dreams as were possible to their age floated from one to the other;
beneath their closed eyelids there shone, perhaps, a starlight; if the
word marriage were not inappropriate to the situation, they were husband
and wife after the fashion of the angels. Such innocence in such
darkness, such purity in such an embrace; such foretastes of heaven are
possible only to childhood, and no immensity approaches the greatness of
little children. Of all gulfs this is the deepest. The fearful
perpetuity of the dead chained beyond life, the mighty animosity of the
ocean to a wreck, the whiteness of the snow over buried bodies, do not
equal in pathos two children's mouths meeting divinely in sleep,[10] and
the meeting of which is not even a kiss. A betrothal perchance,
perchance a catastrophe. The unknown weighs down upon their
juxtaposition. It charms, it terrifies; who knows which? It stays the
pulse. Innocence is higher than virtue. Innocence is holy ignorance.
They slept. They were in peace. They were warm. The nakedness of their
bodies, embraced each in each, amalgamated with the virginity of their
souls. They were there as in the nest of the abyss.




CHAPTER VI.

THE AWAKING.


The beginning of day is sinister. A sad pale light penetrated the hut.
It was the frozen dawn. That wan light which throws into relief the
mournful reality of objects which are blurred into spectral forms by the
night, did not awake the children, so soundly were they sleeping. The