When a couple of days later Rudy paid a visit to the mill, he found the young Englishman there. Babette was setting some boiled trout in front of him. She had obviously decorated them with parsley herself to give them an elegant appearance. That was not at all necessary! Whatever did the Englishman want here? What would he be up to in this place? Having Babette play with him and run rings round him?
Rudy was jealous, and that amused Babette. It entertained her to observe all aspects of his heart, the strong and the weak. Love was still a game, and she was playing with the entirety of Rudy’s heart, and yet, it should be said, he was her joy, her life’s ideal, the best, the most wonderful in this world. But the gloomier he looked, the more her eyes laughed. She would have liked to have kissed the fair Englishman with the gilded sideburns. If by doing so she made Rudy run away in fury, that would just go to show how hugely he adored her. Yet that was neither right nor wise of little Babette, but then she was only nineteen. She didn’t think things through, even less did she think how her behaviour could be interpreted by the young Englishman as more flirtatious and easy-going than was quite proper for the miller’s modest, newly engaged daughter.
Where the highway from Bex runs below the snow-covered rocky height which is called in the language of the region Les Diablerets, the mill stood, at no great distance from a fast-flowing mountain stream which was whitish-grey in colour like whipped-up soapy water. This however was not what drove the mill. It was a smaller stream that did so, which tumbled down from the rock on the other side of the river, and subsequently, by its power and speed, elevated itself through a stone underground duct beneath the road and then flowed into a closed tank. Thus a wide race running above the fast-flowing river turned the great mill-wheel.
The race was so abundantly full of water it was overflowing, and accordingly presented a wet and filthy route to anyone with the notion of using it as a quick way of getting to the mill-house. But that indeed was the notion of one young man, the Englishman. Dressed in white like a miller’s journeyman, he scrambled along it in the evening, guided by the light that shone from Babette’s bedroom. Having never learned to clamber or climb, he nearly went head-first into the stream, but escaped with wet sleeves and mud-bespattered trousers. Drenched and dirty, he arrived below one of Babette’s windows, from which position he climbed up onto the old lime tree and there mimicked the owl, not being able to render the call of any other bird. Babette heard it and peeked out through the thin curtains of her room, but when she saw the white man and realised who it was, her little heart beat with fear, but also with rage. She quickly extinguished her light, made sure the windows were securely bolted, and just let him get on with his tu-whit-tu-whooing.
How dreadful it would be if Rudy were here now at the mill. But Rudy was not at the mill; no, it was far worse, he was actually right down there below. Furious words were shouted out loudly; a fight would break out, there might possibly be a murder.
Babette opened her window in terror, called out Rudy’s name, and bade him go away. She couldn’t bear him to stay, she said.
‘You can’t bear me to stay!’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s obviously an assignation. You’re waiting for fine friends, better than me! Shame on you, Babette!’
‘You’re detestable!’ said Babette, ‘I hate you!’ and now she was weeping. ‘Go on, go away!’
‘I don’t deserve this,’ he said, and he left, cheeks afire, heart afire.
Babette threw herself on her bed and wept.
‘I love you so much, Rudy, yet you’re able to believe ill of me!’
And she was angry, exceedingly angry, and that was good for her, otherwise she would have been completely overcome by distress. As it was, she was able to fall asleep, and sleep the refreshing sleep of youth.