he
darkness of the passage.

'Just look!' she cried, throwing the door wide open.

It was like a sudden dawn, a curtain of shadow snatched aside, revealing
the joyousness of early day. The park spread out before them verdantly
limpid, freshly cool and deep as a spring. Serge, entranced, lingered
upon the threshold, with a hesitating desire to feel that luminous lake
with his foot.

'One would think you were afraid of wetting yourself,' said Albine.
'Don't be frightened, the ground is safe enough.'

He had ventured to take one step, and was astonished at encountering the
soft resistance of the gravel. The first touch of the soil gave him a
shock; life seemed to rebound within him and to set him for a moment
erect, with expanding frame, while he drew long breaths.

'Come now, be brave,' insisted Albine. 'You know you promised me to
take five steps. We'll go as far as the mulberry tree there under the
window---- There you can rest.'

It took him a quarter of an hour to make those five steps. After each
effort he stopped as if he had been obliged to tear up roots that held
him to the ground.

The girl, pushing him along, said with a laugh: 'You look just like a
walking tree.'

Having placed him with his back leaning against the mulberry tree, in
the rain of sunlight falling from its boughs, she bounded off and left
him, calling out to him that he must not stir. Serge, standing
there with drooping hands, slowly turned his head towards the park.
Terrestrial childhood met his gaze. The pale greenery was steeped in the
very milk of youth, flooded with golden brightness. The trees were still
in infancy, the flowers were as tender-fleshed as babes, the streams
were blue with the artless blue of lovely infantile eyes. Beneath every
leaf was some token of a delightful awakening.

Serge had fixed his eyes upon a yellow breach which a wide path made in
front of him amidst a dense mass of foliage. At the very end, eastward,
some meadows, steeped in gold, looked like the luminous field upon which
the sun would descend, and he waited for the morn to take that path and
flow towards him. He could feel it coming in a warm breeze, so faint
at first that it barely brushed across his skin, but rising little by
little, and growing ever brisker till he was thrilled all over. He could
also taste it coming with a more and more pronounced savour, bringing
the healthful acridity of the open air, holding to his lips a feast of
sugary aro