Lida did not go home, but hurriedly turned her steps in an opposite
direction. The streets were empty, the air stifling. Close to the wall
and fence lay the short shadows, vanquished by the triumphant sun.
Through mere force of habit, Lida opened her parasol. She never noticed
if it was cold or hot, light or dark. She walked swiftly past the
fences all dusty and overgrown with weeds, her head bowed, her eyes
downcast. Now and again she met a few gasping pedestrians half-
suffocated by the heat. Over the town lay silence, the oppressive
silence of a summer afternoon.

A little white puppy had followed Lida. After eagerly sniffing her
dress, it ran on in front, and, looking round, wagged its tail, as if
to say that they were comrades. At the corner of a street stood a funny
little fat boy, a portion of whose shirt peeped out at the back of his
breeches. With cheeks distended and fruit-stained, he was vigorously
blowing a wooden pipe.

Lida beckoned to the little puppy and smiled at the boy. Yet she did so
almost unconsciously; her soul was imprisoned. An obscure force,
separating her from the world, swept her onward, past the sunlight, the
verdure, and all the joy of life, towards a black gulf that by the dull
anguish within her she knew to be near.

An officer of her acquaintance rode by. On seeing Lida he reined in his
horse, a roan, whose glossy coat shone in the sunlight.