'The air is like ripe fruit,' murmured Albine.

And Serge whispered in his turn: 'The gra.s.s seems so full of life and motion, that I could almost think I was treading on your dress.'

It was a kind of religious feeling which made them lower their voices.

No sentiment of curiosity impelled them to raise their heads and scan the tree. The consciousness of its majesty weighed heavily upon them.

With a glance Albine asked whether she had overrated the enchantment of the greenery, and Serge answered her with two tears that trickled down his cheeks. The joy that filled them at being there could not be expressed in words.

'Come,' she whispered in his ear, in a voice that was softer than a sigh.

And she glided on in front of him, and seated herself at the very foot of the tree. Then, with a fond smile, she stretched out her hands to him; while he, standing before her, grasped them in his own with a responsive smile. Then she drew him slowly towards her and he sank down by her side.

'Ah! do you remember,' he said, 'that wall which seemed to have grown up between us? Now there is nothing to keep us apart--you are not unhappy now?'

'No, no,' she answered; 'very happy.'

For a moment they relapsed into silence whilst soft emotion stole over them. Then Serge, caressing Albine, exclaimed: 'Your face is mine; your eyes, your mouth, your cheeks are mine. Your arms are mine, from your shoulders to the tips of your nails. You are wholly mine.' And as he spoke he kissed her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. He kissed her arms, with quick short kisses, from her fingers to her shoulders. He poured upon her a rain of kisses hot as a summer shower, deluging her cheeks, her forehead, her lips, and her neck.

'But if you are mine, I am yours,' said he; 'yours for ever; for I now well know that you are my queen, my sovereign, whom I must worship on bended knee. I am here only to obey you, to lie at your feet, to antic.i.p.ate your wishes, to shelter you with my arms, to drive away whatever might trouble your tranquillity. And you are my life's goal.

Since I first awoke in this garden, you have ever been before me; I have grown up that I might be yours. Ever, as my end, my reward, have I gazed upon your grace. You pa.s.sed in the sunshine with the sheen of your golden hair; you were a promise that I should some day know all the mysteries and necessities of creation, of this earth, of these trees, these waters, these skies, whose last secret is yet unrevealed. I belong to you; I am your slave; I will listen to you and obey you, with my lips upon your feet.'

He said this, bowed to the ground, adoring Woman. And Albine, full of pride, allowed herself to be adored. She yielded her hands, her cheeks, her lips, to Serge's rapturous kisses. She felt herself indeed a queen as she saw him, who was so strong, bending so humbly before her. She had conquered him, and held him there at her mercy. With a single word she could dispose of him. And that which helped her to recognise her omnipotence was that she heard the whole garden rejoicing at her triumph, with gradually swelling paeans of approval.

'Ah! if we could fly off together, if we could but die even, in one another's arms,' faltered Serge, scarce able to articulate. But Albine had strength enough to raise her finger as though to bid him listen.

It was the garden that had planned and willed it all. For weeks and weeks it had been favouring and encouraging their pa.s.sion, and at last, on that supreme day, it had lured them to that spot, and now it became the Tempter whose every voice spoke of love. From the flower-beds, amid the fragrance of the languid blossoms, was wafted a soft sighing, which told of the weddings of the roses, the love-joys of the violets; and never before had the heliotropes sent forth so voluptuous a perfume.

Mingled with the soft air which arose from the orchard were all the exhalations of ripe fruit, the vanilla of apricots, the musk of oranges, all the luscious aroma of fruitfulness. From the meadows came fuller notes, the million sighs of the sun-kissed gra.s.s, the mult.i.tudinous love-plaints of legions of living things, here and there softened by the refreshing caresses of the rivulets, on whose banks the very willows palpitated with desire. And the forest proclaimed the mighty pa.s.sion of the oaks. Through the high branches sounded solemn music, organ strains like the nuptial marches of the ashes and the birches, the hornbeams and the planes, while from the bushes and the young coppices arose noisy mirth like that of youthful lovers chasing one another over banks and into hollows amid much crackling and snapping of branches. From afar, too, the faint breeze wafted the sounds of the rocks splitting in their pa.s.sion beneath the burning heat, while near them the spiky plants loved in a tragic fashion of their own, unrefreshed by the neighbouring springs, which themselves glowed with the love of the pa.s.sionate sun.

'What do they say?' asked Serge, half swooning, as Albine pressed him to her bosom. The voices of the Paradou were growing yet more distinct.

The animals, in their turn, joined in the universal song of nature.

The gra.s.shoppers grew faint with the pa.s.sion of their chants; the b.u.t.terflies scattered kisses with their beating wings. The amorous sparrows flew to their mates; the rivers rippled over the loves of the fishes; whilst in the depths of the forest the nightingales sent forth pearly, voluptuous notes, and the stags bellowed their love aloud.

Reptiles and insects, every species of invisible life, every atom of matter, the earth itself joined in the great chorus. It was the chorus of love and of nature--the chorus of the whole wide world; and in the very sky the clouds were radiant with rapture, as to those two children Love revealed the Eternity of Life.

XVI

Albine and Serge smiled at one another.

'I love you, Albine,' said Serge.

'Serge, I love you,' Albine answered.

And never before had those syllables 'I love you' had for them so supreme a meaning. They expressed everything. Joy pervaded those young lovers, who had attained to the fulness of life. They felt that they were now on a footing of equality with the forces of the world; and with their happiness mingled the placid conviction that they had obeyed the universal law. And Serge seemed to have awakened to life, lion-like, to rule the whole far expanse under the free heavens. His feet planted themselves more firmly on the ground, his chest expanded, there was pride and confidence in his gait and demeanour. He took Albine by the hands, she was trembling, and he was obliged to support her.

'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'you are she whom I love.'

It was Albine now who had become the submissive one. She drooped her head upon his shoulder, glancing up at him with anxious scrutiny. Would he never bear her spite for that hour of adoration in which he had called himself her slave? But he smiled, and stroked her hair, while she said to him: 'Let me stay like this, in your arms, for I cannot walk without you. I will make myself so small and light, that you will scarcely know I am there.' Then becoming very serious she added, 'You must always love me; and I will be very obedient and do whatever you wish. I will yield to you in all things if you but love me.'

Serge felt more powerful and virile on seeing her so humble. 'Why are you trembling so?' he asked her; 'I can have no cause to reproach you.'

But she did not answer him, she gazed almost sadly upon the tree and the foliage and the gra.s.s around them.

'Foolish child!' he said, laughing; 'are you afraid that I shall be angry with you for your love? We have loved as we were meant to love.

Let me kiss you.'

But, dropping her eyelids so that she might not see the tree, she said, in a low whisper, 'Take me away!'

Serge led her thence, pacing slowly and giving one last glance at the spot which love had hallowed. The shadows in the clearing were growing darker, and a gentle quiver coursed through the foliage. When they emerged from the wood and caught sight of the sun, still shining brightly in the horizon, they felt easier. Everything around Serge now seemed to bend down before him and pay homage to his love. The garden was now nothing but an appanage of Albine's beauty, and seemed to have grown larger and fairer amid the love-kisses of its rulers.

But Albine's joy was still tinged with disquietude. She would suddenly pause amid her laughter and listen anxiously.

'What is the matter?' asked Serge.

'Nothing,' she replied, casting furtive glances behind her.

They did not know in what out-of-the-way corner of the park they were.

To lose themselves in their capricious wanderings only served to amuse them as a rule; but that day they experienced anxious embarra.s.sment. By degrees they quickened their pace, plunging more and more deeply into a labyrinth of bushes.

'Don't you hear?' asked Albine, nervously, as she suddenly stopped short, almost breathless.

Serge listened, a prey, in his turn, to the anxiety which the girl could no longer conceal.

'All the coppice seems full of voices,' she continued. 'It sounds as though there were people deriding us. Listen! Wasn't that a laugh that sounded from that tree? And over yonder did not the gra.s.s murmur something as my dress brushed against it?'

'No, no,' he said, anxious to rea.s.sure her, 'the garden loves us; and, if it said anything, it would not be to vex or annoy us. Don't you remember all the sweet words which sounded through the leaves? You are nervous and fancy things.'

But she shook her head and faltered: 'I know very well that the garden is our friend.... So it must be some one who has broken into it. I am certain I hear some one. I am trembling all over. Oh! take me away and hide me somewhere, I beseech you.'

Then they went on again, scanning every tree and bush, and imagining that they could see faces peering at them from behind every trunk.

Albine was certain, she said, that there were steps pursuing them in the distance. 'Let us hide ourselves,' she begged.

She had turned quite scarlet. It was new-born modesty, a sense of shame which had laid hold of her like a fever, mantling over the snowy whiteness of her skin, which never previously had known that flush.

Serge was alarmed at seeing her thus crimson, her face full of distress, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. He tried to clasp her in his arms again and to soothe her with a caress; but she slipped away from him, and, with a despairing gesture, made sign that they were not alone. And her blushes grew deeper as her eyes fell upon her bare arms. She shuddered when her loose hanging hair stirred against her neck and shoulders.

The slightest touch of a waving bough or a pa.s.sing insect, the softest breath of air, now made her tremble as if some invisible hand were grasping at her.

'Calm yourself,' begged Serge, 'there is no one. You are as crimson as though you had a fever. Let us rest here for a moment. Do; I beg you.'

She had no fever at all, she said, but she wanted to get back as quickly as possible, so that no one might laugh at her. And, ever increasing her pace, she plucked handfuls of leaves and tendrils from the hedges, which she entwined about her. She fastened a branch of mulberry over her hair, twisted bindweed round her arms, and tied it to her wrists, and circled her neck with such long sprays of laurustinus, that her bosom was hidden as by a veil of leaves.

And that shame of hers proved contagious. Serge, who first had jested, asking her if she were going to a ball, glanced at himself, and likewise felt alarmed and ashamed, to a point that he also wound foliage about his person.

Meantime, they could discover no way out of the labyrinth of bushes, but all at once, at the end of the path, they found themselves face to face with an obstacle, a tall, grey, grave ma.s.s of stone. It was the wall of the Paradou.

'Come away! come away!' cried Albine.

And she sought to drag him thence; but they had not taken another twenty steps before they again came upon the wall. They then skirted it at a ran, panic-stricken. It stretched along, gloomy and stern, without a break in its surface. But suddenly, at a point where it fringed a meadow, it seemed to fall away. A great breach gaped in it, like a huge window of light opening on to the neighbouring valley. It must have been the very hole that Albine had one day spoken of, which she said she had blocked up with brambles and stones. But the brambles now lay scattered around like severed bits of rope, the stones had been thrown some distance away, and the breach itself seemed to have been enlarged by some furious hand.