The next morning the frost was very white; he sent to inquire for her,
asking, "How are you feeling now?" She sent a poem:
_Not in repose was the night passed;_
_But the frosty morning_
_Brought its own charm,_
_Incomparable._
His answer contained many touching words, and a poem:
_To think alone is [not life]._
_If you were thinking the same thoughts--_
She answered:
_You are you and I am I,_
_Yet between your heart and mine is no separation._
_Make no such distinctions._
The lady caught cold. Though not serious she suffered. The Prince often
inquired for her and at last she answered, saying:
A little better. The thread of life thinned down and it
seemed to be going to break, but now it is dear to me
because of you. Is it because I am deep in sin?
He wrote back:
_Gladly do I hear it:_
_The thread of your life_
_Cannot easily be broken,_
_For it is tied together,_
_With pledges of long-enduring affection._
The end of the year was at hand. The first day of the Frost month
seemed like a day of early spring, but the next morning it snowed. The
Prince sent a poem:
_Since the god-age it has snowed,_
_It is a known thing,_
_Yet that snow seems very fresh this morning!_
She returned an answer:
_First snow! I see it young every winter,_
_Yet my face grows old_
_As Winter comes._
Days were passed in exchanging these nothings. Again his letter:
I become impatient to see you, and just now wanted to go
to you, but my friends have met here to compose poems
together.
She wrote:
_Had you no time to come?_
_Then I would go to you._
_O that I knew_ { _an even way of love._
{ _the art of composing poems._
He was pleased.
Come to my house. Here is the even way and here's the
way to see each other.
That night he visited her, and talked touchingly of many things. "Would
you be sad," he said, "if I should desert my house and become a monk?"
He spoke sadly, and she wondered why such a thought had entered his
mind, and whether it could be true or not. Overcome with melancholy
she wept. Outside was tranquil rain and snow: they slept not at all,
but talked together with feeling throughout the night as if the world
were all forgotten. She felt that his affection was deeper than she had
suspected. He seemed to feel everything in her, and could sympathize
with her every emotion. In that case she could accomplish her
determination from the beginning [to go to become a nun]. So she made
up her mind, but said nothing and sat lamenting. He saw her feeling and
said:
_Lovers' fancy of a moment held us both through the night,_
And she continued:
_Tears came to their eyes,_
_And without was the rain._
In the morning he talked of merrier things than usual, and went back.
Though she had no faith in it [i.e. the convent], yet she had been
thinking of it to comfort her solitude. Now her mind was confused,
trying to think how to realize it, and she told her perplexed feeling
to the Prince:
_On waking I cannot think._
_I wish that those were only dreams [of which we talked last night]._
And on the margin she wrote:
_We made our vows so earnestly,_
_Yet must these vows yield_
_To the common fate of the changing world._