My memory carries me now across the bygone years to the day I glimpsed you for the first time — a fragrant flower swaying among the daughters of thought, gathering from them a lawful perfume to add to your own bewitching scent. The keeper of that bower came up to me and presented me to you, saying:

— One of the cultured young ladies of our society. It was an acquaintance out of which grew a friendship whose foundations were laid by our kindred inclinations and like-minded views; for I was a lover of the arts, and you were an artist by nature — your fingers flowed with music over the strings of a lute, and played contentedly over canvas and colors, making dead matter speak and breathing life into created things. You had duties enough to keep you from thinking of me, while your image never for a single moment left my imagination. I pictured you as that girl for whom every young man yearns whose heart strives toward life and whose soul seeks a settled haven. Do not think I was the victim of passing fancies out of which I formed an opinion of you — no, no, by the purity and virginity of my love: I went and gathered news of you from the mouths of your acquaintances and of those around you. I lived with you through all those days while you were far from me, unconscious of my existence. I walked in your steps and learned of you things near and far, until I came to know more about your very family than I knew about myself and my own.

I went on promising myself another meeting with you, until my wish came true the day a musical recital was given for the students of your institute, you being one of them. I went to attend it with a longing to see you greater than my longing to hear the music. And do not ask about my joy at the moment I saw you come forward to the piano and take your place upon its stool, all eyes fixed upon you. Your fingers began to sport and play with the melodies, and I fancied you were playing for me, for me alone. My sight went blind to everything around me, and I imagined myself with you, a single room gathering us together, you sparing no pains to make me happy and bring gladness to my heart. Nothing brought me back to my senses but the applause of the audience announcing that you had finished — and before I knew it my voice was breaking sharp from my throat: — Bravo! Bravo!

After that I became the mark of every gaze, while I saw you, red staining your cheeks, bowing to me and

inclining your head in sign of thanks and gratitude. At the end of the recital I came up to you and pressed your hand in congratulation, and you pre-sented me to your family and your friends; and I shall never forget how you stumbled over my name — and how could I fairly blame you, when we had met but once or twice? I took my leave of you after reading in your eyes a long tale of bitter torment whose depth none can know but he who has suffered it. My one concern thereafter was to find a means of meeting you. And I got what I wanted, obtained by my own methods, my only spur being my love and my respect for you. Our meetings multiplied, and in them I tried to study your soul and your character, and I came out with a conclusion that gladdened my heart:

I was the first young man in your life, for you had grown up in a conservative circle. Forbidding obstacles had risen in the way of your studies, from which nothing had delivered you but your patience and endurance. I pledged myself to take you by the hand, and thereby won your affection and your devo-tion. With time I felt that you were fighting bitterly to meet me, for you feared what our meetings might come to in the end. You began to dread that my love should fall into your heart before you could learn what was in my soul. And what you dreaded came to pass; I saw it in every feature of your face, and glimpsed it in every word your lips let fall.

That was what I had wanted; I had lived through those days yearning for that very end, until your eyes brought me the glad tidings of it and your sighs conveyed it. A declaration from me gave you strength; you pledged me faithfulness and utter devotion to my pleasure, and I told you that two years lay before me before I could provide the life I wanted for you. You promised to wait until the end of your days, and you were true to your promise — my messenger to you told me so.. your eyes.

You invited me to visit your home after I had come to know your family, and I went with gladness filling my soul. And now I cry from my depths: no — would that I had never done it! Would that my feet had been struck lame before they crossed the threshold of that house. Do you still remember that night, and the ill omen it dragged down upon our two souls? Will you picture with me the hour I fell to talking with your parents, and they asked me about my family — who it was, from whom it descended, and to what country I belonged?

Can you forget, in God's name, the image of your