n her
memory the Sun, and she to have a strange and troubled amazement upon
her. And there did be Cities upon the great road; and the houses did be
strange-seeming, and did move forward eternally and at a constant speed;
and behind them the Night did march forever; and they to have an even
pace with the sun, that they live ever in the light, and so to escape
the night which pursued forever, as she did tell, and a dread and
terrible chill that did live in the night. And there did be cities far
forward in the morning Sunshine, that did have gone before at speed, and
set the husbandry of the world, and to be finished and gone forward
again ere that certain of the latter cities did come to that place to
the reaping; and the night to come presently to that place; but this not
to be for some part of a year after that the crops were taken. But how
long this might be, she not to remember.

And all this the Maid did say to me, as out of a strange dream, and I to
have set it down, and to have made it so clear to you as she to have
told it; and surely it doth be plain then that she to speak of a time
when that the day did be grown to a monstrous length, because that the
world did turn but slow and weary.

And it to be a sureness, as you shall perceive, that but to stand still
in that age of which Naani told, was to be left presently in an utter
night and chill, that should last mayhap a great and weary year. And, in
verity, it doth seem that all Humanity did travel forever in that
strange age, when that to stay was to die unprepared in the bitter
night, and to go forward, was to be forever in the sun. And truly, this
doth be so strange seeming to me, as to you.

And much I questioned the Maid, and did have an hurt within my heart,
and a pain of jealousy and sadness to grow in me; for surely she did
speak of some life that she did live, when that I did be elsewhere,
either in Life or Unknowing. And, in verity, what man then should have
taught Mine Own to love him? And she then mayhap to have had no
remembering of me.

And truly I questioned very desperate, and the more so because that I
was yet weak, and lacking my strength to be composed. But she neither to
remember me nor any other man of that time; and to have no memories,
save these bare things that she to have spoken out so strange, and which
did come sudden unto her out of all the deepness of the years and the
lost sorrows and joys and wonders of that which doth make a Wo