Again,... we are not at the end, the journey is very long--and naked truth is hid among the rocks.... Will she come forth?... I see her gestures in your eyes already, and her cool breath will lave my visage soon.... Ah!... Alladine! Alladine!...[_He releases her suddenly_.] I heard your bones cry out like little children.... I have not hurt you?... Do not stay thus, upon your knees before me,... It is I who go down on my knees. [_He does as he says_] I am a wretch.... You must have pity.... It is not for myself alone I pray.... I have only one poor daughter.... All the rest are dead.... I had seven of them about me.... They were fair and full of happiness; and I saw them no more.... The only one left to me is going to die, too.... She did not love life.... But one day she encountered something she no longer looked for, and I saw she had lost the desire to die.... I do not ask a thing impossible.... [ALLADINE _weeps and makes no answer_.] SCENE IV.--_The apartment of_ ASTOLAINE. ASTOLAINE _and_ PALOMIDES _discovered_. PALOMIDES. Astolaine, when I met you several months ago by chance, it seemed to me that I had found at last what I had sought for during many years.... Till you, I did not know all that the ever tenderer goodness and complete simplicity of a high soul might be. I was so deeply stirred by it that it seemed to me the first time I had met a human being. You would have said that I had lived till then in a closed chamber which you opened for me; and all at once I knew what must be the soul of other men and what mine might become.... Since then, I have known you further. I have seen you act, and others too have taught me all that you have been. There have been evenings when I quitted you without a word, and went to weep for wonder in a corner of the palace, because you had simply raised your eyes, made a little unconscious gesture, or smiled for no apparent cause, yet at the moment when all the souls about you asked it and would be satisfied. There is but you who know these moments, because you are, it seems, the soul of all, and I do not believe those who have not drawn near you can know what true life is. To-day I come to say all this to you, because I feel that I shall never be he whom I hoped once to become.... A chance has come--or haply I myself have come; for you can never tell if you have made a movement of yourself, or if it be chance that has met with you--a chance has come, which has opened my eyes, just as we were about to make each other unhappy; and I have recognized there must be something more incomprehensible than the beauty of the most beautiful soul or the most beautiful face; and mightier, too, since I must needs obey it.... I do not know if you have understood me. If you understand, have pity on me.... I have said to myself all that could be said.... I know what I shall lose, for I know her soul is a child's soul, a poor strengthless child's, beside yours, and yet I cannot resist it.... ASTOLAINE.