smoke, and we think
of the dead wood coming to life again on the hearth, and of the seated
workman, whose hands are rewarded with rest. And that one, although
motionless, is alive with children--the breeze is scattering the
laughter of their games and seems to play with it, and on the sandy
ground are the crumbs of childish footsteps. Our eyes follow the
postman entering his home, his work ended; he has heroically overcome
his long journeyings. After carrying letters all day to those who were
waiting for them, he is carrying himself to his own people, who also
await him--it is the family which knows the value of the father. He
pushes the gate open, he enters the garden path, his hands are at last
empty!

Along by the old gray wall, old Eudo is making his way, the incurable
widower whose bad news still stubbornly persists, so that he bears it
along around him, and it slackens his steps, and can be seen, and he
takes up more space than he seems to take. A woman meets him, and her
youth is disclosed in the twilight; it expands in her hurrying steps.
It is Mina, going to some trysting-place. She crosses and presses her
little fichu on her heart; we can see that distance dwindles
affectionately in front of her. As she passes away, bent forward and
smiling with her ripe lips, we can see the strength of her heart.

Mist is gradually falling. Now we can only see white things
clearly--the new parts of houses, the walls, the high road, joined to
the other one by footpaths which straggle through the dark fields, the
big white stones, tranquil as sheep, and the horse-pond, whose gleam
amid the far obscurity imitates whiteness in unexpected fashion. Then
we can only see light things--the stains of faces and hands, those
faces which see each other in the gloom longer than is logical and
exceed themselves.

Pervaded by a sort of serious musing, we turn back into the room and
sit down, I on the edge of the bed, she on a chair in front of the open
window, in the center of the pearly sky.

Her thoughts are the same as mine, for she turns her face to me and
says:

"And ourselves."

* * * * * *

She sighs for the thought she has. She would like to be silent, but
she must speak.

"We don't love each other any more," she says, embarrassed by the
greatness of the things she utters; "but we did once, and I want to see
our love again."

She gets up, opens the wardrobe, and sits down agai