All at once the man recalled a memory. A memory that suddenly presented itself, as though it were a fragment of some big luminous conception that he could not quite get hold of. A memory that was like a familiar landmark come upon in some unknown country where one was lost. He leaned forward.
"On the coast of Brittany," he said, "there is a great dreary pool of the sea like dead water, and one looking into it can see faintly far down walls of ancient masonry, barely visible. The peasants say that this is a submerged city. The king of it was old and wicked, and God sent a saint to say that He would destroy the city. And the king replied, 'Am not I, whom you can see, greater than God, whom you cannot see?' And he was tenfold more wicked. And God wearied of his insolence; and one night the saint appeared before the king and said, 'God's wrath approaches.' And he took the king's daughter by the hand and went to the highest tower of the palace. And a stranger, who had entered the city on this day, arose up and followed them, not because he feared God, but because he loved the king's daughter. And suddenly the sea entered and filled the city. And the saint and the king's daughter escaped walking on the water. And the stranger tried to follow and he did follow, staggering and sinking in the water to his knees.
"Well, one summer night my uncle slept at the little house of a curé on this coast of Brittany, and in the night he arose and went out of the house, and the curé heard the latch of the door move, and he got up and followed. When he came to this pool he saw my uncle walking in the sea and he was lurching like a man whose feet sank in the sand. The curé was alarmed and he shouted, and when he shouted, my uncle went suddenly down as though he had stepped off a ledge into deep water, but he came up and swam to the shore. The curé asked him why he had left his bed and come down to this dead pool. My uncle was confused. He hesitated, excused himself, and finally answered that the night was hot and he wished to bathe in the sea."
"And your uncle," said the girl, "was he—was he young then?"
"Yes," replied the man, "he was young. He was as young as I am."
"And was he like you?"
"I am very like him," replied the man. "The servants used to say that he got himself reborn."
"And the woman," said the girl, "what was she like?"
The man leaned over toward the motionless figure of the girl.
"The story says," he replied, "that her hair was like spun darkness and her eyes like the violet core of the night.'"