water, and soon Siegmund shimmered also in the living green of the sea,
like pale flowers trembling upward.

'The water,' said Siegmund, 'is as full of life as I am,' and he pressed
forward his breast against it. He swam very well that morning; he had
more wilful life than the sea, so he mastered it laughingly with his
arms, feeling a delight in his triumph over the waves. Venturing
recklessly in his new pride, he swam round the corner of the rock,
through an archway, lofty and spacious, into a passage where the water
ran like a flood of green light over the skin-white bottom. Suddenly he
emerged in the brilliant daylight of the next tiny scoop of a bay.

There he arrived like a pioneer, for the bay was inaccessible from the
land. He waded out of the green, cold water on to sand that was pure as
the shoulders of Helena, out of the shadow of the archway into the
sunlight, on to the glistening petal of this blossom of a sea-bay.

He did not know till he felt the sunlight how the sea had drunk with its
cold lips deeply of his warmth. Throwing himself down on the sand that
was soft and warm as white fur, he lay glistening wet, panting, swelling
with glad pride at having conquered also this small, inaccessible
sea-cave, creeping into it like a white bee into a white virgin blossom
that had waited, how long, for its bee.

The sand was warm to his breast, and his belly, and his arms. It was
like a great body he cleaved to. Almost, he fancied, he felt it heaving
under him in its breathing. Then he turned his face to the sun, and
laughed. All the while, he hugged the warm body of the sea-bay beneath
him. He spread his hands upon the sand; he took it in handfuls, and let
it run smooth, warm, delightful, through his fingers.