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 CHAPTER XX

followed the seasons—winter, spring, summer, autumn. . ..

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, fell in turn, like dust, into the caves of Emeralda.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, were the Present for a moment, and sank into the Past.

And again it was spring. . ..

In the grassy plains, the shepherds drove out their flocks, and they sang because the sky was blue, because the world trilled with hope, in the new and tempered sunshine.

What did the shepherds know of Emeralda? They had never seen her. They sang, they sang; they filled the air with their song. As a reed, their song remained quivering and hanging in the air. In the wood and in the mountains, over the meadows and in the air, Echo sang with them their song. They sang because the sky was blue. . ..

Emeralda they did not know. . ..