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We have sinned, and we have merited some terrible punishment.... But I, indeed, I tried to reassure you, I did not hear the threats which sounded in your ears through the branches. Albine tried to clasp him in her arms again as she sobbed out, 'Get up, and let us escape together. Perhaps even yet there is time for us to love each other. 'No, no; I haven't the strength.
He was born again to love Albine, and to lose her, in the bosom of sublime nature, their accomplice; to be recovered, afterward by the Church, to war eternally with life, striving to kill his manhood, throwing on the body of the dead Albine the handful of earth, as officiating priest, at the very time when Desiree, the sister and friend of animals, was rejoicing in the midst of the swarming life of her poultry yard.
He believed that he was falling ill again, that he would never recover plenitude of health. For days and days he remained there in silence, with dark rings round his sleepy eyes, only starting into wakefulness when Albine came to visit him. They would remain face to face, gazing at one another sadly, and uttering but a few soft words, which seemed to choke them.
That utterance sounded like a vibration of the sunlight itself. It fell amid the silence in the faintest of whispers like a musical sigh, a quiver of warmth and of life. For several days Albine had never heard his voice, and now, like himself, it had altered. It seemed to her to course through the park more sweetly than the melody of birds, more imperiously than the wind that bends the boughs.
However, when he reached the long lane that skirted the endless wall of the park, a glimmer of hope broke upon him. Perhaps Albine was only in a dead faint. The peasant had told him that she had suffocated herself with flowers. Ah! if he could only get there in time, if he could only save her! And he lashed his horse ferociously as though he were lashing himself. It was a lovely day.
And the whole garden was wrapped in silence, broken only by some sorrowful moans that sounded quiveringly. Serge began to shiver beneath the avenue of tall trees, along which they were walking. 'How cold it is here! said he in an undertone. 'You are cold indeed, murmured Albine, sadly. 'My hand is no longer able to warm you. Shall I wrap you round with part of my dress?
'Perhaps, then, it is in that grotto, near that clear stream, where the great marble woman, without a face, is lying. 'No, no. Albine seemed to reflect for a moment. Then, as though speaking to herself, she went on: 'As soon as ever I came here, I began to hunt for it.
'And Serge? murmured Albine, quite mechanically. What was it that kept them apart? Who was it that prevented them from being happy together? Why might she not love him, and why might she not be loved, freely and in the broad sunlight, as the trees lived and loved? She knew not, but she felt that she had been forsaken, and had received a mortal wound.
He could no longer understand anything, but remained in a horrible state of doubt betwixt the unconquerable church, springing up again from its ashes, and Albine, the all-powerful, who could shake the very throne of God by a single breath. Desiree came up to him, full of merry chatter. 'Are you there? Are you there? she cried. 'Why are you playing at hide-and-seek?
Over all the furniture the phantom presence of the dead girl still lingered fragrantly. 'See, this is the armchair where she used to sit, cried Albine; 'there is the scent of her shoulders at the back of it yet. She sat down in it herself, and bade Serge drop upon his knees and kiss her hand. 'You remember the day when I first let you in and said, "Good morrow, my dear lord!"
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