st
of the things here, I am afraid of you too!"

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 t