ive life whole. When I
used to say 'Helene,' I did not know what I was saying. Now, when I
shall say 'she,' it will be everything."

Once more their lips joined. Their mouths and their eyes were those of
Adam and Eve. I recalled the ancestral lesson from which sacred
history and human history flow as from a fountain. They wandered in
the penetrating light of paradise without knowledge. They were as if
they did not exist. When--through triumphant curiosity, though
forbidden by God himself--they learned the secret, the sky was darkened.
The certainty of a future of sorrow had fallen upon them. Angels
pursued them like vultures. They grovelled on the ground from day to
day, but they had created love, they had replaced divine riches by the
poverty of belonging to each other.

The two little children had taken their parts in the eternal drama. By
talking to each other as they did they had restored to their first
names their full significance.

"I should like to love you more. I should like to love you harder.
How could I?"

. . . . .

They said no more, as though there were no more words for them. They
were completely absorbed in themselves, and their hands trembled.

Then they rose, and as they did so, the door opened. There stood the
old stooping grandmother. She came out of the grey, out of the realm
of phantoms, out of the past. She was looking for them as if they had
gone astray. She called them in a low voice. She put into her tone a
great gentleness, almost sadness, strangely harmonising with the
children's presence.

"You are here, children?" she said, with a kind little laugh. "What
are you doing here? Come, they are looking for you."

She was old and faded, but she was angelic, with her gown fastened up
to her neck. Beside these two, who were preparing for the large life,
she was, thenceforth, like a child, inactive, useless.

They rushed into her arms, and pressed their foreheads against her
saintly mouth. They seemed to be saying good-by to her forever.

. . . . .

She went out. And a moment afterwards they followed her, hastily, as
they had come, united now by an invisible and sublime bond. On the
threshold, they looked at each other once more.

And now that the room was empty like a deserted sanctuary, I thought of
their glance, their first glance of love, which I had seen.

No one before me had ever seen a first glance of love. I was beside
them, but, far away. I under