Albine meanwhile was gazing at Serge asleep.  She had never seen him so utterly prostrated in body as now, his hands lying open on the turf, his face deathly.  So dead indeed he was to her that she thought she could kiss his face without his even feeling it.  And sadly, absently, she busied her hands with shredding all the roses within her reach.  Above her head drooped an enormous cluster which brushed against her hair, set roses on her twisted locks, her ears, her neck, and even threw a mantle of the fragrant flowers across her shoulders.  Higher up, under her fingers, other roses rained down with large and tender petals exquisitely formed, which in hue suggested the faintly flushing purity of a maiden’s bosom.  Like a living snowfall these roses already hid her feet in the grass.  And they climbed her knees, covered her skirt, and smothered her to her waist; while three stray petals, which had fluttered on to her bodice, just above her bosom, there looked like three glimpses of her bewitching skin.

‘Oh! the lazy fellow!’ she murmured, feeling bored and picking up two handfuls of roses, which she flung in Serge’s face to wake him.

He did not stir, however, but still lay there with the roses on his eyes and mouth.  This made Albine laugh.  She stooped down, and with her whole heart kissed both his eyes and his mouth, blowing as she kissed to drive the rose petals away; but they remained upon his lips, and she broke into still louder laughter, intensely amused at this flowery caressing.

Serge slowly raised himself.  He gazed at her with amazement, as if startled at finding her there.

’Who are you? where do you come from? what are you doing here beside me?’ he asked her.  And still she smiled, transported with delight at marking this awakening of his senses.  Then he seemed to remember something, and continued with a gesture of happy confidence: 

’I know, you are my love, flesh of my flesh, you are waiting for me that we may be one for ever.  I was dreaming of you.  You were in my breast, and I gave you my blood, my muscles, my bones.  I felt no pain.  You took half my heart so tenderly that I experienced keen inward delight at thus dividing myself.  I sought all that was best and most beautiful within me to give it to you.  You might have carried off everything, and still I should have thanked you.  And I woke when you went out of me.  You left through my eyes and mouth; ay, I felt it.  You were all warm, all fragrant, so sweet that it was the thrill from you that has made me awake.’

Albine listened to his words with ecstasy.  At last he saw her; at last his birth was accomplished, his cure begun.  With outstretched hands she begged him to go on.

‘How have I managed to live without you?’ he murmured.  ’No, I did not live, I was like a slumbering animal.  And now you are mine! and you are no one but myself!  Listen, you must never leave me; for you are my very breath, and in leaving me you would rob me of my life.  We will remain within ourselves.  You will be mine even as I shall be yours.  Should I ever forsake you, may I be accursed, may my body wither like a useless and noxious weed!’