One morning, however, as she raised his pillows, not daring to try again the broken spell of her hands, she fancied that she once more caught the first day’s smile on Serge’s lips.
‘Open the shutters,’ he said faintly.
She thought him still delirious, for only an hour previously she had seen but a gloomy sky on looking out from the landing.
‘Hush, go to sleep,’ she answered sadly; ‘I have promised to wake you at the very first ray—— Sleep on, there’s no sun out yet.’
‘Yes, I can feel it, its light is there.... Open the shutters.’
III
And there, indeed, the sunlight was. When Albine had opened the shutters, behind the large curtains, the genial yellow glow once more warmed a patch of the white calico. But that which impelled Serge to sit up in bed was the sight of the shadowy bough, the branch that for him heralded the return of life. All the resuscitated earth, with its wealth of greenery, its waters, and its belts of hills, was in that greenish blur that quivered with the faintest breath of air. It no longer disturbed him; he greedily watched it rocking, and hungered for the fortified powers of the vivifying sap which to him it symbolised. Albine, happy once more, exclaimed, as she supported him in her arms: ‘Ah! my dear Serge, the winter is over. Now we are saved.’
He lay down again, his eyes already brighter, and his voice clearer. ‘To-morrow I shall be very strong,’ he said. ‘You shall draw back the curtains. I want to see everything.’
But on the morrow he was seized with childish fear. He would not hear of the windows being opened wide. ‘By-and-by,’ he muttered, ‘later on.’ He was fearful, he dreaded the first beam of light that would flash upon his eyes. Evening came on, and still he had been unable to make up his mind to look upon the sun. He remained thus all day long, his face turned towards the curtains, watching on their transparent tissue the pallor of morn, the glow of noon, the violet tint of twilight, all the hues, all the emotions of the sky. There were pictured even the quiverings of the warm air at the light stroke of a bird’s wing, even the delight of earth’s odours throbbing in a sunbeam. Behind that veil, behind that softened phantasm of the mighty life without, he could hear the rise of spring. He even felt stifled at times when in spite of the curtains’ barrier the rush of the earth’s new blood came upon him too strongly.