This Morning.
How my heart beats. To-day A MAN passed. He passed: actually passed.
From my window I saw him go by the garden gate and out into the meadow
beside the river where my Tchupvskja flower is growing!
How beautiful he looked! Not tall like Alexis Alexovitch, ah, no! but
so short and wide and round—shaped like the beautiful cabbage that died
last week.
He wore a velvet jacket and he carried a camp stool and an easel on his
back, and in his face was a curved pipe with a long stem, and his face
was not red and rough like the face of Alexis, but mild and beautiful
and with a smile that played on it like moonlight over putty.
Do I love him? I cannot tell. Not yet. Love is a gentle plant. You
cannot force its growth.
As he passed I leaned from the window and threw a rosebud at him.
But he did not see it.
Then I threw a cake of soap and a toothbrush at him. But I missed him,
and he passed on.
Another Day.
Love has come into my life. It fills it. I have seen HIM again. I have
spoken with him. He sat beside the river on his camp stool. How
beautiful he looked, sitting on it: how strong he seemed and how frail
the little stool on which he sat.
Before him was the easel and he was painting. I spoke to him.