THE sun had set. The wheeling masses of cloud were hastening to heap themselves one above another in the distant horizon. The cold wind of autumn evenings was whirling the withered leaves about my feet.

I was sitting by the side of a road [the road to the cemetery] where ever there return fewer than those who go.

I do not know of what I was thinking, if, indeed, I was just then thinking of anything at all. My soul was trembling on the point of soaring into space, as the bird trembles and flutters its wings before taking flight.

There are moments in which, thanks to a series of abstractions, the spirit withdraws from its environment and, self-absorbed, analyzes and comprehends the mysterious phenomena of the inner life of man.

There are other moments in which the soul slips free from the flesh, loses its personality, mingles with the elements of nature, relates itself to their mode of being and translates their incomprehensible language.

In one of these latter moments was I, when, alone and in the midst of a clear tract of level ground, I heard talking near me.

The speakers were two withered leaves, and this, a little more or less exact, was their strange dialogue:

“Whence comest thou, sister?”

“I come from riding on the whirlwind, enveloped in the cloud of dust and of withered leaves, our companions, all the length of the interminable plain. And thou?”

“I drifted for a time with the current of the river, until the strong south wind snatched me up from the mud and reeds of the bank.”

“And whither bound?”

“I know not. Doth perchance the wind that driveth me know?”

“Woe is me! Who would have said that we should end like this, faded and withered, dragging ourselves along the ground—we who lived clothed in color and light, dancing in the air?”

“Rememberest thou the beautiful days of our budding—that peaceful morning when, at the breaking of the swollen sheath which had served us for a cradle, we unfolded to the gentle kiss of the sun, like a fan of emeralds?”

“Oh, how sweet it was to be swayed at that height by the breeze, drinking in through every pore the air and the light!”

“Oh, how beautiful it was to watch the flowing water of the river that lapped the twisted roots of the ancient tree which sustained us, that limpid, transparent water, reflecting like a mirror the azure of the sky, so that we seemed to live suspended between two blue abysses!”

“With what delight we used to peep over the green foliage to see ourselves pictured in the tremulous stream!”

“How we would sing together, imitating the murmur of the breeze and following the rhythm of the waves!”

“Brilliant insects would flit about us, spreading their gauzy wings.”

“And the white butterflies and blue dragon-flies, gyrating in strange circles through the air, would alight for a moment on our dentate edges to tell each other the secrets of that mysterious love lasting but an instant and burning up their lives.”

“Each of us was a note in the concert of the groves.”

“Each of us was a tone in their harmony of color.”

“In the silver nights when the moonbeams glided over the mountain tops, dost remember how we would chat in low voices amid the translucent shadows?”

“And we would relate in soft whispers stories of the sylphs who swing in the golden threads that the spiders hang from tree to tree.”

“Until we hushed our murmurous speech to listen enraptured to the plaints of the nightingale, who had chosen our tree for her throne of song.”

“And so sad and so tender were her lamenting strains that, though filled with joy to hear her, the dawn found us weeping.”

“Oh, how sweet were those tears which the dew of night would shed upon us, and which would sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow in the first gleam of dawn!”

“Then came the jocund flock of linnets to pour into the grove life and sound with the gleeful, gay confusion of their songs.”

“And one enamoured pair hung close to us their round nest of straws and feathers.”

“We served to shelter the little ones from the troublesome rain-drops in the summer tempests.”

“We served as a canopy to shield them from the fierce rays of the sun.”

“Our life passed like a golden dream from which we had no thought there could be an awakening.”

“One beautiful afternoon, when everything around us seemed to smile, when the setting sun was kindling the west and crimsoning the clouds, and from the earth, touched by the evening damp, were rising exhalations of life and the perfumes of flowers, two lovers stayed their steps on the river bank at the foot of our parent tree.”

“Never will that memory fade! She was young, scarcely more than a child, beautiful and pallid. He asked her tenderly, ‘Why weepest thou?’ ‘Forgive this involuntary selfishness,’ she replied, brushing away a tear; ‘I weep for myself; I weep for the life which is slipping from me. When the sky is crowned with sunshine and the earth is clothed with verdure and flowers, and the wind is laden with perfumes, with the songs of birds and with far-off harmonies, and when one loves and feels herself beloved, life is good.’ ‘And why wilt thou not live?’ he insisted, deeply moved, clasping her hands close in his. ‘Because I cannot. When these leaves, which whisper in unison above our heads, fall withered, I, too, shall die, and the wind will some day bear away their dust, and mine—whither, who knoweth?’”

“I heard, and thou did’st hear, and we shuddered and were silent. We must wither! We must die, and be whirled about by the rushing wind! Mute and full of terror we remained even till nightfall. O, how terrible was that night!”

“For the first time the love-lorn nightingale failed at the tryst which she had enchanted with her mournful lays.”

“Soon the birds flew away, and with them their little ones now clothed with plumage, and only the nest remained, rocking slowly and sadly, like the empty cradle of a dead child.”

“And the white butterflies and the blue dragonflies fled, leaving their place to obscure insects which came to eat away our fibre and to deposit in our bosoms their nauseous larvae.”

“Oh, and how we shivered, shrinking from the icy touch of the night frosts!”

“We lost our color and freshness.”

“We lost our pliancy and grace, and what before had been to us like the soft sound of kisses, like the murmur of love words, now became a harsh, dry call, unwelcome, dismal.”

“And at last, dislodged, we flew away.”

“Trodden under foot by the careless passers-by, whirled incessantly from one point to another in the dust and the mire, I accounted myself happy when I could rest for an instant in the deep rut of a road.”

“I have revolved unceasingly in the grip of the turbid stream; and in the course of my long travels I saw, alone, in mourning garb and with clouded brow, gazing absently upon the running waters and the withered leaves which shared and marked their movement, one of those two lovers whose words gave us our first presentment of death.”

“She, too, has lost her hold on life, and perchance will sleep in an open, new-made grave over which I paused a moment.”

“Ah, she sleeps and rests at last; but we, when shall we come to the end of our long journey?”

“Never!—Even now the wind, which has given us a brief repose, blows once more, and I feel myself constrained to rise from the ground and follow. Adieu, sister!”

“Adieu!”

* * * * * * * *

The wind, quiet for a moment, whistled again, and the leaves rose in a whirling confusion, to be lost afar in the darkness of the night.

And then there came to me a thought that I cannot remember and that, even though I were to remember it, I could find no words to utter.