ou, or to
me either, just what is Manuel? Oh, but I am puzzled by the impermanence
and the loneliness and the impotence of this Manuel! Dear Freydis, do
not love my body nor my manner of speaking, nor any of the ways that I
have in the flesh, for all these transiencies are mortgaged to the
worms. And that thought also is a grief--"

"Let us not speak of these things! Let us not think of anything that is
horrid, but only of each other!"

"But I cannot put aside the thought that I, who for the while exist in
this mortgaged body, cannot ever get out to you. Freydis, there is no
way in which two persons may meet in this world of men: we can but
exchange, from afar, despairing friendly signals, in the sure knowledge
they will be misinterpreted. So do we pass, each coming out of a strange
woman's womb, each parodied by the flesh of his parents, each passing
futilely, with incommunicative gestures, toward the womb of a strange
grave: and in this jostling we find no comradeship. No soul may travel
upon a bridge of words. Indeed there is no word for my foiled huge
desire to love and to be loved, just as there is no word for the big,
the not quite comprehended thought which is moving in me at this moment.
But that thought also is a grief--"

Manuel was still looking at the changing green and purple of the
mountains and at the tall clouds trailing northward. The things that he
viewed yonder were all gigantic and lovely, and they seemed not to be
very greatly bothering about humankind.

Then Freydis said: "Let us not think too much, dear, in our youth. It is
such a waste of the glad time, and of the youth that will not ever be
returning--"

"But I cannot put aside the thought that it will never be the true
Manuel whom you will love or even know of, nor can I dismiss the
knowledge that these human senses, through which alone we may obtain any
knowledge of each other, are lying messengers. What can I ever be to you
except flesh and a voice? Nor is this the root of my sorrowing, dear
Freydis. For I know that my distrust of all living creatures--oh, even
of you, dear Freydis, when I draw you closest,--must always be as a wall
between us, a low, lasting, firm-set wall which we can never pull down.
And I know that I am not really a famed champion, but only a forlorn and
lonely inmate of the doubtful castle of my body; and that I, who know
not truly what I am, must die in this same doubt and loneliness, behind
the strong defences of