But she resumed:  ’Would you like to go into the flower-garden, the parterre?  You shall see the roses—­they have over-run everything, even the old paths are all covered with them.  Or would you like the orchard better?  I can only crawl into it on my hands and knees, the boughs are so bowed down with fruit.  But we’ll go even farther if you feel strong enough.  We’ll go as far as the forest, right into the depths of shade, far, far away; so far that we’ll sleep out there when night steals over us.  Or else, some morning, we can climb up yonder to the summit of those rocks.  You’ll see the plants which make me quake; you’ll see the springs, such a shower of water!  What fun it will be to feel the spray all over our faces! . . .  But if you prefer to walk along the hedges, beside a brook, we must go round by the meadows.  It is so nice under the willows in the evening, at sunset.  One can lie down on the grass and watch the little green frogs hopping about on the rushes.’

‘No, no,’ said Serge, ’you weary me, I don’t want to go so far. . . .  I will only go a couple of steps, that will be more than enough.’

‘Even I,’ she still continued, ’even I have not yet been able to go everywhere.  There are many nooks I don’t know.  I have walked and walked in it for years, and still I feel sure there are unknown spots around, places where the shade must be cooler and the turf softer.  Listen, I have always fancied there must be one especially in which I should like to live for ever.  I know it’s somewhere; I must have passed it by, or perhaps it’s hidden so far away that I have never even got as far, with all my rambles.  But we’ll look for it together, Serge, won’t we? and live there.’

‘No, no, be quiet,’ stammered the young man.  ’I don’t understand what you are saying.  You’re killing me.’

For a moment she let him sob in her arms.  It troubled and grieved her that she could find no words to soothe him.

‘Isn’t the Paradou as beautiful, then, as you fancied it?’ she asked at last.

He raised his face and answered: 

’I don’t know.  It was quite little, and now it is ever growing bigger and bigger——­ Take me away, hide me.’

She led him back to bed, soothing him like a child, lulling him with a fib.

’There, there! it’s not true, there is no garden.  It was only a story that I told you.  Go, sleep in peace.’

V

Every day in this wise she made him sit at the window during the cool hours of morning.  He would now attempt to take a few steps, leaning the while on the furniture.  A rosy tint appeared upon his cheeks, and his hands began to lose their waxy transparency.  But, while he thus regained health, his senses remained in a state of stupor which reduced him to the vegetative life of some poor creature born only the day before.  Indeed, he was nothing but a plant; his sole perception was that of the air which floated round him.