'Look, look,' he will say,'my
maiden has sent me a little urn; she has not forgotten me in thirty
years.'"
And time goes on...
"What, prisoner! sit you there idle, and smile?"
"I grow old, I grow old, my eyes are blind, I am only thinking."
"Of him that you met forty years ago?"
"Of him whom I met when I was young. Maybe it was forty years ago."
"But do you not know, then, that he is dead? ... Pale beldam, you do
not answer; your lips are white, you breathe no more..."
There! That was the strange tale of the girl in the tower. Wait, Asop,
wait a little: there was something I forgot. One day she heard her
lover's voice in the courtyard, and she fell on her knees and blushed.
And that was when she was forty years...
I bury you, Eva, and in humility kiss the sand above your grave. A
luxuriant, rose-red memory flowers in me when I think of you; I am as if
drenched in blessing at the memory of your smile. You gave all; all did
you give, and it cost you nothing, for you were the wild child of life
itself. But others, the miserly ones who begrudge even a glance, can
have all my thoughts. Why? Ask the twelve months and the ships on the
sea; ask the mysterious God of the heart...
XXXII
A man said:
"You never go out shooting now? Asop is running loose in the woods; he
is after a hare.
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