After that he started for the village with Damie alone.
When he was some way off, he called back to Amrei:
"You have until tomorrow morning--then I shall go away whether you go
with me or not."
Amrei was left alone. She looked after the retreating figures and
wondered how one person could go away from another.
"There he goes," she thought, "and yet he belongs to you, and you to
him."
Strange! As in a sleep-dream, a subject that has been lightly touched
upon is renewed and interwoven with all sorts of strange details, so was
it now with Amrei in her waking-dream. Damie had made but a passing
allusion to the meeting with Farmer Landfried's wife. The remembrance of
her had half faded away; but now it suddenly rose up fresh again--like a
picture of past life in a vision. Amrei said to herself, almost aloud:
"Who knows if she may not thus suddenly think of you? One cannot tell
why she should, and yet perhaps she is thinking of you at this very
moment. For in this place she promised to be your protectress whenever
you came to her,--it was yonder by the stunted willows. Why is it, that
only the trees remain to be seen? Why is not a word like a tree,
something which stands firmly, something which one can hold to. Yes, one
can, if one will. Then one is as well off as a tree--and what an
honorable farmer's wife says, is firm and lasting. She, too, wept
because she had to go away from her native place, although she had been
married and away from it for a long time.
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