CHAPTER VI
The Second Meeting
A thousand centuries ran as fast
As runs one day of gladness past
And how that is none knoweth.
A hundred thousand years passed, one like the other, and the day came when the princes were to meet again, as arranged, and to hear from one another how things had gone.
They went to the meeting-place in the darkness of the night and sat down separately where they had sat before, in a circle, each on his mountain. When the sun rose, he shone upon the four great lords in all their might and splendour.
And Summer’s purple cloak beamed and the golden belt round his loins and the rose in his belt. Spring sat in his green garb and plucked at the strings of his lute and hummed to it. Autumn’s motley cloak flapped in the wind. The snow on Winter’s mountain sparkled like diamonds.
Summer’s eyes and Winter’s met for the first time after many years. The sweat sprang to Winter’s brow; Summer shivered and wrapped himself in his cloak. They were both equally strong and equally proud; the eyes of the one were as gentle as the other’s were cold and stern. They looked angrily at each other, bitter, irreconcilable enemies as before.
And Spring and Autumn sat just opposite each other, as on that day long since; and their eyes met like Winter’s and Summer’s, for they neither had seen each other during the years that passed. And Spring’s glance was just as moist and dreamy and young and Autumn’s just as sad and serious.
The princes sat like that for a while. Then they all rose and bowed low, but Spring and Autumn bowed lower than the others, as befits those who are the lesser. And, when they were seated again, each on his mountain, Autumn turned his serious eyes to Summer and asked: