m with her feet, and clearing
a way for him through the briars, whose supple arms barred the last few
yards. Then they slowly entered the wood of roses. It was indeed a very
wood, with thickets of tall standard roses throwing out leafy clumps as
big as trees, and enormous rose bushes impenetrable as copses of young
oaks. Here, formerly, there had been a most marvellous collection
of plants. But since the flower garden had been left in abandonment,
everything had run wild, and a virgin forest had arisen, a forest of
roses over-running the paths, crowded with wild offshoots, so mingled,
so blended, that roses of every scent and hue seemed to blossom on the
same stem. Creeping roses formed mossy carpets on the ground, while
climbing roses clung to others like greedy ivy plants, and ascended in
spindles of verdure, letting a shower of their loosened petals fall
at the lightest breeze. Natural paths coursed through the wood--narrow
footways, broad avenues, enchanting covered walks in which one strolled
in the shade and scent. These led to glades and clearings, under bowers
of small red roses, and between walls hung with tiny yellow ones. Some
sunny nooks gleamed like green silken stuff embroidered with bright
patterns; other shadier corners offered the seclusion of alcoves and an
aroma of love, the balmy warmth, as it were, of a posy languishing on a
woman's bosom. The rose bushes had whispering voices too. And the rose
bushes were full of songbirds' nests.

'We must take care not to lose ourselves,' said Albine, as she entered
the wood. 'I did lose myself once, and the sun had set before I was
able to free myself from the rose bushes which caught me by the skirt at
every step.'

They had barely walked a few minutes, however, before Serge, worn out
with fatigue, wished to sit down. He stretched himself upon the ground,
and fell into deep slumber. Albine sat musing by his side. They were on
the edge of a glade, near a narrow path which stretched away through the
wood, streaked with flashes of sunlight, and, through a small round blue
gap at its far end, revealed the sky. Other little paths led from the
clearing into leafy recesses. The glade was formed of tall rose bushes
rising one above the other with such a wealth of branches, such a tangle
of thorny shoots, that big patches of foliage were caught aloft, and
hung there tent-like, stretching out from bush to bush. Through the tiny
apertures in the patches of leaves, which