selves, seated under the arbor with the dried-up vines, while the sun melted the congealed sap; and, Pierre's head on Luce's shoulder, they listened dreamily to the humming of the earth. Behind the passing clouds the young sun of March played bo-peep, laughed and disappeared. Clear sunrays, somber shadows ran across the plain as in a soul run joys and sorrows.
"Luce," said Pierre abruptly, "don't you recollect? . . . It was long, long ago. . . . Even then we were like this. . . ."
"Yes," said Luce, "that's true. All of it, I remember all. . . . But where were we? . . ."
They amused themselves by trying to recall under what shapes they had known one another before. Already as human beings? Perhaps. But certainly at that time Pierre was the girl and Luce the lover. . . . Birds in the air? When she was a small child her mother told Luce that she had been a little wild goose that had fallen down the chimney; ah! she had thoroughly broken her wings! . . . But where particularly they
