There is a fall of days as there is a I fall of leaves. I do not know what wind, blowing from the infinite, shakes the years, and sends falling from them one by one the sere and yellow days. Whither do they go? Whither go the sere and yellow leaves? To the great laboratory, no doubt, where Nature fashions her annual resurrections. They will return to us from this laboratory as green as ever, and everlastingly the same in their unchangeable designs, those of the poplar, which are hearts, the chestnut, which are hands, the aspen, which are tridents, and the willow leaves, which are lances. But what becomes of days when they have fallen, sere and yellow? To what remote, unknown, chimerical worlds are they carried off forever? For they are never seen again. New days come,--the foliage of the years,--unheralded days, unexpected days, surprising days, days that one loves and days that one fears; but the olden days, those which were familiar to us, those that we desire, that we wait for, will never return. The foliage of the year will be so well renovated that we shall no longer be able to recognize it at all. Yes, they are days. They have a beginning and an end, they have light and shadow, they are born of night and into night withdraw to die. They are days, without a doubt, but not the same. Their smiles are different, and also their frowns. The joys they bring us are not distributed with less niggardliness, but they have neither the same perfume nor the same color. Hope not to find again the smile that enchanted you. It is dead. It will not return to the face you love any more than the day of your birth will return. But may you at least hope to see once more the face you love, as it was. Alas! You will perhaps have the illusion of seeing it thus, but it will not be reality, for the days, as they vanish into the night, carry off with them somewhat of the countenances of men as a remembrance. It may well be that with these tiny bits they fashion brand new faces, yonder in the chimerical world, but that is not at all sure. No, never the same, never. Slowly or rapidly, an indefatigable motion whirls everything about in a farandola whose ends never can meet. The year passes by: one day more! The day passes by: an hour longer! The hour passes by: only another minute! In vain. But all this will at least come back? I have already told you, No. Why insist? Bow to fate. One never crosses the same river twice, said the Greek philosopher, and if this be to some a source of bitterness, others will find in it good reason to take heart. The latter are those whose memories are filled chiefly with evil days. Let them, then, be content. Neither will they ever behold the same days. Tears flow and smiles fade to the same rhythm of life, to disappear together in the bottomless abyss.