As the song drew nearer, I packed up my traps and clasped my stick all ready to say good-bye.
"Forget what we have been speaking about!"
I said this.
"Have we been speaking about anything, then? I didn't know!" replied the lady with the eyes like the sea.
"Adieu!"
I was quite persuaded that we should never meet again.
I did not wait till my friend had climbed up again out of his hole. They would easily find one another. The snow had already begun to fall in thick flakes. I set off homewards.
The snowstorm drove full against me as I proceeded. I had very nearly lost myself in the forest. The evening had fallen early; by the time I had descended from the hill it was quite dark.
But still darker was what I carried with me in my brain—the black thought that there was now no such thing as love or loving remembrance in the world. Where we fall, there we lie, and none cares. Some of us die, and there is none to mourn us; the rest of us remain alive, and mourn over ourselves.