‘And the birds are coming with us, too,’ said Albine.  ’It is the tomtits this time.  Don’t you see them?  They are skimming over the hedges, and they stop at each turning to see that we don’t lose our way.’  Then she added:  ’All the living things of the park are with us.  Can’t you hear them?  There is a deep rustling close behind us.  It is the birds in the trees, the insects in the grass, the roebucks and the stags in the coppices, and even the little fishes splashing the quiet water with their beating fins.  Don’t turn round, or you will frighten them.  Ah!  I am sure we have a rare train behind us.’

They still walked on, unfatigued.  Albine spoke only to charm Serge with the music of her voice, while Serge obeyed the slightest pressure of her hand.  They knew not what they passed, but they were certain that they were going straight towards their goal.  And as they went along, the garden became gradually graver, more discreet; the soughing of the branches died away, the streams hushed their plashing waters, the birds, the beasts, and the insects fell into silence.  All around them reigned solemn stillness.

Then Albine and Serge instinctively raised their heads.  In front of them they beheld a colossal mass of foliage; and, as they hesitated for a moment, a roe, after gazing at them with its sweet soft eyes, bounded into the thickets.

‘It is there,’ said Albine.

She led the way, her face again turned towards Serge, whom she drew with her, and they disappeared amid the quivering leaves, and all grew quiet again.  They were entering into delicious peace.

In the centre there stood a tree covered with so dense a foliage that one could not recognise its species.  It was of giant girth, with a trunk that seemed to breathe like a living breast, and far-reaching boughs that stretched like protecting arms around it.  It towered up there beautiful, strong, virile, and fruitful.  It was the king of the garden, the father of the forest, the pride of the plants, the beloved of the sun, whose earliest and latest beams smiled daily on its crest.  From its green vault poured all the joys of creation:  fragrance of flowers, music of birds, gleams of golden light, wakeful freshness of dawn, slumbrous warmth of evening twilight.  So strong was the sap that it burst through the very bark, bathing the tree with the powers of fruitfulness, making it the symbol of earth’s virility.  Its presence sufficed to give the clearing an enchanting charm.  The other trees built up around it an impenetrable wall, which isolated it as in a sanctuary of silence and twilight.  There was but greenery there, not a scrap of sky, not a glimpse of horizon; nothing but a swelling rotunda, draped with green silkiness of leaves, adorned below with mossy velvet.  And one entered, as into the liquid crystal of a source, a greenish limpidity, a sheet of silver reposing beneath reflected reeds.  Colours, perfumes, sounds, quivers,