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Now he will come!" TRANSLATED BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D. Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin At Kadullen dinner was served in summer as early as four o'clock, so as to leave the evening clear for summer amusements. Then the afternoon light rested steadily on the extensive white garden-front and the three ponderous gables of the manor.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
"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.
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.
Then she suddenly faced about and left the room. The count passed his hand over his face. A devilish feeling, sympathy. It is really a powerful physical ailment. Then he bent down and picked up the carnations which Billy had plucked to pieces. He wished to keep them in his hand. On this sultry day even life in Kadullen was strangely tense.
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