I am a child, riding my pony across the fields. My father is behind and calls to me. At that window waits my mother. She has thrown a gray satin shawl over her dark hair and is waving her hand at me.... And I am a young lieutenant in maneuvers, standing on a hillock and reporting to my colonel that hostile infantry is ambushed behind that wooded piece of ground, ready to charge, and down below us I can see the midday sun glittering on bayonets and buttons.... And I am lying alone in my boat adrift, looking up into the deep-blue Summer sky, while words of incomprehensible beauty are shaping themselves in my mind--words more beautiful than I have ever been able to put on paper.... And I am resting on a bench in the cool park at the lake of Lugano, with Helen sitting beside me; she holds a book with red cover in her hand; over there by the magnolia, Lillie is playing with the light-haired English boy, and I can hear them prattling and laughing.... And I am walking slowly back and forth with Julian on a bed of rustling leaves, and we are talking of a picture which we saw yesterday. And I see the picture: two old sailors with worn-out faces, who are seated on an overturned skiff, their sad eyes directed toward the boundless sea. And I feel their misery more deeply than the artist who painted them; more deeply than they could have felt it themselves, had they been alive.... All this--all of it is there--if I only close my eyes. It is nearer to me than you, Johanna, when I don't see you and you keep quiet. JOHANNA (_stands looking at him with wistful sympathy_) SALA The present--what does it mean anyhow? Are we then locked breast to breast with the moment as with a friend whom we embrace--or an enemy who is pressing us? Has not the word that just rings out turned to memory already? Is not the note that starts a melody reduced to memory before the song is ended? Is your coming to this garden anything but a memory, Johanna? Are not your steps across that meadow as much a matter of the past as are the steps of creatures dead these many years? JOHANNA No, it mustn't be like that. It makes me sad. SALA (_with a return to present things_) Why?... It shouldn't, Johanna. It is in hours like those we know, that we have lost nothing, and that in reality we cannot lose anything. JOHANNA Oh, I wish you had lost and forgotten everything, so that I might be everything to you! SALA (_somewhat astonished_) Johanna.... JOHANNA (_passionately_) I love you. (_Pause_) SALA In a few days I shall be gone, Johanna. You know it--you have known it right along. JOHANNA