"Her lips would burn me," said the boy.
The man and the boy walked slowly across the park.
"Now, boy," said the man, "since civilisation has gone to bed the time has come for you to hear your destiny."
"I am only a poor boy," the boy replied simply. "I don't think I have any destiny."
"Paradox," said the man, "is meant to conceal the insincerity of the aged, not to express the simplicity of youth. But I wander. You have made phrases tonight."
"What are phrases?"
"What are dreams? What are roses? What, in fine, is the moon? Boy, I take you for a moon-child. You hold her pale flowers in your arms, her white beams have caressed your limbs, you prefer the kisses of her cool lips to those of that earth-child; all this is very well. But, above all, you have the music of her great silence; above all, you have her tears. When I played to you on my pipe you recognised the voice of your mother. When I showed you my pictures you recalled the tales with which she hushed you to sleep. And so I knew that you were her son and my little brother."
"The moon has always been my friend," said the boy; "but I did not know that she was my mother."
"Perhaps your sister knows it; the happy dead are glad to seek her for a mother; that is why they are so fond of white flowers."
"We have a mother at home. She works very hard for us."