‘Albine, I love you!’

‘I love you, Serge!’

Then they stopped short, thrilled, quivering with that first love kiss.  She had opened her eyes quite widely.  He was standing with his lips protruding slightly towards hers.  They looked at each other without a blush.  They felt they were under the influence of some sovereign power.  It was like the realisation of a long dreamt-of meeting, in which they beheld themselves grown, made one for the other, for ever joined.  For a moment they remained wondering, raising their eyes to the solemn vault of greenery above them, questioning the tranquil nation of trees as if seeking an echo of their kiss.  But, beneath the serene complacence of the forest, they yielded to prolonged, ringing lovers’ gaiety, full of all the tenderness now born.

’Tell me how long you have loved me.  Tell me everything.  Did you love me that day when you lay sleeping upon my hand?  Did you love me when I fell out of the cherry tree, and you stood beneath it, stretching out your arms to catch me, and looking so pale?  Did you love me when you took hold of me round the waist in the meadows to help me over the streams?’

’Hush, let me speak.  I have always loved you.  And you, did you love me; did you?’

Until the evening closed round them they lived upon that one word ‘love,’ in which they ever seemed to find some new sweetness.  They brought it into every sentence, ejaculated it inconsequentially, merely for the pleasure they found in pronouncing it.  Serge, however, did not think of pressing a second kiss to Albine’s lips.  The perfume of the first sufficed them in their purity.  They had found their way again, or rather had stumbled upon it, for they had paid no attention to the paths they took.  As they left the forest, twilight had fallen, and the moon was rising, round and yellow, between the black foliage.  It was a delightful walk home through the park, with that discreet luminary peering at them through the gaps in the big trees.  Albine said that the moon was surely following them.  The night was balmy, warm too with stars.  Far away a long murmur rose from the forest trees, and Serge listened, thinking:  ‘They are talking of us.’

When they reached the parterre, they passed through an atmosphere of sweetest perfumes; the perfume of flowers at night, which is richer, more caressing than by day, and seems like the very breath of slumber.

‘Good night, Serge.’

‘Good night, Albine.’

They clasped each other by the hand on the landing of the first floor, without entering the room where they usually wished each other good night.  They did not kiss.  But Serge, when he was alone, remained seated on the edge of his bed, listening to Albine’s every movement in the room above.  He was weary with happiness, a happiness that benumbed his limbs.

XII