How could he doubt it?"
"No, he didn't doubt it; but he had suffered so much, he wasn't master
of his own thoughts."
He pressed his burning cheek against hers, put his arm round her and
covered her eyes with passionate kisses.
The gnats danced their nuptial dance above the birch tree without a
thought of the thousands of young ones which their ecstasy would call
into being; the carp laid their eggs in the reed grass, careless of
the millions of their kind to which they gave birth; the swallow made
love in broad daylight, not in the least afraid of the consequences of
their irregular liaisons.
All of a sudden he sprang to his feet and stretched himself like a
sleeper awakening from a long sleep, which had been haunted by evil
dreams, he drank in the balmy air in deep draughts.
"What's the matter?" whispered his wife, while a crimson blush spread
over her face.
"I don't know. All I know is that I live, that I breathe again."
And radiant, with laughing face and shining eyes, he held out his arms
to her, picked her up as if she were a baby and pressed his lips to
her forehead. The muscles of his legs swelled until they looked like
the muscles of the leg of an antique god, he held his body erect like
a young tree and intoxicated with strength and happiness, he carried
his beloved burden as far as the footpath where he put her down.
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