26

The New Year came, but spring seemed far away. The silence of the frozen waters seemed to speak with its own sad voice. Though she had turned away in disgust from the prince who had found her so “daunt-ing,” * she thought all the same of the days when she had known him.

At the writing practice that was her chief pleasure in recesses from her devotions, she set down a poem:

“I gaze at snow that swirls over mountain and moor,

And things long gone have still the power to sadden.”

Memories of the past were much with her. It was a year now since her disappearance. Would there still be those to whom memories of her were important?

Someone brought the first spring shoots in a coarse rustic basket. The nun sent them in with a poem:

“Their prize these shoots that break through the mountain snows.

My joy the abundant years you have before you.”

And the girl replied:

“On drifted moors I shall gather early shoots.

May years of your life add to years, as snow upon snow.”

How very dear of her to say so—and how much greater the joy if, over those years, she might live the life she deserved.

A rose plum was blooming near the eaves of the girl's room, its color and its perfume as they had always been. It was her favorite among all the flowering trees. It told her that the spring was “the spring of old,” * perhaps because she remembered the perfume of which she “knew no surfeit.” +

Early one morning as she was setting out votive water in preparation for the matins, she had a nun rather younger and of lower rank than the others break off a sprig. Petals fell as if in protest, and seemed to send out a suddenly more compelling fragrance. A poem formed itself in the girl's mind:

“He whose sleeve brushed mine is here no more,

And yet is here in the scent of the dawning of spring.”