The Water.
I have crossed the dark hollow of the earth, I have surprised the secret of its marvellous fecundity, and I know the phenomena of its inner parts, whence springs the life to be.
My murmur lulls to sleep and awakens. Awaken thou that thou mayst comprehend it.
The Wind.
I am the air which the angels, as they traverse space, set in motion with their mighty wings. I mass up in the west the clouds that offer to the sun a bed of purple, and I shed at dawn, from the mists that vanish into drops, a pearly dew over the flowers. My sighs are a balm: open thine heart and I will flood it with bliss.
Marta.
When for the first time I heard the murmur of a subterranean stream, not in vain did I bow myself to the earth, lending it ear. With it there went a mystery which at last it should be mine to understand.
Magdalena.
Sighs of the wind, I know you well: you used to caress me, a dreaming child, when, spent with weeping, I gave myself up to slumber, and your soft breathings would seem to me the words of a mother who sings her child to sleep.
The water ceased from speech for a few moments and made no other noise than that of water breaking on rocks. The wind was voiceless, too, and its sound was no other than the sound of blowing leaves. So passed some time, and then they spoke again, and thus they spoke: