reciting a couplet from this poem first in French— Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé/ Deux spectres cherchent le passé , and then translating it into German (which I have translated into English). In fact Zweig’s text merges the second line of the first couplet in the French original— Deux formes ont tout à l’heure passé— with the second line of the third couplet: Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé. I have left it exactly as Zweig had it, since, whether intentionally or subliminally, he was adapting Verlaine’s words to the idea that he wanted of two spectres in search of the past. ANTHEA BELL 2009