Yesterday she laid her lovely head on these soft flowered pillows. From this crystal cup she drank a mouthful of wine mixed with a drop of perfume.

All that was yesterday. Yesterday is a dream that will not return. Today the woman whom my heart loved has gone to an empty, bleak, and distant land, which they name the Land of Emptiness and Oblivion.

The marks of her fingers are still visible on the glass of my mirror. The perfume of her breath still scents the folds of my clothes. Her voice still echoes in the corners of my house. But the woman herself—the woman whom my heart loved—has traveled to a distant place called the Valley of Exile and Forgetting. The marks of her fingers, the perfume of her breath, the phantoms of her spirit will linger in this room until tomorrow morn. Then I will open the windows of my house to let in streams of air to sweep away all that that beautiful sorceress left behind for me.

The portrait of the woman my heart loved still hangs beside my bed. The love letters she sent me are still in the silver box, encrusted with agate and coral. The lock of golden hair she gave me is still in the silk pouch full of musk and frankincense. All these things will stay in their places until morning. When morning comes, I will open the windows of my house to let the air carry away the darkness of non-being to a place where dumb silence dwells.

The woman whom my heart loved is like the women you young men love. She is an astonishing creature shaped by the gods from the gentleness of the dove, the fickleness of the asp, the pride of the peacock, the malice of the wolf, the beauty of the white rose, the terror of the dark night, mixed with a handful of ashes and the foam of the sea.

I had known the woman whom my heart loved as a child. I would run behind her in the fields and cling to her skirts in the streets.

I knew her as a youth. I would see the image of her face in the pages of books and essays. I would see the outline of her body among the clouds in the sky and hear the melody of her voice rising with the rippling of streams.

I knew her when I was a man. I would sit with her talking and asking questions. I would come to her, complaining of the torments in my heart and telling her the secrets of my spirit.

All that was yesterday. Yesterday is a dream that will not return. But today this woman went to a distant land, barren, bleak, and cold, which they call the Land of Emptiness and Oblivion.

The name of the woman whom my heart loved is Life.