CHAPTER XIII
When it grew light he found it impossible to stay in the house . . . he thought he would go out and pick some flowers; then he would lay them outside Annie’s door, and when she came out . . . On wings of delight Prokop crept downstairs while it was still hardly after four o’clock. Outside it was beautiful; every flower sparkled like an eye (she has large, calm eyes like a cow) (she has also long lashes) (now she is sleeping, her eyelids are as delicate in color as pigeons’ eggs) (God! if I could know her dreams) (if her hands are crossed on her breast they will rise and fall with her breathing; but if they are under her head then certainly her sleeve has fallen back and one can see her rosy elbow) (she said the other day that up to now she has been sleeping in the green bed she had when a child) (she said that she would be nineteen in October) (she has a birthmark on her neck) (how is it possible that she loves me?—it is so wonderful); in fact there is nothing more beautiful than a summer morning, but Prokop looked down at the ground, smiled as far as he was able to do so, and made his way to the river, still full of his reflections. There appeared—but near the other bank—the buds of some water-lilies. Scornful of all dangers he undressed, threw himself into the
89
