holding a stone in the other foot, in order not to fall asleep.
The Count was awakened by a pattering on his shoulders and brow; it was the Bernardine, Father Robak, who held aloft in his hand the knotted cords of his belt.
"Will you have cucumbers?" he cried; "Here they are!" [So saying he showed him the knots on his belt, which were shaped like cucumbers.41] "Look out for danger, in this garden patch there is no fruit for you; nothing will come of it!"
Then he threatened him with his finger, adjusted his cowl, and departed; the Count tarried on the spot a moment more, cursing and yet laughing at this sudden hindrance. He glanced at die garden, but she was no longer in the garden; only her pink ribbon and her white gown flashed through the window. On the garden bed one could see the path by which she had flown, for the green leaves, spurned by her foot in her flight, raised themselves and trembled an instant before they became quiet, like water cut by the wings of a bird. Only on the place where she had been standing, her abandoned willow basket, empty and overturned, was still poised upon the leaves and tossing amid the green waves.
An instant later all was silent and deserted; the Count fixed his eyes on the house and strained his ears; still he mused, and still the huntsmen stood motionless behind him.—Then in the quiet deserted house arose first a murmur, then an uproar and merry cries, as in an empty hive when bees fly back into it: that was a sign that the guests had returned from hunting, and that the servants were busying themselves with breakfast.
D
