rk; for the past two years she had
found that she could imagine herself to be quite moderately happy, if
only she had plenty to do; and she did hope that Bela would allow her to
work in her new home and not to lead a life of idleness--waited on by
paid servants.

She had thrown the door wide open, and every now and then, when she
paused in her work, she could go and stand for a moment under its narrow
lintel; and from this position, looking out toward the west, she could
see the sunset far away beyond where the plain ended, where began
another world. The plumed heads of the maize were tipped with gold, and
in the sky myriads and myriads of tiny clouds lay like a gigantic and
fleecy comet stretching right over the dome of heaven above the plain to
that distant horizon far, far away.

Elsa loved to watch those myriads of clouds through the many changes
which came over them while the sun sank so slowly, so majestically down
into the regions which lay beyond the plain. At first they had been
downy and white, like the freshly-plucked feathers of a goose, then some
of them became of a soft amber colour, like ripe maize, then those far
away appeared rose-tinted, then crimson, then glowing like fire . . .
and that glow spread and spread up from the distant horizon, up and up
till each tiny cloud was suffused with it, and the whole dome of heaven
became one fiery, crimson, fleecy canopy, with peeps between of a pale
turquoise green.

It was beautiful! Elsa, leaning against the frame-work of the door,
gazed into that gorgeous immensity till her eyes ached with the very
magnificence of the sight. It lasted but a few minutes--a quarter of an
hour, perhaps--till gradually the blood-red tints disappeared behind the
tall maize; they faded first, then the crimson and the rose and the
gold, till, one by one, the army of little clouds lost their glowing
robes and put on a grey hue, dull and colourless like people's lives
when the sunshine of love has gone down--out of them.

With a little sigh Elsa turned back into the small living-room, which
looked densely black and full of gloom now by contrast with the
splendour which she had just witnessed. From the village street close by
came the sound of her mother's sharp voice in excited conversation with
a neighbour.

"It will be all right, Irma neni," the neighbour said, in response to
some remark of the other woman. "Klara Goldstein does not expect our
village girls to take much notice