5," and "King William and Count Bismarck on the
Heights of Lipa." Effi shook her head and smiled. "When I come back
again I am going to ask for different pictures; I don't like such
warlike sights." Then she closed one window and sat down by the other,
which she left open. How she enjoyed the whole scene! Almost behind
the church tower was the moon, which shed its light upon the grassy
plot with the sundial and the heliotrope beds. Everything was covered
with a silvery sheen. Beside the strips of shadow lay white strips of
light, as white as linen on the bleaching ground. Farther on stood the
tall rhubarb plants with their leaves an autumnal yellow, and she
thought of the day, only a little over two years before, when she had
played there with Hulda and the Jahnke girls. On that occasion, when
the visitor came she ascended the little stone steps by the bench and
an hour later was betrothed.
She arose, went toward the door, and listened. Roswitha was asleep and
Annie also.
Suddenly, as the child lay there before her, a throng of pictures of
the days in Kessin came back to her unbidden. There was the district
councillor's dwelling with its gable, and the veranda with the view of
the "Plantation," and she was sitting in the rocking chair, rocking.
Soon Crampas stepped up to her to greet her, and then came Roswitha
with the child, and she took it, held it up, and kissed it.
"That was the first day, there is where it began." In the midst of her
revery she left the room the two were sleeping in and sat down again
at the open window and gazed out into the quiet night.
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