"Life is so strange. And human beings strangest of all. I have loved—but now I feel as one that had only dreamed strange fancies."
"But have you loved them really—in earnest? I mean, did you give them all you had to give—and can anyone give that more than once in life?" The girl spoke softly, but with such deep feeling that the young man found no words to answer, and sat silently staring before him.
"Who can tell," he said, after a while. "I thought I had given all I had long since, and had all that could ever be given me. I felt myself poor as the poorest beggar. Then you came, unlike all the others, a wealth of hidden treasure in yourself—none had ever given me what you gave. And now—I feel myself rich, young and unspoiled, as if I were crossing the threshold of life for the first time."
"Rich—ay, you are rich—as a prince. And I am your poorest little slave, sitting at your feet. But how can anyone ever be so rich—how can it be? I can never understand."
"Do you know what I think? I think that human beings are endlessly rich and deep, like Nature itself, that is always young, and only changes from one season to another. All that has happened to me before seems now only the rising of sap in spring. Now summer comes for the first time—all calm and warmth and happiness. I have been like a fairy palace, with a splendid hall to which none could find the key. But you had it all the time—the others could enter this little room or that, but only you had the key to the best of all."
"Is it really true, Olof? Oh, I shall remember those words for ever!"
"It is true—you were the first that taught me how deep and mysterious, how wonderful, the love of a man and a woman can be. That it is not just a chance meeting, and after that all kisses and embraces and overflow of feeling. But a quiet, calm happiness in the blood, like the sap in the trees, invisible, yet bearing all life in itself; speechless, yet saying everything without a single touch of our lips."
"Yes," said the girl earnestly. "But did you not know that before? I have always felt it so."
"No—I did not realise that it was so intimate a part of our nature; that it was the foundation of life and happiness for all on earth. Now at last I understand that we are nothing without one another—we are as earth without water, trees without roots or mould; or as the sky without sun and moon. And I know now much that I did not know before—the secret of all existence, the power that sustains us all."
"And you know that it is love—the greatest of all! But why does no one ever speak of it—I mean, of love itself, not merely the name?"