The sentiment which induced them to express their souls in song led them to love by the manifold transformations of the same happiness.

Their joys caused them neither wakefulness nor delirium.

It was the infancy of pleasure developing within them, unaware of the beautiful red flowers which were to crown its shoots.

They gave themselves to each other, ignorant of all danger; they cast their whole being into a word, into a look, into a kiss, into the long, long pressure of their clasping hands.
They praised each other's beauties ingenuously, spending treasures of language on these secret idylls, inventing soft exaggerations and more diminutives than the ancient muse of Tibullus, or the poesies of Italy.
On their lips and in their hearts love flowed ever, like the liquid fringes of the sea upon the sands of the shore,--all alike, all dissimilar.

Joyous, eternal fidelity! If we must count by days, the time thus spent was five months only; if we may count by the innumerable sensations, thoughts, dreams, glances, opening flowers, realized hopes, unceasing joys, speeches interrupted, renewed, abandoned, frolic laughter, bare feet dabbling in the sea, hunts, childlike, for shells, kisses, surprises, clasping hands,--call it a lifetime; death will justify the word.