ey
had created for themselves the forbidden solitude. But you could
clearly tell that now that they had found solitude, they did not know
what else to look for.

. . . . .

Then I heard one of them stammer and say sadly, with almost a sob:

"We love each other dearly."

Then a tender phrase rose breathlessly, groping for words, timidly,
like a bird just learning to fly:

"I'd like to love you more."

To see them thus bent toward each other, in the warm shadow, which
bathed them and veiled the childishness of their features, you would
have thought them two lovers meeting.

Two lovers! That was their dream, though they did not yet know what
love meant.

One of them had said "the first time." It was the time that they felt
they were alone, although these two cousins had been living close
together.

No doubt it was the first time that the two had sought to leave
friendship and childhood behind them. It was the first time that
desire had come to surprise and trouble two hearts, which until now had
slept.

. . . . .

Suddenly they stood up, and the slender ray of sunlight, which passed
over them and fell at their feet, revealed their figures, lighted up
their faces and hair, so that their presence brightened the room.

Were they going away? No, they sat down again. Everything fell back
into shadow, into mystery, into truth.

In beholding them, I felt a confused mingling of my past and the past
of the world. Where were they? Everywhere, since they existed. They
were on the banks of the Nile, the Ganges, or the Cydnus, on the banks
of the eternal river of the ages. They were Daphnis and Chloe, under a
myrtle bush, in the Greek sunshine, the shimmer of leaves on their
faces, and their faces mirroring each other. Their vague little
conversation hummed like the wings of a bee, near the freshness of
fountains and the heat that consumed the meadows, while in the distance
a chariot went by, laden with sheaves.

The new world opened. The panting truth was there. It confused them.
They feared the brusque intrusion of some divinity. They were happy
and unhappy. They nestled as close together as they could. They
brought to each other as much as they could. But they did not suspect
what it was that they were bringing. They were too small, too young.
They had not lived long enough. Each was to self a stifling secret.

Like all human beings, like me, like us, they wished for what they did
not have.