Once more it was late July—exactly a year after those memorable events—and he sat in the stage-coach and took off his crape-hung cap to her. His face was torn by fresh scars and diagonally across his breast the blue white golden scarf was to be seen.

She grasped the posts of the fence with both hands and felt that she would die if she could not have him.

Upon that evening she left the house no more, although for two hours he walked the dusty village street, with Emil, but also alone. But on the next evening she stood behind the fence. Their hands found each other across the obstacle.

"Do you sleep on the ground-floor?" she asked whispering.

"Yes."

"Does the dog still bark when he sees you."

"I don't know, I'm afraid so."

"When you've made friends with him so that he won't bark when you get out of the window, then come to the arbour behind our orchard. I'll wait for you every night at twelve. But don't mind that. Don't come till you're sure of the dog."

For three long nights she sat on the wooden bench of the arbour until the coming of dawn and stared into the bluish dusk that hid the village as in a cloak. From time to time the dogs bayed. She could distinguish the bay of the pastor's collie. She knew his hoarse voice. Perhaps he was barring her beloved's way….

At last, during the fourth night, when his coming was scarcely to be hoped for, uncertain steps dragged up the hill.

She did not run to meet him. She crouched in the darkest corner of the arbour and tasted, intensely blissful, the moments during which he felt his way through the foliage.

Then she clung to his neck, to his lips, demanding and according all—rapt to the very peaks of life….

They were together nightly. Few words passed between them. She scarcely knew how he looked. For not even a beam of the moon could penetrate the broad-leaved foliage, and at the peep of dawn they separated. She might have lain in the arms of a stranger and not known the difference.

And not only during their nightly meetings, but even by day they slipt through life-like shadows. One day the pastor came to the inn for a glass of beer and chatted with other gentlemen. She heard him.

"I don't know what's the matter with that young fellow," he said. "He does his duty and my boy is making progress. But he's like a stranger from another world. He sits at the table and scarcely sees us. He talks and you have the feeling that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Either he's anaemic or he writes poetry."

She herself saw the world through a blue veil, heard the voices of life across an immeasurable distance and felt hot, alien shivers run through her enervated limbs.

The early Autumn approached and with it the day of his departure. At last she thought of discussing the future with him which, until then, like all else on earth, had sunk out of sight.

His mother, he told her, meant to move to Koenigsberg and earn her living by keeping boarders. Thus there was at least a possibility of his continuing his studies. But he didn't believe that he would be able to finish. His present means would soon be exhausted and he had no idea where others would come from.

All that he told her in the annoyed and almost tortured tones of one long weary of hope who only staggers on in fear of more vital degradation.

With flaming words she urged him to be of good courage. She insisted upon such resources as—however frugal—were, after all, at hand, and calculated every penny. She shrugged her shoulders at his gratitude for that first act of helpfulness. If only there were something else to be taken. But whence and how? Her suspicious father would have observed any shortage in his till at once and would have had the thief discovered.

The great thing was to gain time. Upon her advice he was to leave
Koenigsberg with its expensive fraternity life and pass the winter in
Berlin. The rest had to be left to luck and cunning.

In a chill, foggy September night they said farewell. Shivering they held each other close. Their hearts were full of the confused hopes which they themselves had kindled, not because there was any ground for hope, but because without it one cannot live.

And a few weeks later everything came to an end.

For Toni knew of a surety that she would be a mother….