Toilsomely the evening drew to its close. Lohmann had prepared Warmbier, but it tasted so bad that Billy could not drink it. Countess Betty and Madame Bonnechose came and sat beside Billy's bed, looked sympathetically at her, spoke of Billy's cough, of remedies, spoke cautiously about indifferent affairs, anxious not to touch upon anything dangerous; Billy was glad when they were all gone and the night began. She wanted to try sleeping, but in the stillness and darkness life again became very threatening, and dreary too, like numbers that have to be added up. When she did have a little nap, this adding and guessing continued, and in addition to it all she was forever having something to decide, and she did not know what or how. It was perhaps one o'clock when she awoke; no, she did not care to sleep, there was no pleasure in that. Through the hangings at the window a little pale light came in. She jumped out of bed to look out of the window: the moon was shining very brightly. Quiet and wakeful stood the fruit trees in the patches of turf, and the hollyhocks in the flowerbeds, and the moonlight laid a festive touch on the silent garden. Billy wanted to be out there. She dressed hurriedly and went to Marion's room to wake her:
"Marion, and you can sleep? I have not closed an eye, come, get up."
"I just fell asleep a little," said Marion in excuse, "what has happened? Where must we go?"
"We must go to the currant-bushes down in the garden," said Billy.
Marion obediently got up and dressed. By way of the narrow back stairs the two girls reached the garden. Billy drew a deep breath; that was it, the damp, sweet breath of the flowers, and this improbable light which made the sky, the garden, and the meadow with its white mists all seem so endlessly vast,--this restored to her the intoxication without which she could not live now. Here she could once more think "Boris! Boris!" and feel that queer flaming heat in her blood which gave her courage to undertake anything. In the orchard the strawberry-beds, the gooseberry and currant bushes, were gray and glittering with dew, and from the kitchen garden the pot-herbs sent over their powerful odors; on the gravel paths dreaming toads were squatting. The girls went to a currant bush and silently began to eat the cool, moist berries.
"Yes, now it is different," remarked Billy at last.
"How so?" asked Marion in a business-like tone.
"I feel," said Billy, "as if everything were quite easy again, as if I could decide anything. I am not a bit afraid, and it can be as tragic as it likes."
"Tragic," remarked Marion a trifle indistinctly, for her mouth was full of currants, "tragic is like at the theatre."
From the other side of the bush Billy's suppressed laughter was heard: "Why Marion!" Then Billy straightened up, held a bunch high against the moon, looked at it and said impressively, "Tragic is sad, but sad like his eyes, sad but still wonderfully beautiful, more beautiful than anything that is jolly." Then she bent her head back and let the bunch glide slowly into her open mouth, and in this action she felt wholly magnificent, wholly beautiful, wholly a part of the moonlight night.