brighter, and his voice clearer.
'To-morrow I shall be very strong,' he said. 'You shall draw back the
curtains. I want to see everything.'

But on the morrow he was seized with childish fear. He would not hear of
the windows being opened wide. 'By-and-by,' he muttered, 'later on.' He
was fearful, he dreaded the first beam of light that would flash upon
his eyes. Evening came on, and still he had been unable to make up
his mind to look upon the sun. He remained thus all day long, his face
turned towards the curtains, watching on their transparent tissue the
pallor of morn, the glow of noon, the violet tint of twilight, all
the hues, all the emotions of the sky. There were pictured even the
quiverings of the warm air at the light stroke of a bird's wing, even
the delight of earth's odours throbbing in a sunbeam. Behind that veil,
behind that softened phantasm of the mighty life without, he could hear
the rise of spring. He even felt stifled at times when in spite of the
curtains' barrier the rush of the earth's new blood came upon him too
strongly.

The following morning he was still asleep when Albine, to hasten his
recovery, cried out to him:

'Serge! Serge! here's the sun!'

She swiftly drew back the curtains and threw the windows wide open. He
raised himself and knelt upon his bed, oppressed, swooning, his hands
tightly pressed against his breast to keep his heart from breaking.
Before him stretched the broad sky, all blue, a boundless blue; and
in it he washed away his sufferings, surrendering himself to it, and
drinking from it sweetness and purity and youth. The bough whose shadow
he had noted jutted across the window and alone set against the azure
sea its vigorous growth of green; but even this was too much for his
sickly fastidiousness; it seemed to him that the very swallows flying
past besmeared the purity of the azure. He was being born anew. He
raised little involuntary cries, as he felt himself flooded with light,
assailed by waves of warm air, while a whirling, whelming torrent of
life flowed within him. As last with outstretched hands he sank back
upon his pillow in a swoon of joy.

What a happy, delicious day that was! The sun came in from the right,
far away from the alcove. Throughout the morning Serge watched it
creeping onward. He could see it coming towards him, yellow as gold,
perching here and there on the old furniture, frolicking in corners,
at times gliding along the ground like a strip