ughing also were her huge, black, luminous eyes. The
merry playfulness of her capricious flight shivered their diamond rays.

She held in her hand a long frond of a steppe flower--"Imperial
sceptre"[72] the Russian folk call it; and it does, indeed, resemble a
sceptre.

As she flew rapidly above me she touched my head with that flower.

I darted toward her.... But she had already fluttered through the
window, and away she flew headlong....

In the garden, in the wilderness of the lilac-bushes, a turtle-dove
greeted her with its first cooing; and at the spot where she had
vanished the milky-white sky flushed a soft crimson.

I recognised thee, goddess of fancy! Thou hast visited me by
accident--thou hast flown in to young poets.

O poetry! O youth! O virginal beauty of woman! Only for an instant can
ye gleam before me,--in the early morning of the early spring!

May, 1878.

NECESSITAS--VIS--LIBERTAS

A BAS-RELIEF

A tall, bony old woman with an iron face and a dull, impassive gaze is
walking along with great strides, and pushing before her, with her hand
as harsh as a stick, another woman.

This woman, of vast size, powerful, corpulent, with the muscles of a
Hercules, and a tiny head on a bull-like neck-and blind--is pushing on
in her turn a small, thin young girl.

This girl alone has eyes which see; she resists, turns backward,
elevates her thin red arms; her animated countenance expresses
impatience and hardihood.... She does not wish to obey, she does not
wish to advance in the direction whither she is being impelled ... and,
nevertheless, she must obey and advance.

_Necessitas--Vis--Libertas_:

Whoever likes may interpret this.

May, 1878.

ALMS

In the vicinity of a great city, on the broad, much-travelled road, an
aged, ailing man was walking.

He was staggering as he went; his emaciated legs, entangling themselves,
trailing and stumbling, trod heavily and feebly, exactly as though they
belonged to some one else; his clothing hung on him in rags; his bare
head drooped upon his breast.... He was exhausted.

He squatted down on a stone by the side of the road, bent forward,
propped his elbows on his knees, covered his face with both hands, and
between his crooked fingers the tears dripped on the dry, grey dust.

He was remembering....

He remembered how he had once been healthy and rich,--and how he had
squandered his health, and distributed his wealth to others, frie