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.