So spoke Catherine to herself to banish the occasional shudders that passed through her heart and often took away her breath, while she completed the arrangements in her room which had been temporarily made last evening, and put away her few belongings in a closet that had been contrived in the thick wall. Then, as there was nothing more to do here, she for the first time ascended the stairs to the upper story, and walked around the gallery which encircled the house and projected beyond the lower story, and was surrounded by well-joined planks and provided with port-holes. With the exception of a place poorly enough partitioned off in which the brothers had slept the previous night, the room, used in winter as a store-room, was empty, or served for the storage of that for which there was no room below. Catherine acquired a clearer notion of the plan, which she and Lambert had formed in the morning, to prepare a small, pleasant room for them both here where everything was more airy and free. However, without Lambert she did not succeed very well in planning.
So she again went downstairs, and to her surprise saw by the clock that since Lambert had left but one hour had elapsed. She took some work and seated herself with it on a bench before the door in the shade of the gallery.
It was in the stillness of the day. There was so little wind that the grass-stems in the meadow, and the rushes at the edge of the creek, scarcely bent. The butterflies passed from flower to flower on languid wing. The hum of the bees and the chirping of the crickets had a sleepy sound. All around, everything was still. However, out of the forest there frequently came the hoarse cry of the tree-falcon, or the call of a bird which Catherine did not recognize. In the blue sky there hung single white clouds whose shadows moved, slowly--very slowly--over the sunny prairie.
At first Catherine was pleased with this quietude, which seemed an image of sabbath stillness, filling her soul. But she had scarcely thus sat an hour before the monotony of the scene about her filled her heart with a strange fear. How entirely different it was this morning. Then heaven and earth and tree and bush and every flower and every grass-stem smiled and bowed their welcome to her. Everything had spoken to her in persuasive language. Now that the beloved one was at a distance everything was dumb, except that heaven and earth and tree and bush and every flower and every grass-stem breathed out one word with ever-increasing sadness: Alone! alone!