She burst into such ringing laughter as though she were really only
seventeen years old.

"I did not know you, either. Are you, too, a human being? How
strange and how beautiful it is--a human being!"

That which I am writing happened long ago, and those who are
sleeping now in the sleep of grey life and who die without awakening--
those will not believe me: in those days there was no such thing as
time. The sun was rising and setting, and the hand was moving around
the dial--but time did not exist. And many other great and wonderful
things happened in those days.... And those who are sleeping now the
sleep of this grey life and who die without awakening, will not
believe me.

"I must go," said I.

"Wait, I will give you something to eat. You haven't eaten anything
to-day. See how sensible I am: I shall go to-morrow. I shall give
the children away and find you."

"Comrade," said I.

"Yes, comrade."

Through the open windows came the breath of the fields, and silence,
and from time to time, the cheerful strokes of the axe, and I sat by
the table and looked and listened, and everything was so mysteriously
new that I felt like laughing. I looked at the walls and they seemed
to me to be transparent. As if embracing all eternity with one glance,