It was well that
my neighbor should have gone where she might distract me never so
little.
For it was at the season when Nature brews the irresistible philter.
Always, I resolved to forego it like a man; always, like a man, I was
overborne by the ancient longing, the formless "heimweh" that haunts the
hearts of the unmated, and which in my own case made short work of stoic
resolutions. And, since the game had taught me that yielding--where
opposition is fated to avail not--is graceful in proportion to its
readiness, I surrendered as quietly as might be.
One woman face had been wholly mine for hidden cherishing through all
the years. A woman face, be it understood, not the face of a woman. At
first it had been that; but with the years it had lost the lines that
made it but that one. Imperceptibly, it had taken on an alien, vague
softness that but increased its charm while diminishing its power to
hurt.
It brought me now only a pensive pleasure and no feeling more acute. It
was my ashes of roses, the music of my first love, its poignancies
softened by time and memory into an ineffable, faint melody; it was the
moon that drenched my bygone youth with wonder-light--a dream-face,
exquisite as running water, unfolding flowers and those other sweets
that poets try in vain to entangle in the meshes of word and rhythm.
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