"And he played on. The poplars listened; but soon their ears were scraped by listless notes such as they fancied they had once heard the crow warble the like of, and their leaves dropped from them and they stood bare. And the nymphs pitied him in the morn-ing, and at dusk they scattered from him.

"But when evening came, his state would change, and he felt within himself a disquiet that turned to ease when he raised his eyes to the heavens and stared — and behold, his glance came to rest upon a star he had never glimpsed in the vault before, and he saw it (what — had fancy seized him?) smile at him. And he stares again and stares, and a far-off call comes down to him, and he feels a bond drawing him toward the heights, and lifts his hands to lay hold of it, and marvels at his lyre rising with him — had it perhaps caught sight of the lost string?

"It shone forever. Even the somber clouds could not hide it.

"And he sickened: he was not of the Banu 'Udhra. He flung himself down in the wilds; emaciation refused to leave him; and movement died in him, save in two eyes that opened at evening, and marveled as they watched, for the light of the luminous star had grown dim.

"And the stars groped about and did not come upon the radiance; and the dawn lost its pale colors; and a chill came over the sun.

"One alone saw, and understood, what was coming to pass. In the manuscript in my keeping, the disciple of Confucius records that the lord of the sky — he who had appointed Shih Nu to her task, who had sent the fox from beyond the twilight, and who had raised his ward up to himself as the most radiant of his stars — it was he who grasped the secret; and the love and the devotion in a goddess and a satyr awed him, and he resolved to join them — and it was so.

"....And one day, when a season had passed in which the nymphs had not seen the lyre's owner, nor heard from it so much as a quiver, they searched for him and for it and came upon no trace of either; and in vain they tried to believe the tale of a grave old man, who related — himself scarcely believing it — that he had seen the glittering star dance, and the lyre rise toward the sky little by little, drawn aloft by a joyous string; and that he had stretched out his aged hand to it and found it heavy, and had been startled, when he brought his gaze close, to see hanging from one of its openings a red beard.

"...A strange happening in the sky long occupied the astrologers: a lyre of stars, its most prominent string ending in a great star to whose light their books knew no equal."

And she ended; and J.'s eyes were leveled at me, and she winked her left eye — a gentle wink:

"And by day, when the stars hide behind the sun, and astrologers and onlookers alike turn their gazes from the vault, Shih Nu would issue forth from Vega, and a satyr would slip out of the Lyre; and when the muezzin's cry reached the heights, the stars would miss her, and take no comfort until evening fell."

On the eve of the parting J. whis-pered in my ear in a faint voice:

— My message to you...

I said, breaking in: — I know: "And if one day we part, the stars will bring us together."

She said — and the sorrow in her smile was not hidden from me:

— And a second like it: "Though the moon has escaped us, the stars are ours."

***

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