Willingly, without answering, she stood up and walked along between the wall and the pillars. It was the very buoyantly reposeful gait, with the sole raised almost perpendicularly, that was so firmly imprinted on his mind, but for the first time he saw that she wore, below the raised gown, not sandals, but light, sand-coloured shoes of fine leather. When she came back and sat down again silently, he involuntarily started to talk of the difference in her foot-covering from that of the bas-relief. To that she rejoined, “Time, of course, always changes everything, and for the present sandals are not suitable, so I put on shoes, which are a better protection against rain and dust; but why did you ask me to walk before you? What is there peculiar about it?” Her repeated wish to learn this proved her not entirely free from feminine curiosity. He now explained that it was a matter of the peculiarly upright position of the rising foot, as she walked, and he added how for weeks he had tried to observe the gait of modern women on the streets in his native city. Yet it seemed that this beautiful way of walking had been completely lost to them, with the exception, perhaps, of a single one who had given him the impression that she walked in that way. To be sure, he had not been able to establish this fact because of the crowd about her, and he had probably experienced an illusion, for it had seemed to him that her features had resembled somewhat those of Gradiva. “What a shame,” she answered. “For confirmation of the fact would surely have been of great scientific importance, and if you had succeeded, perhaps you would not have needed to take the long journey here; but whom were you just speaking of? Who is Gradiva?” “I have named the bas-relief that, because I didn’t know your real name, and don’t know it yet, either.” This last he added with some hesitancy, and she faltered a moment before replying to the indirect question. “My name is Zoë.” With pained tone the words escaped him: “The name suits you beautifully, but it sounds to me like bitter mockery, for ‘Zoë’ means ‘life.’” “One must adapt himself to the inevitable,” she responded, “and I have long accustomed myself to being dead; but now my time is over for to-day; you have brought the grave-flower with you to conduct me back. So give it to me.” As she rose and stretched forth her slender hand, he gave her the asphodel cluster, but was careful not to touch her fingers. Accepting the flowering branch she said, “I thank you. To those who are more fortunate one gives roses in spring, but for me the flower of oblivion is the right one from your hand. To-morrow I shall be allowed to come here again at this hour. If your way leads you again into the house of Meleager, we can sit together at the edge of the poppies, as we did to-day. On the threshold stands ‘Ave,’ and I say it to you ‘Ave’!”