It was such a fine, cool, subtle touch all over him, he seemed to saturate himself with their contact.
But they were too soft.

He went through the long grass to a clump of young fir-trees, that were no higher than a man.

The soft sharp boughs beat upon him, as he moved in keen pangs against them, threw little cold showers of drops on his belly, and beat his loins with their clusters of soft-sharp needles.

There was a thistle which pricked him vividly, but not too much, because all his movements were too discriminate and soft.

To lie down and roll in the sticky, cool young hyacinths, to lie on one's belly and cover one's back with handfuls of fine wet grass, soft as a breath, soft and more delicate and more beautiful than the touch of any woman; and then to sting one's thigh against the living dark bristles of the fir-boughs; and then to feel the light whip of the hazel on one's shoulders, stinging, and then to clasp the silvery birch-trunk against one's breast, its smoothness, its hardness, its vital knots and ridges--this was good, this was all very good, very satisfying.