“...  Oh, misery!  What am I dreaming of...?” “That was the best of your dreams so far,” said the gloom, with a full glance of its coal-black eyes.  “May it soon come true!  But light your lamp now—­it is dark as night in here now.”

CLEMATIS

“If I were a poet, I would sing—­a strange, wild song.

“And if I could string the quivering kantele, I would play on it a melody to my song.

“I would sing of you, and of love.  Of clematis with the snow-white flowers.  For you are as the clematis, my love, sweet and beautiful as its blossoms, dear as its growth about the windows of a home—­and deep, endlessly deep, as life itself.”

“But that is just what you are doing, Olof—­for all you say is like a poem and a song,” answered the girl.  “Sing for me again—­and let me just sit here at your feet and listen.”

“Ah, if only you could sit there always, as now.  Clematis—­how strange that I should meet you—­when I never thought to meet with any flower again—­saw only the yellow faded leaves of autumn everywhere around.”

“Autumn ... faded leaves....”  The girl looked at him, timidly questioning.  “Olof, don’t be angry with me.  But....  Have you loved others before?  They say so many things about you.”

The young man was silent a moment.

“Ay, there are many things to say, perhaps,” he murmured sadly.  “But you, Clematis—­could you care for me; could you not love me altogether, if you knew I had loved another before?”

“No, no—­’twas not meant so,” said the girl hastily, touching his knee with a slight caress.  “I was not thinking of myself....”

“But of...?”

They looked at each other in silence.

“Yes—­I know what you mean.  I can read it in your eyes.”  He laid one hand tenderly on the girl’s head.

“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.”