aw a young peasant-girl near by gathering her geese under
the stars. She said to him:

"Why do you weep?"

He answered:

"My soul was hurt in falling upon the earth. I cannot be cured because
my heart is too heavy."

"Will you have mine?" she said. "It is light. I will take yours and
carry it easily. Am I not accustomed to burdens?"

He gave her his heart and took hers. Immediately they smiled at each
other and hand in hand they followed the pathway.

The geese went in front of them like bits of the moon.

* * * * *

She said to him:

"I know that you are wise, and that I cannot know what you know. But
I know that I love you. You are from elsewhere, and you must have been
born in a wonderful cradle like that I once saw in a cart. It belonged
to rich people. Your mother must speak beautifully. I love you. You
must have loved women with very white faces, and I must seem ugly and
black to you. I was not born in a wonderful cradle. I was born in the
wheat of the fields at harvest time. They have told me this, and also
that my mother and I and a little lamb to which a ewe had given
birth on that same day were carried home on an ass. Rich people have
horses."

He said to her:

"I know that you are simple, and that I cannot be like you. But I know
that I love you. You are from here, and you must have been rocked in
a basket placed on a black chair like that which I have seen in a
picture. I love you. Your mother must spin linen. You must have danced
under the trees with strong handsome laughing boys. I must seem sick
and sad to you. I was not born in the fields at harvest time. We
were born in a beautiful room, I and a little twin sister who died at
birth. My mother was sick. Poor people are strong."

Then they embraced more closely on the bed where they lay together.

She said to him:

"I have your heart."

He said to her:

"I have your heart."

* * * * *

They had a sweet little boy.

And the poet, feeling that the illness which had so weighed upon him
had fled, said to his wife:

"My mother does not know what has become of me. My heart is wrung with
that thought. Let me go to the town, my beloved, and tell her that I
am happy and that I have a son."

She smiled at him, knowing that his heart was hers, and said:

"Go."

And he went back by the way he had come.

He was soon at the gates of the town in front of a magnificent
reside