There were no longer two of her now. They were no longer two in one, as before. A fragment of herself was detached in space like a little satellite, drawn by gravity about a star, an additional tiny force the effect of which was immense in the psychic atmosphere. A strange thing that, in this new couple formed by the segmentation of a being, the larger should depend more for support upon the smaller than the smaller upon the larger. Its wailing cry, through its very weakness, was a source of strength for Annette. Oh, the wealth that comes to us from a loved one who cannot exist without us! Annette, with her stiffened breasts, at which the little animal greedily tugged, eagerly poured into the body of her son the flood of milk and hope with which she was swollen. Then began to unroll the first touching cycle of the _vita nuova_, that discovery of the world, as old as the world, which every mother experiences again as she bends over the cradle. The tireless watcher awaiting with beating heart the awakening of her Sleeping Beauty. In his sapphire eyes, with their violet depths, Annette found herself reflected--they were so brilliant. What did it see, this gaze, as indefinite and limitless as the great blue eye of heaven--empty or profound, one couldn't say which? And what sudden shadows were cast upon this pure mirror by those clouds of suffering, those invisible furies, those unknown passions, come heaven knows whence! Was it from her past or from his future? The face or the reverse of the same medal. . . . "You are what I have been. I am what you will be. What will you be? What am I?". . . Annette questioned herself in the eyes of her sphinx. And as she observed this consciousness rising hourly from the depths, she lived over again, without realizing it, in this homunculus, the birth of humanity. One by one little Marc opened his windows to the world. There began to pass over the uniform surface of his liquid stare more definite gleams, like a flock of birds seeking for a place to alight. After a few weeks the flower of a smile appeared on the living shrub. And then the birds that had settled there began to chirp. Forgotten was the tragic nightmare of the first days, forgotten the terror of the unknown earth, the cries of the being brutally dragged from the maternal shell, cast naked and bruised into the cruel light. The little man was comforted and took possession of life. And he found it good. He explored it, touched and tasted it greedily with his mouth, his eyes, his feet, his hands, his back. He gloried in his prize, playing in astonishment with the sounds that emerged from his pipe. One prize more, his voice! He listened to himself singing. But his singing did not give him more delight than it gave his mother. Annette was intoxicated by it. This little stream of a voice made her heart melt. The shrill cries that rose from the instrument gave her an exquisite pleasure as they pierced her ear.