Suddenly Maria turned to Andrea. 'You have been here too,' she said.
'I do not know,' he answered again, looking at her in the same dreamy
way as before, 'I do not remember. I remember nothing. I love you.'
She read, written in Andrea's hand, an epigram of Goethe's, a distich,
the one beginning--_Sage, wie lebst du?_ Say, how livest thou? _Ich
lebe!_ I live! 'And were it mine to live a hundred, hundred years, my
only wish would be that to-morrow should be as to-day.' Underneath this
there was a date: _Die ultima februarii_ 1885, and a name: _Helena
Amyclae_.
'Let us go,' she said.
The canopy of branches cast deep shadows over the little moss-carpeted
stairway.
'Will you take my arm?' he asked.
'No, thank you,' she replied.
They went on in silence. The heart of each was heavy.
Presently she said--'You were very happy two years ago.'
And he, persisting in his tone of reverie--'I do not know--I do not
remember.'
In the green twilight, the path was mysterious. The trunks and branches
of the trees were coiled and interlaced like serpents; here and there a
leaf gleamed through the shade like an emerald green eye.
After an interval of silence, she began again--'Who was that Elena?'
'I do not know, I have forgotten. I remember nothing but that I love
you. I love none but you. I think only of you.
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