tared with
hard eyes, and the wind passed in gusts, the crystals kept on clicking
in the greenish gloom. She went on whispering to herself: "And yet he
was looking at me! He could see my face, hear my voice, hear my grief!
When I used to sit at his feet, with my cheek against his knee and his
hand on my head, the curse of cruelty and madness was already within
him, waiting for the day. The day came! . . . and before the sun had
set he could not see me any more--he was made blind and deaf and without
pity, as you all are. He shall have no tears from me. Never, never. Not
one tear. I will not! He went away from me as if I had been worse than
death. He fled as if driven by some accursed thing he had heard or seen
in his sleep. . . ."

'Her steady eyes seemed to strain after the shape of a man torn out of
her arms by the strength of a dream. She made no sign to my silent bow.
I was glad to escape.

'I saw her once again, the same afternoon. On leaving her I had gone
in search of Stein, whom I could not find indoors; and I wandered out,
pursued by distressful thoughts, into the gardens, those famous gardens
of Stein, in which you can find every plant and tree of tropical
lowlands. I followed the course of the canalised stream, and sat for
a long time on a shaded bench near the ornamental pond, where some
waterfowl with clipped wings were diving and splashing noisily. The
branches of casuarina trees behind me swayed lightly, incessantly,
reminding me of the soughing of fir trees at home.

'This mournful and restless sound was a fit accompaniment to my
meditations. She had said he had been driven away from her by a
dream,--and there was no answer one could make her--there seemed to be
no forgiveness for such a transgression. And yet is not mankind itself,
pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and
its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive
devotion? And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?

'When I rose to get back to the house I caught sight of Stein's drab
coat through a gap in the foliage, and very soon at a turn of the path
I came upon him walking with the girl. Her little hand rested on his
forearm, and under the broad, flat rim of his Panama hat he bent over
her, grey-haired, paternal, with compassionate and chivalrous deference.
I stood aside, but they stopped, facing me. His gaze was bent on the
ground at his feet; the girl, erect and slight on his arm, stared
som