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," said Marion. With a sigh Moritz raised himself, took his towel, which was lying on the ground beside him, hung it over his shoulder, and struck reluctantly into the path toward the meadow. All over the cropped meadow cobwebs were glittering on the short grass. Swallows flitted quite low over the ground. The sun beat down pitilessly. "Incredible," murmured Moritz, "to have to look for this Polish narcissus in such a heat. Where's he likely to be? Probably lying here somewhere." He did actually find Boris lying flat on his back in the grass under a willow. When Moritz came to a stop before him, Boris looked at him indifferently and said, "What do you want?" "I," said Moritz, "I don't really want anything, but Billy sent me to keep watch over you." Boris did not answer, but looked up at the sky again. So Moritz also lay down in the grass. This handsome Pole in his yellow silk suit was unspeakably distasteful to him. How he lay there, as it were heavy and satiated with the admiration of all the beautiful women that were devoted to him. Moritz could have hit him. Yet he felt a craving to be near him, for there was something of Billy where Boris was: Boris knew about her, he was the stupid, hateful, locked door, behind which stood the only thing that Moritz now desired. To sit before that door was painful, but for now this pain was simply the only occupation left to him. "Thoughtful?" remarked Moritz at last. "Yes," said Boris with his lyrical inflection, "he who is not yet done with his life has much to think over." Moritz laughed scornfully: "H'mp, you've managed to crowd a good lot into yours already." "Oh, I've hardly begun yet," said Boris sleepily. Moritz now reflected as to what he could say, then he began, "Tell me, how was that affair in Warsaw with the dancer Zucchetti? Didn't you have a _liaison_ with her?" But Boris was not vexed. "How was it? Why, how should I know that now. You don't remember things like that. You might just as well ask me about the bottle of champagne I drank on the twelfth of August three years ago. I don't know." And comfortably, as if he were lying in bed, he turned over on his stomach in the grass, to let the sun warm his back. "All right," Moritz continued obstinately. "But you did enough crazy things on her account, so you must have loved her." "If you call that love in German," responded Boris, "then I am sorry for your poor German language." "Is t
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