my friend from me. In my bed that night I wept
for him, and my days seemed empty for the want of him. It was to me as
though he had died, and worse than that; there are things as final as
death, yet lacking death's gentleness. Such is it to be cut off, living
friend from living friend, and living heart from heart not grown cold in
the grave. I have told this story of my tutor and myself first, for the
influence Owen had on me more than for the effect wrought in me by the
manner in which I lost him. There must be none very near me; it seemed
as though that stern verdict had been passed. There must be a vacant
space about the throne. Such was Hammerfeldt's gospel. He knew that he
himself soon must leave me; he would have no successor in power, and
none to take a place in love that he had neither filled nor suffered to
be filled. As I wandered, alone now, about the woods at Artenberg I
mused on these things, and came to a conclusion rather bitter for one of
my years. I would tie no more bonds, to have them cut with the sword; if
love must be slain, love should be born no more; to begin was but to
prepare a sad ending. I would not be drawn on to confidence or
friendship. I chose not to have rather than to lose, not to taste rather
than leave undrained the cup of sweet intimacy. Thus I armed my boyhood
at once against grief and love. In all that I did in after days this
determination was always with me, often overborne for the time by
emotions and passions, but always ready to reassert itself in the first
calm hour, and relentlessly to fetter me in a prison of my own making.
My God, how I have longed for friends sometimes!

Geoffrey Owen I saw but once again. I had written twice to him, and
received respectful, friendly, brief answers. But the sword had passed
through his heart also; he did not respond to my invitation, nor show a
desire to renew our intimacy. Perhaps he was afraid to run the risk; in
truth, even while I urged him, I was half afraid myself. Had he come
again, it would not have been as it had been between us. Very likely we
both in our hearts preferred to rest in memories, not to spoil our
thoughts by disappointment, to be always to one another just what we had
been as we rowed together that last afternoon at Artenberg, when the dim
shadow of parting did no more than deepen our affection and touch it to
a profounder tenderness.

And that time when I saw him again? I was driving through the gates of
an Engli