"Because you and I are not the same! You do not know, you do not know what it is to hear the call of Yulada, to feel the fire burning, thundering in your veins, forcing you away when the leaves turn red, forcing you away, over the mountains, far, far away!"
"I do not know, Yasma, but could I not learn?"
"You could not learn! Once I hoped so, but I do not now! Can the bird raised in a cage learn to travel in the skies? You could not learn! It is too late! Each year I must go away, but always you must stay here!"
"Even so, Yasma, let us not be sad. I would have you six months each year, and that would be far, far better than not to have you at all."
"So you say," she murmured, looking up at me with wide, yearning eyes. "So you say now. But when the time came for me to leave, would you be contented? Rather, would you not be the most miserable man in the world?"
"But why should I be miserable? Would I not know you were coming back? Is it so terrible there where you go in the winter?"
"No, it is not terrible. It is beautiful."
"Then for your sake, I would reconcile myself. If you were happy, why should I not be?"
"Because you are not made that way! No, you could not be happy, my friend," she continued, staring at me with a melancholy smile. "And perfectly dreadful things might happen."
Long, long afterwards, when it was too late for anything but memories, I was to recall those words. But at the moment I brushed them aside, for there in those peaceful woods, with the birds singing in the treetops and the clear warm skies above, I did not believe that anything dreadful could happen to Yasma or myself.