nothing
left behind at all--everything is once more present. And the present is
the past. (_He sits down on the stone seat_)

JOHANNA

What do you mean by that?

SALA (_covers his eyes with his hand and sits silent_)

JOHANNA

What is the matter? Where are you anyhow?

[_A light wind stirs the leaves and makes many of them drop to the
ground._

SALA

I am a child, riding my pony across the fields. My father is behind and
calls to me. At that window waits my mother. She has thrown a gray
satin shawl over her dark hair and is waving her hand at me.... And I
am a young lieutenant in maneuvers, standing on a hillock and reporting
to my colonel that hostile infantry is ambushed behind that wooded
piece of ground, ready to charge, and down below us I can see the
midday sun glittering on bayonets and buttons.... And I am lying alone
in my boat adrift, looking up into the deep-blue Summer sky, while
words of incomprehensible beauty are shaping themselves in my
mind--words more beautiful than I have ever been able to put on
paper.... And I am resting on a bench in the cool park at the lake of
Lugano, with Helen sitting beside me; she holds a book with red cover
in her hand; over there by the magnolia, Lillie is playing with the
light-haired English boy, and I can hear them prattling and
laughing.... And I am walking slowly back and forth with Julian on a
bed of rustling leaves, and we are talking of a picture which we saw
yesterday. And I see the picture: two old sailors with worn-out faces,
who are seated on an overturned skiff, their sad eyes directed toward
the boundless sea. And I feel their misery more deeply than the artist
who painted them; more deeply than they could have felt it themselves,
had they been alive.... All this--all of it is there--if I only close
my eyes. It is nearer to me than you, Johanna, when I don't see you and
you keep quiet.

JOHANNA (_stands looking at him with wistful sympathy_)

SALA

The present--what does it mean anyhow? Are we then locked breast to
breast with the moment as with a friend whom we embrace--or an enemy
who is pressing us? Has not the word that just rings out turned to
memory already? Is not the note that starts a melody reduced to memory
before the song is ended? Is your coming to this garden anything but a
memory, Johanna? Are not your steps across that meadow as much a matter
of the past as are the steps of creatures dead these many years?

JOHANNA

No, it