kiss, which now filled me with remorse and with the fear of having
lost the future of my love. No; in the gloom of my unhappy life I
should have bent my knee and kissed the hem of her garment, wetting it
with tears, and then I might have flung myself into the Indre. But
having breathed the jasmine perfume of her skin and drunk the milk of
that cup of love, my soul had acquired the knowledge and the hope of
human joys; I would live and await the coming of happiness as the
savage awaits his hour of vengeance; I longed to climb those trees, to
creep among the vines, to float in the river; I wanted the
companionship of night and its silence, I needed lassitude of body, I
craved the heat of the sun to make the eating of the delicious apple
into which I had bitten perfect. Had she asked of me the singing
flower, the riches buried by the comrades of Morgan the destroyer, I
would have sought them, to obtain those other riches and that mute
flower for which I longed.

When my dream, the dream into which this first contemplation of my
idol plunged me, came to an end and I heard her speaking of Monsieur
de Mortsauf, the thought came that a woman must belong to her husband,
and a raging curiosity possessed me to see the owner of this treasure.
Two emotions filled my mind, hatred and fear,--hatred which allowed of
no obstacles and measured all without shrinking, and a vague, but real
fear of the struggle, of its issue, and above all of _her_.

"Here is Monsieur de Mortsauf," she said.

I sprang to my feet like a startled horse. Though the movement was
seen by Monsieur de Chessel and the countess, neither made any
observation, for a diversion was effected at this moment by the
entrance of a little girl, whom I took to be about six years old, who