Suddenly they stood up, and the slender ray of sunlight, which passed over them and fell at their feet, revealed their figures, lighted up their faces and hair, so that their presence brightened the room. Were they going away? No, they sat down again. Everything fell back into shadow, into mystery, into truth. In beholding them, I felt a confused mingling of my past and the past of the world. Where were they? Everywhere, since they existed. They were on the banks of the Nile, the Ganges, or the Cydnus, on the banks of the eternal river of the ages. They were Daphnis and Chloë, under a myrtle bush, in the Greek sunshine, the shimmer of leaves on their faces, and their faces mirroring each other. Their vague little conversation hummed like the wings of a bee, near the freshness of fountains and the heat that consumed the meadows, while in the distance a chariot went by, laden with sheaves. The new world opened. The panting truth was there. It confused them. They feared the brusque intrusion of some divinity. They were happy and unhappy. They nestled as close together as they could. They brought to each other as much as they could. But they did not suspect what it was that they were bringing. They were too small, too young. They had not lived long enough. Each was to self a stifling secret. Like all human beings, like me, like us, they wished for what they did not have. They were beggars. But they asked /themselves/ for charity. They asked for help from their /own/ persons. The boy, a man already, impoverished already by his feminine companion, turned, drawn towards her, and held out his awkward arms, without daring to look at her. The girl, a woman already, leaned her face on the back of the sofa, her eyes shining. Her cheeks were plump and rosy, tinted and warmed by her heart. The skin of her neck, taut and satiny, quivered. Half-blown and waiting, a little voluptuous because voluptuousness already emanated from her, she was like a rose inhaling sunlight. And I--I could not tear my eyes from them. . . . . . After a long silence, he murmured: "Shall we stop calling each other by our first names?" "Why?" He seemed absorbed in thought. "So as to begin over again," he said at last. "Shall we, Miss Janvier?" he asked again. She gave a visible start at the touch of this new manner of address, at the word "Miss," as if it were a kind of embrace. "Why, Mr. Lecoq," she ventured hesitatingly, "it is as though something had covered us, and we were removing--" Now, he became bolder. "Shall we kiss each other on our mouths?" She was oppressed, and could not quite smile. "Yes," she said. They caught hold of each other's arms and shoulders and held out their lips, as if their mouths were birds. "Jean!" "Hélène!" came softly. It was the first thing they had found out. To embrace the embracer, is it not the tiniest caress and the least sort of a bond? And yet it is so sternly prohibited.