The sun leaned toward setting, and the bustle in the city's markets grew. Everyone was coming and going, carrying gifts for the family at the opening of the new year. As for her, she went about the house casting a glance over everything, to see whether all was in perfect readiness to receive the guests invited to the holiday party..?

She passed her mirror and stopped to gaze at the beauty in which she had so long gloried and taken pride — and she was startled to glimpse on her brow a line that had not been there before.. Her heart quailed: was old age overtaking her so early..? She had not yet reached thirty; she was a happy wife and the mother of two beautiful children; her life was not bad, but for trifles not worth mentioning — so why should the wrinkles hasten to give her warning of a hateful, early old age?

She sat down and began to think of the twelve months that had passed so swiftly, cutting away a span of her life — a whole year. She sat reviewing yesterday and thinking of tomorrow: nothing less than a word of farewell and a word of welcome, in haste. Did not the ancients symbolize the new year by a statue with one head and two faces — one face turned backward in farewell, and one looking out upon tomorrow in welcome?

She thought and thought, until, for very thinking, a doze of sleep took her; and all at once she found herself in a cinema, the scenes passing before her on the screen. But the strangest thing of all was that those charmers were like little girls, and she wondered to herself: who are they? and where have they come from? Then someone whispered in her ear, saying: they are the hours that have passed over you, the hours of which the departing year was made.. And she kept gazing and gazing, captivated by the scene: scores of them hur-rying past, laughing and singing; scores passing slowly, absorbed and thoughtful.. scores at work, brisk and happy.. But what caught her attention was that in among these beauties there slipped scores of ugly-faced, scowling ones... She

stared at them, bewildered — and then one of them rose up before her, grim-faced and knotted, and said in a sharp voice..

I am Rancor. You were wronged, and cast out of the heart you loved — and that is painful and cruel — but you could have forgiven.. What virtue in the world is loftier than the virtue of forgiveness? I am the hour — I am the hours you spent grinding your teeth and wishing you might take revenge. Do not wonder, then, at my scowl and my ugliness..

A second drew near, red as blood, hot as fire. She said: I am Hatred. You should have remembered that hatred is like fire — it burns its bearer before it burns the one who is hated. Do not excuse yourself by saying that we did not create our feelings and so cannot be called to account for them.. True, we do not create our feelings; but we can direct them and curb their onrush..

A third drew near and cried: I am Envy. You were jealous of everything, you grudged every-one everything, and you wanted everything for yourself — for yourself alone..

A fourth passed, calling out: I am Cruelty. You forgot that you are a woman, and that the word "woman" is a synonym for the two words "tenderness" and "mercy"..

Another said, shaking her finger in her face: And you shrank like a coward from speaking the truth. You sided with every woman, flattering and smiling, though you knew that what was being said was not the truth.

And another said: And you did the deed that brings shame. You thought the matter would remain a secret between you and yourself —

but I was there. It was I and my companions who printed on your brow the line you saw today in the mirror, to your dismay; and we shall go on drawing lines, and many lines.

Another and yet another drew near her, all of them ugly, scowling, exacting their reckon-ing — and the poor woman cried out:

Mercy, O cruel hours! Be gentle with me! In doing what you do, you forget that I am a human creature, with her weakness and her faults. Will you not pardon, O hours of human frailty? But it is upon me, from tomorrow, to pay your account in full in the year to come. You shall see me pluck those ugly looks from your