about the summer-house like a jaguar in a cage, picturing himself embracing her knees, trembling with ecstasy and fear. Mr. Holz discreetly retired into the shrubbery. By five o’clock Prokop was overpowered by a horrible feeling of disillusionment. Then he suddenly thought: perhaps she will come at dusk, of course she will! He smiled to himself. Behind the castle the sun set in its autumnal gold. The branches of the trees stood out sharply and rigidly, one could hear the beetles rustling in the fallen leaves, and, before one realized it, the bright light of day had turned into a golden twilight. The first evening star appeared on the green horizon, the earth grew dark beneath the pale heavens, the bat began its erratic flight and from somewhere the other side of the park could be heard the muffled sound of bells as the cows returned to the farm, filled with warm milk. In the castle one window lighted up after the other. Was it already evening Stars of heaven, how often had not the small boy gazed at you in wonder from the edge of the wild thyme, how often had not the man turned to you, waiting, suffering, sometimes sobbing under his cross.
Mr. Holz appeared out of the darkness. “Are you going?”
“No.”
To drink the cup of your humiliation until the morning; for it was clear that she would not come. Now it is necessary to drink this cup of bitterness, at the bottom of which is truth, to intoxicate yourself with pain, to pile up suffering and shame until you writhe like a worm and are stupefied by agony.
