Then the faun moved his lips in sound—a sound like the cooing of a dove in the coming of summer, and an answering coo rippled out from the myrtle trees. And softly as a flake of snow, a white-bosomed thing with bright, gentle eyes alighted beside the faun, and cooed and cooed again, and drew yet a little farther off and cooed once more.
Then the serpent looked upon the dove—which is sacred to Aphrodite—and glided from its smooth resting-place, as water glides between the fingers of a hunter who drinks from the hollow of his hand in hours of torrid heat and weariness. And the dove, still retreating, drew after her the guardian snake with topaz eyes.
Then with all her body kissed by the summer breeze, the nymph awoke, and her opening eyes looked into the eager eyes of the faun; and she started not, neither did she seem afraid. And stretching herself upon the soft moss after the refreshment of slumber, she flung her rounded arms back, and linked them about the neck of the faun; and they kissed each other, and the doves cooed in the myrtles.
And from afar off came yet a sweeter sound than the caressing voices of the doves—a long ripple of gentle melody, rising and falling like the sighing of an amorous zephyr, melancholy yet pleasing like the melancholy of love—Pan playing upon his pipe!—
There was a sudden knocking at the door:
"Pardon, mon jeune ami; j'oubliais ma tabatière! Ah! la voici! Je vous remercie!"
Alas! the vision never returned! The idyl remains a fragment! I cannot tell you what became of the dove and the serpent with topaz eyes.