new miracle gave me but a mediocre surprise. We were in the garden.

"Let us go," he said, "towards the roses."

I

Towards the rose-trees.

HE

Towards the roses.

A soft and clear daylight was born as we advanced. The trees, suddenly in leaf, the chestnuts blossoming in shafts of white and red, were filled with the songs of birds. Blackbirds, on the topmost branches, launched their shrill calls. Bees were already murmuring by; a fly settled on my hand.

The great flower-bed was in full bloom. A perfume enveloped me with a precious sweetness. We disturbed a cat that was stalking two cooing pigeons. My friend plucked a red rose, then a white, then a yellow. At this moment it seemed to be five o'clock in the morning of a beautiful summer day.

I

I am happy. I am happy.

HE

Roses, these roses, are enough to make me jealous of men. The rose of your gardens, the woman of your civilisation, these are two creations that make you the equals of the gods. And to think that you still regret the earthly paradise! Eve! Eve, my friend, was a milkmaid, the pleasure of a bird-catcher or an early-rising oxherd. Eve, when you have all these real young women to enchant your eyes and make desperate your dreams!

I

She was, however, a divine work. Your father ...

But I said no more, trembling with happiness. Three young women were coming towards us. They were dressed in white. Delicate garlands of flowers adorned their corn-coloured hair. They walked slowly, holding each other's hands; their smiles made a light within the light. At the sight of the new roses, they all cried out together like children, and stayed, stretching their arms towards the rose-trees, timorous and troubled by desire.

I watched, a prisoner of the spell, but my friend, with the ease of a king, made a few steps towards them, and offered them the roses he had plucked. They took them, blushing, and slipped them into their girdles. She who was the tallest, who had the most beautiful hair, and the most beautiful eyes, thanked him with a smile and a few words, and then added:—

"We were looking for you."

HE

They say that when one looks for me, he always finds me.

Then there was charming laughter, laughter that made my heart laugh.

SHE

How beautiful are the roses on this earth!

Oh! I love this big red one!

HE

Take it for your hair, my friend.

SHE

I am happy.

I too dared to pluck a rose.

"The one which is red and yellow, the one with many thorns," said close to me the voice of another of the young women.

She had rightly divined that I was thinking of her.

I

The one that makes the hands bleed, and the heart, perhaps.

THE OTHER

Do not prick your fingers. I should be wretched.

I

And what if I pricked my heart?

She lowered her eyes without answering, took the rose and rejoined her companion. She was more feminine, more human. She who had my friend's favour seemed of a higher nature, and her very childishnesses could not but be divine.

The third young woman was not forgotten. She was small and frail, timid, with a heaven of innocence in her eyes. She did not leave the tallest, whose sister or chosen friend she seemed to be. She was not forgotten; but she disdained the flower I meant for her, and, going into the flower-bed, plucked herself a whole bouquet of roses. My friend observed her with complacency.

HE

Spoilt child.

THE LITTLE ONE

I have them of all colours. For me! For me! For me!

And taking them one after another, she inhaled their scent with a selfish delight.

My friend walked on with two of the young women. I followed him with the other, with her who seemed to have chosen me.

THE OTHER

Look! Are you bleeding? I warned you.

A drop of blood had been crushed on my finger. I looked at the young woman without answering. She had not the ironic air of which I suspected her. Reassured, I came up to her again; she laid her hand on my arm.

While these charming scenes were occurring, I was adapting myself to my singular circumstances. The continuation of the adventure soon seemed most natural. We were walking in the morning in a beautiful, solitary and flowery park. Such things happen in life as well as in dreams, and I was soon quite at my ease.

We were now walking in a wood of young chestnuts. Red stalks fell now and again at our feet. We went down steps and climbed others; we saw ponds and pools, stone statues and orange-trees, a cyclop and the nakedness of a nymph, flowers of every colour, trees of all forms, bushes of all leaves, and pigeons which, with slanting flight, dropped on the lawns amid the fluttering of startled sparrows.

THE OTHER

My name? What an idea! You will learn it if you are destined to know it. It is not mysterious. Call me friend; for this day, I will permit you to do so.

I

Are we to have a whole day?

THE OTHER

Does a day seem long to you?

I

Long and short at the same time in your company.

THE OTHER

You will see that it will be short.

I

Alas!

THE OTHER

Where are they? I have lost sight of them. Ah. There they are. Yonder, under the cherry-tree in bloom.

I

And she?

THE OTHER

What do you mean?

I

Her name?

THE OTHER

She? She is SHE, she is life, she is youth, she is beauty, she is love. She!

I

I ask nothing further. I am happy.

THE OTHER

Already?

I

I am happy, and I still desire, but without anxiety. I desire with delight, with calm. I feel a divine peace, a peace full of present pleasures and of pleasures to come.

THE OTHER

With him one is always happy, one becomes accustomed to one's happiness, and yet one feels it continually increase. I said "already." Do not interpret that word according to your ideas of yesterday.

I

None the less, it gave me something to dream of.

She lowered her eyes, as she had lowered them before, without confusion, with more than human coquetry. When her eyelids lifted, slowly, it seemed to me that I saw in her look a dawn of tenderness. She took my hand and hurried me along.

THE OTHER

Come quickly, they are waiting for us.

Under a green arbour, rustic chairs were arranged round a heavy table of axe-hewn wood. A bowl of milk, cups of flowers, brown bread, strawberries; it was Virgilian. The little one spread the petals of a red rose on the milk into which she was dropping the strawberries.

THE LITTLE ONE

They are my lips. I give you my kisses.

She blushed deeply as she said it, and her big friend drew her into her arms and kissed her eyes.

When we had begun to take this matutinal repast, my friend, taking no further notice of the young women, renewed the conversation their arrival had interrupted. We were seated facing each other, two of our companions together on one side, and on the other the little one, who was busied in arranging according to their shades all kinds of flowers that she had picked in the course of the walk.

HE

My father ... You were speaking of my father. I am afraid you have an exaggerated idea of him. He was certainly very powerful, fairly intelligent, just, but, admit it, he was not good ...

I

You speak as if he no longer existed.

HE

He is not dead, but he is old. The gods end by growing old. He has