tain, was quite changed. Was it the look
in his eyes or the folds around his mouth?

"Then you don't love me?..." He repeated this like a child taken with
the words, and dropped his head in his hands.

That the light fell about me in gray veils may have been only a fleeting
phenomenon. It cannot be that love will desert you suddenly.

The rest of his stay was of no avail, and when awkwardness fell between
us, he rose, pressed his hands down on my shoulders, and gave me a long,
sombre stare. Then he left. I heard the door close slowly.

Then he doesn't understand? But the love I feel for him is a true love.
It is not that unstable impulse which passion carries off in a puff of
wind. My love, like my life, craves all the victories I have gained, all
the people who are dear to me. And my eyes take in whatever they can of
sky and color.... Nothing forbids me to breathe. Why am I forbidden to
love whatever I love?

My love, you will conquer, you will make yourself understood. You are
not this man who is leaving, nor the other man, nor anyone; you are a
heart of flesh exposed ... a restless heart without limit, a heart
forever beating and forever aimless. Do not let a single one who has
ever been with you fade and drop away. If love cannot conquer, what
else is there to resort to?

And I ran out to overtake him.

II

Only a few months since the first day of the war, yet I cannot recall
one thing about it.

What I know is, that until the end it will remain the outstanding day of
my life, the day of days. No matter what happens later, we who have
lived through it have drunk at one draught the dregs of all the
centuries, we have borne all the thunder of the heavens on our
shoulders. Those who ask "Why exactly us" do not know that misfortune is
always waiting to extort its tax.

I do not speak of the older people, those of the _other_ generation, of
the other age: they have not been touched.

But we, we on that day!

After all, I can recall several words and impressions, but they are no
more illuminating than the way my folks used to describe the day I was
born. "You looked like a little red monkey, you didn't cry much, your
grandmother was the first to kiss you, it was a dreadfully hot evening."

And I can also recall Mr. Barret's gray stony face, his huge, petrified
figure, when he entered the office where we were talking and regaining a
little hope. "It's here!" he discharged from the doorway. None of us
gav