was the garden of paradise; and there stood many angry angels with
flaming swords protecting it; but for all that I and other boys
found the way to the tree of life--now you despise me.

JULIE. Oh, all boys steal apples.

JEAN. You say that, but you despise me all the same. No matter! One
time I entered the garden of paradise--it was to weed the onion
beds with my mother! Near the orchard stood a Turkish pavilion,
shaded and overgrown with jessamine and honeysuckle. I didn't know
what it was used for and I had never seen anything so beautiful.
People passed in and out and one day--the door was left open. I
sneaked in and beheld walls covered with pictures of kings and
emperors and there were red-fringed curtains at the windows--now
you understand what I mean--I--[Breaks off a spray of syringes and
puts it to her nostrils.] I had never been in the castle and how my
thoughts leaped--and there they returned ever after. Little by
little the longing came over me to experience for once the pleasure
of--enfin, I sneaked in and was bewildered. But then I heard
someone coming--there was only one exit for the great folk, but for
me there was another, and I had to choose that. [Julie who has
taken the syringa lets it fall on table.] Once out I started to
run, scrambled through a raspberry hedge, rushed over a strawberry
bed and came to a stop on the rose terrace. For there I saw a
figure in a white dress and white slippers and stockings--it was
you! I hid under a heap of weeds, under, you understand, where the
thistles pricked me, and lay on the damp, rank earth. I gazed at
you walking among the roses. And I thought if it is true that the
thief on the cross could enter heaven and dwell among the angels it
was strange that a pauper child on God's earth could not go into