Oh, Love is the summer night with stars in the sky and fragrance on the earth. But why does it make the youth seek hidden paths and why does it make the greybeard stand tiptoe in his lonely chamber? Ah, Love turns the heart of man to a garden of fungus, a luxuriant and shameless garden wherein mysterious and immodest toadstools raise their heads. Does it not lead the friar to slink into closed gardens and glue his eyes to the windows of the sleepers at night? And does it not possess the nun with folly and darken the understanding of the princess? It casts the king's head to the ground so that his hair sweeps all the dust of the highway, and he whispers unseemly words to himself the while and laughs and puts out his tongue. Such was Love. No, no, it was again something very different and it was like nothing else in the whole world. It came to earth one spring night when a youth saw two eyes, two eyes. He gazed and saw. He kissed a mouth, and then it was as though two lights met in his heart, a sun flashing towards a star. He fell into an embrace, and then he heard and saw no more in all the world. Love is the first word of God, the first thought that sailed through his brain. He said: Let there be light! and then Love was. And all that he had made was very good and he wished none of it unmade again. And Love became the origin of the world and its ruler; but all its ways are full of blossoms and blood, blossoms and blood. * * * * * A September day. This out-of-the-way street was his daily walk; he went up and down it as in his own room, because he never met any one and it had gardens on both sides and trees with red and yellow leaves. Why was Victoria walking here? how could this lie in her way? He was not mistaken, it was she, and perhaps it was she who had been walking here the evening before when he looked out of his window. His heart beat violently. He knew Victoria was in town, he had heard so; but she mixed in circles which were closed to the Miller's son. He never met Ditlef either. He pulled himself together and went to meet the lady. Didn't she know him? She walked on, serious and full of her thoughts, carrying her head proudly on her long neck. He bowed. "Good afternoon," she said, quite low. She made no sign of stopping and he passed by in silence. His legs gave a jerk. At the end of the little road he turned round, as he always did. I shall keep my eyes fixed on the pavement and not look up, he thought. Not till he had gone a dozen paces did he look up. She had stopped in front of a window. Should he steal away, into the next street? What was she standing there for? The window was a poor one, a little shop-window which showed some crass bars of red soap, a glass jar of meal, and some foreign stamps for sale. Perhaps he could go on another dozen paces and then turn.