It is immaterial," said Boris, "whether our love is tragic, the only point is the love itself. We Poles cannot help it if we are born adventurers, history is to blame for that; but adventurers need absolutely reliable companions. Are you one? Speak."

Now he drew her firmly to him and kissed her. The great words, her great compa.s.sion, these lips that kissed her, these hands that feverishly caught at her--all this hurt her. O dear, she thought, if only this were over. "Please," she whispered, "go now."

Boris at once released her, stood up, and said politely, "If you wish it. But Billy, I am afraid you are still holding quite aloof from me."

"But I won't be aloof," cried Billy tearfully, and now her tears did actually come. Boris stood there a moment in silence, then he softly said "Good night," and left her. Billy remained sitting on the box, clapped her hands to her face, and wept. The night-dew was dripping among the barberry bushes. Somewhere out yonder a bat was whirring through the darkness, uttering its timid and infinitely lonely cry.

Billy was cold, and she was frightened too. She felt as if something were advancing in the gloom that would take her and carry her away. But what could she do?--and anyway everything was immaterial now. She belonged to Boris with his beautiful, incomprehensible pain.

She heard steps; some one stood beside her.

"Billy, are you here?" It was Marion.

"Yes, Marion."

"Are you crying?"

"Yes, I ... I am crying."

Marion sat down on the box at Billy's side, also feeling very much like crying. Both were silent for a time, then Marion asked,

"Was he here?"

"Yes," replied Billy.

"And did he," continued Marion, "did he say anything? Are you engaged?"

"Yes, I believe so," Billy opined, "but everything is very sad just the same."

Again the two girls sat in silence side by side. Voices were heard out in the garden, some one called, "Billy! Marion!" and then it became quiet.

"Come," said Billy, getting up, "but we won't join the others, for I don't want to see anybody, nor do I want any tea; we'll go up to our rooms without letting anybody see us."

Over the roof of the house the moon had risen; the garden was suddenly alight and the shadows of the trees lay sharp and black on the moonlit paths. The two girls crept past the bushes along the box-hedge; from time to time they stood still and listened toward the veranda. There the others were sitting, and Billy heard the voice of the professor, then the voice of her father.

"Death, my dear Professor," the latter was just saying, "is incomprehensible to us for this reason, that we apply to it the standards of life. It is the same as with dreams. Apply to a dream the standards of waking, and you will never find your way in it."

"Good heavens," whispered Billy scornfully, "they are talking about death." Briskly the two girls slipped into the house. Upstairs in the gable were their rooms, side by side, and they had in common a large balcony which looked out on the garden. Billy's room was bright with moonlight, hence she did not light a light. "Has it come?" she asked Marion.

"Yes," said Marion, "today in the mail," and she fetched out a small package. By the light of the moon the two girls opened it; it contained a white china jar with "Anadyomenite" on the lid, and in it was a white salve which had a sweet odor of roses. "Here are directions, too," said Marion: she held up a slip in the moonlight and read, "Spread a thin coat of the salve on the face and then expose it for half an hour to a soft light, preferably the light of the full moon. The skin becomes transparent, lily-white ..."

"Good, good," interrupted Billy, "then let's begin."

Silently and eagerly they went to work; carefully they coated their faces with the salve before the mirror, moved chairs out on to the balcony, sat there motionless, and looked up at the moon, which hung round and yellow over the tops of the old maples facing them. Only at long intervals did one of them say something.

"You know," remarked Billy once, "he has very long eyelashes." "Yes,"

said Marion, "and they turn up a little." Then they were silent again.

In the avenue of maples below, Boris was restlessly walking up and down. He was smoking cigarettes and thinking. He felt himself, he saw himself today with particular strength and clearness, he the beloved, beautiful youth with the tragic, exceptional fate. This caused him a solemn excitement. But he also knew that he owed himself a significant experience. Of course Billy was a part of it, that was settled, and now he was devising plans, busily composing the destiny of the beautiful, beloved youth. Occasionally he would stand still at the end of the avenue and look up at the house, up at the balcony on which the white figures of the two girls sat motionless, their shining faces turned toward the moon.

Yonder between the flowerbeds the Princess Katakasianopulos was slowly walking up and down, very slender in her black dress, very pale in the moonlight. But then, who saw it? She too felt herself to be a precious instrument of precious experiences. But where were they, for whom these experiences were destined? At the end of the garden-walk she stopped and looked pensively out upon the white mists that rose from the meadow. Once she had lived for a month in Athens with her husband.

Perhaps she was yearning for Greece. Possible. But why was Boris walking up and down alone in the avenue of maples? and why did the lieutenant stay there with the others? She seemed to herself like a festival which stands in lonely splendor, and of which all those who are to celebrate it know nothing. But from the veranda the voice of Count Hamilcar, calmly talking on, rang out into the moonlight night.

He was still explaining death to the professor.

A very bright August morning rested upon Kadullen. In the house it was still quiet. Only Countess Betty was going through the sunny rooms and pulling down the shades, for the day promised to be hot. Then she went out into the garden to cut roses. At times she paused in her work and squinted into the sunshine, looked over at the gardener's boys, or followed with her eyes the kitchen-maids, coming from the truck-garden with great baskets full of vegetables. On all sides this easy-going and well-regulated life was busily stirring. That made her feel good. When our own life gently begins to incline toward its end, we must warm ourselves at the strong young life of others, keep our hands full of great cool roses, and drink in with open lips the morning scent of this garden. Some one spoke to her from the maple-avenue yonder. Ah yes, that was Moritz, going down to the lake to bathe. The poor lad. Ever since he had fallen so desperately in love with Billy, he never was out of the water, was forever on his way to the lake. The dear children, how they loved each other and caused each other pain, and how pretty it all was. Aye, life, this beloved life. Query? will anything come about between the lieutenant and Elsa. Countess Betty was going to talk to Madame Bonnechose about it; she had a very keen eye for such matters.

She gathered her roses together and went into the house.