FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144  
145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>   >|  
th them was the unwearying chirping of the field-crickets. "How busy they are at their work," thought the count, "what a hurry they are in; it sounds as if each one were madly reeling the thread off a spool. How those spools hum, how feverish is the unrest in them." He felt agreeably aloof from this unrest. As he dozed off, the voices seemed to withdraw, to become subdued. "Yes, yes, it must be so, the restless voices move away, die away, and then--quiet. Yes, it will be so--perhaps--we shall see." Below along the box-hedge, however, Boris and Billy were still walking up and down. Boris was talking passionately at Billy. He was quite pale with eloquence, and knew how to put a wonderfully unreserved pathos into his words. "I know your father does not like me; he wishes to humiliate me. Of course we are not loved here in your land. We are the irksome ones all through history. Obstinate idealists are not loved. He who is born with a pain, he who is brought up for a pain, is uncongenial, I know. To be unhappy is out of date here among you, it is not _comme il faut_." "Oh, Boris, why do you talk so," said Billy in a voice hoarse with emotion, "we people here, all of us, like you." Boris shrugged his shoulders. "All of us, good heavens, as if I cared about that. But you, Billy, I know you are good, you are for me,--but no, not as I understand it. Look, we Poles, all of us going about with a wound in our hearts, understand love differently. We demand a love which will take our side unconditionally, without a question, without looking around, which is wholly, wholly, wholly for us. But," and Boris made a gesture as if he were casting a world from him, "but, where do we find such a love?" The sun was now hanging above the fringe of forest, a raspberry-red disk. Billy stood still and looked wide-eyed at the sun. The dark blue of those eyes became bright with tears, and two tiny red suns were reflected in them. "Oh, Boris, why must you talk so," she struggled to say, "of course you know--what shall I do, what can I do?" "You can do everything," retorted Boris mysteriously. Billy's heart swelled painfully with vast compassion for the handsome pale lad before her, and it really seemed to her at this moment as if she could do anything and everything for him. The garden was now quite red with the light of evening. Everywhere the young girls and men were standing together, excited by the violent, many-colored light
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144  
145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
wholly
 

understand

 

unrest

 

voices

 

question

 
hanging
 
unconditionally
 

gesture

 
casting
 

demand


hearts

 

differently

 
moment
 

garden

 
painfully
 

compassion

 
handsome
 
evening
 

Everywhere

 

violent


colored

 

excited

 

standing

 

swelled

 

looked

 

fringe

 

forest

 

raspberry

 

bright

 

retorted


mysteriously

 
struggled
 

reflected

 

idealists

 

subdued

 
restless
 

withdraw

 
agreeably
 

walking

 
feverish

thought
 

crickets

 
unwearying
 
chirping
 

thread

 

spools

 
reeling
 

sounds

 
talking
 

unhappy