like a flash of light,
pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.

Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was still
before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this sudden
disappearance? Had she a lover or a husband? Yes, that was the
solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through
the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.

The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled
me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I
battled against the fatal conclusion,--but in vain. It was so. I had no
escape from it. I loved an animalcule!

It is true that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope, she
appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting
aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in the
more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop, she was fair and
delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that?
Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument, it fell on a
miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt
all that could make my life lovely.

Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the mystical
walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that
filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my life
with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be something to
have established even the faintest personal link to bind us
together,--to know that at times, when roaming through those enchanted
glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had broken the
monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her
heart!

But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was capable
could break down the barriers that nature had erected. I might feast my
soul upon the wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain ignorant of
the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and, even when
closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish I fled from
the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to sleep like a
child.

VI

THE SPILLING OF THE CUP

I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature that
contained my all. Animula was there. I had left