The little boy and girl, lying naked side by side, were joined through the silent hours, in the seraphic promiscuousness of the shadows; such dreams as were possible to their age floated from one to the other; beneath their closed eyelids there shone, perhaps, a starlight; if the word marriage were not inappropriate to the situation, they were husband and wife after the fashion of the angels.  Such innocence in such darkness, such purity in such an embrace; such foretastes of heaven are possible only to childhood, and no immensity approaches the greatness of little children.  Of all gulfs this is the deepest.  The fearful perpetuity of the dead chained beyond life, the mighty animosity of the ocean to a wreck, the whiteness of the snow over buried bodies, do not equal in pathos two children’s mouths meeting divinely in sleep,[10] and the meeting of which is not even a kiss.  A betrothal perchance, perchance a catastrophe.  The unknown weighs down upon their juxtaposition.  It charms, it terrifies; who knows which?  It stays the pulse.  Innocence is higher than virtue.  Innocence is holy ignorance.  They slept.  They were in peace.  They were warm.  The nakedness of their bodies, embraced each in each, amalgamated with the virginity of their souls.  They were there as in the nest of the abyss.

CHAPTER VI.

THE AWAKING.

The beginning of day is sinister.  A sad pale light penetrated the hut.  It was the frozen dawn.  That wan light which throws into relief the mournful reality of objects which are blurred into spectral forms by the night, did not awake the children, so soundly were they sleeping.  The caravan was warm.  Their breathings alternated like two peaceful waves.  There was no longer a hurricane without.  The light of dawn was slowly taking possession of the horizon.  The constellations were being extinguished, like candles blown out one after the other.  Only a few large stars resisted.  The deep-toned song of the Infinite was coming from the sea.

The fire in the stove was not quite out.  The twilight broke, little by little, into daylight.  The boy slept less heavily than the girl.  At length, a ray brighter than the others broke through the pane, and he opened his eyes.  The sleep of childhood ends in forgetfulness.  He lay in a state of semi-stupor, without knowing where he was or what was near him, without making an effort to remember, gazing at the ceiling, and setting himself an aimless task as he gazed dreamily at the letters of the inscription—­“Ursus, Philosopher”—­which, being unable to read, he examined without the power of deciphering.

The sound of the key turning in the lock caused him to turn his head.

The door turned on its hinges, the steps were let down.  Ursus was returning.  He ascended the steps, his extinguished lantern in his hand.  At the same time the pattering of four paws fell upon the steps.  It was Homo, following Ursus, who had also returned to his home.