And ever still there was no one on the path that led from Badoor to the tree.
Oh, no doubt she had fallen asleep towards dawn, tired of keeping awake through the night, of keeping awake through the length of several nights! No doubt she had not slept for weeks: that was it!
Should he arise and go to Badoor? No! Could he let it appear as though he had a doubt of her coming?
Suppose he called the man yonder who was driving his buffalo to the field? But that man was too far. And besides, Saïdyah wished not to speak about Adinda, not to ask after Adinda . . . he wished to meet her alone, her first! Oh, doubtless, doubtless she would soon come now!
He would wait, wait . . .
But if she were ill, or . . . dead?
Like a wounded deer Saïdyah flew up the path that leads from the ketapan to the village where Adinda lived. He saw nothing and heard nothing, and yet he might have heard something, for there were people standing in the road at the entrance to the village, who called: “Saïdyah! Saïdyah!”
But . . . was it his haste, his passion, which made him unable to find Adinda’s house? Already he had rushed on to the end of the road where the village stops, and like a madman he returned, and beat his forehead because he had been able to pass her house without seeing it. But again he was at the entrance—and, my God, was it a dream? again he had not found Adinda’s house! Once more he flew back, and all at once he stood still, grasped his head with both his hands, as if to press out of it the madness that came over him, and called loudly: “Drunk, I am drunk!”
And the women of Badoor came out of their houses, and with pity saw poor Saïdyah standing there, for they recognized him, and understood that he was looking for Adinda’s house, and they knew that there was no house of Adinda in the village of Badoor.
For when the District-Chief of Parang-Koodyang had taken the buffalo of Adinda’s father . . .
