THE MELANCHOLY WATER
There is an intelligence in joy, I admit it. There is a vision in laughter. But that you may comprehend, my friend, this medley of blessedness and bitterness which the act of creation includes, now that the melancholy season begins I shall explain to you the sadness of water.
The same tear falls from the sky that overflows from the eyelid. Do not think to accuse the cloud of your melancholy, nor this veil of vague showers. Shut your eyes; listen! The rain falls.
Nor does the monotony of this constant sound suffice to explain it.
It is a weary mourning whose cause is within itself. It is the self-absorption of love; it is the effort in labor. The heavens weep over the fruitful earth. Not only Autumn, and the future fall of fruit whose seed she nourishes, draws these tears from the wintry cloud. Sorrow is in the Summer; in the flower of life is the blossoming of death.
At the moment when the hour before noon is ended, as I descend into the valley filledwith the murmur of various fountains, I pause enchanted by the gloom. How abundant are these waters! And if tears, like blood, have their perpetual source in us, how refreshing it is, listening to this liquid choir of voices, deep or shrill, to harmonize from them all the shades of grief! There is no passion but could borrow of your tears, oh fountain! And since the brightness of this single drop, falling from on high into the basin upon the image of the moon, satisfies my particular desire, not in vain shall I have learned to love your sanctuary through many dreamy afternoons, oh sorrowful valley!
I return to the plain. On the doorsill of his hut,—where, in the inner darkness, gleams a candle lit for some rustic fête,-a man sits, holding in his hand a dusty cymbal. It rains heavily. In the midst of this damp solitude, I hear only the cry of a goose.