Afterwards they would forget.

The urgent flowering of their hearts would destroy those preludes.

We can no more know our first glance of love than our last.

I shall remember it when they will have forgotten it.
I do not recall my own first glance of love, my own first gift of love.
Yet it happened.

Those divine simplicities are erased from my heart.
Good God, then what do I retain that is of value?
The little boy that I was is dead forever, before my eyes.