"I do not know which path you will choose, my Rose; but we all have two roads by which to reach the goal for which we are making: to be or to seem. The real lovers of life will always choose the first. They will arrive later; perhaps they will never arrive. But, after all, what does arriving mean?"
Rose at once retorted:
"Still, why have a goal, if not to reach it?"
The girl's practical logic amused me; and our laughter rang out in unison across the fields.
"Rose, morally speaking, the goal is really the means which we employ to attain it. It is a light which we voluntarily flash in front of our footsteps. We can neither miss it nor reach it, because it moves with us. It becomes greater or smaller or is renewed, according to the evolution of our strength and our life...."
We had risen from the ground and, as we talked, were slowly following the path that skirts the orchard. Rose asked:
"Cannot you more or less describe your goal, the one you are speaking about?"
I hesitated for a moment and, almost involuntarily, murmured:
"To know a little more ... to see a little farther ... to understand a little better...."
Rose repeated, slowly and earnestly: