The sky hung softly over it, sometimes united indissolubly to the earth by a veil of rain, and for them too, wandering through the stillness, there seemed to be nothing left but expectation, and it was as though all the life in them had flowed to their fingers, which, clasped and folded in upon each other, slept like the petals of an unopened bud. Shoulder leaning against shoulder, from the distance resembling the two sides of a triangle, they walked along the river-path in silence, for neither knew what it was that drew them together. But quite unexpectedly while they were walking along Ruzena bent over his hand, which lay in hers, and kissed it before he could draw it away. He looked into eyes that were swimming with tears, and at lips that twitched with sobs, yet managed to say: “When you meet me on stairs I say, Ruzena, I say, he not for you, never for you. And now you here.…” But she did not reach up her mouth for the expected kiss, but fell again, almost greedily, on his hand, and when he tried to free it, bit into it with her teeth, not sharply, but as gently and cautiously as a little dog playing: then looking at the mark contentedly she said: “Now let us walk on again. Rain matters not.” The rain sank quietly into the river, and rustled softly on the leaves of the willows. A boat lay half-sunk near the bank; under a little wooden bridge a runnel poured more rapidly into the placid flow of the river, and Joachim too felt himself being floated away, as though the longing which filled him were a soft, light out-flowing of his heart, a breathing flood longing to be merged in the breath of his beloved, and to be lost as in an ocean of immeasurable peace. It was as though the summer were dissolving, so that the very water seemed light, rustling from the leaves, and hanging on the grasses in clear drops. A soft misty veil rose in the distance, and when they turned round it had closed them in behind, so that in walking they seemed to be standing still. When the rain came on more violently they sought the protection of the trees, beneath which the ground was still dry, a patch of unreleased summer dust almost pitiable in the release of everything around. Ruzena pulled out her hat-pins, not only because their constraint irked her, but also to protect Joachim from their sharp points, took off her hat, and leant her back against him as if he were a protective tree. She had bent back her head, and when he sank his, his lips touched her brow and the dark curls that framed it. He did not see the faint and slightly stupid furrows on her forehead, perhaps because he was too near to distinguish them, perhaps because seeing had melted completely into feeling. But she felt his arms round her, his hands in hers, felt as if she were among the branches of a tree, and his breath on her brow was like the rustling of the rain on the leaves; so motionless did they stand, and so at one was the grey sky with the level waters, that the willows on the little island seemed to float as in a grey insubstantial sea, hanging or resting there, one did not know which. But then she looked at the wet sleeve of her coat and whispered softly that they must turn back.

Yet though now the rain beat on their faces, they dared not hasten, for that would have dispelled the charm, and they only became sure of themselves again when they were drinking coffee in the little inn. Now the rain ran faster and faster down the panes of the rustic veranda, and splashed thinly from the gutters. Whenever the landlady left the room Ruzena set down her cup, took his out of his hand, and seizing his head drew it quite close to hers, so close—and they had not yet kissed—that their glances melted together, and the tension was quite unendurable in its sweetness. But when, as in a dark cave, they sat in the droshky under the covered roof with the rain-flaps let down, the faint soft drumming of the raindrops on the stretched leather above them, seeing nothing of the world save the coachman’s cape and two wet grey strips of roadway through the opening on either side, and soon not even seeing that, then their faces bowed towards each other, met, and melted together, dreaming and flowing like the river, lost irrecoverably, and ever found again, and again sunk tunelessly. It was a kiss that lasted for an hour and fourteen minutes. Then the droshky stopped before Ruzena’s door. Yet when he made to enter with her she shook her head, and he turned to go; but the pain of parting from her was so great that after a few steps he turned back, and driven by his own dread and drawn by hers, seized her hand, which was still motionlessly outstretched in longing; and as if already dreaming they ascended like sleepwalkers the dark stairs, which creaked under their feet, crossed the dark entrance-room, and in her bedroom, which lay in the gloom of the early rainy twilight, sank on the dark rug that covered the bed, seeking once more the kiss from which they had been torn, their faces wet with rain or with tears, they did not know which. But then Ruzena freed herself and guided his hands to the fastenings that held her dress at the back, and her singing voice was dark. “Open that,” she whispered, tearing at the same time at his necktie and the buttons of his vest. And as if in sudden, precipitate humility, whether towards him or towards God, who can say, she fell on her knees, her head against the foot of the bed, and quickly unfastened his shoes. Oh, how terrible that was—for why should they not sink down together, forgetting the casings in which they were held?—and yet how grateful he was to her that she made it easier, and so touchingly; oh, the deliverance of the smile with which she threw open the bed into which they flung themselves. But the sharp-cornered starched plastron of his shirt, cutting against her chin, still irked her, and opening it and squeezing her face between the sharp angles she ordered: “Put that off”; and now they felt release and freedom, felt the softness of their bodies, felt their breathing stifled by the urgency of emotion, and their delight rising up out of their dread. Oh, dread of life streaming from the living flesh with which the bones are clothed, softness of the skin spread and stretched over it, dreadful warning of the skeleton and the many-ribbed breast frame which he can now embrace, and which, breathing, now presses against him, its heart beating against his. Oh, sweet fragrance of the flesh, humid exhalation, soft runnels beneath the breasts, darkness of the armpits. But still Joachim was too confused, still they were both too confused, to know the delight they felt; they knew only that they were together and yet that they must still seek each other. In the darkness he saw Ruzena’s face, but it seemed to be flowing away, flowing between the dark banks of her hair, and he had to put out his hand to touch it and assure himself that it was there; he found her brow and her eyelids beneath which the hard eyeballs rested, found the satisfying curve of her cheeks and the line of her mouth opened for his kiss.