ound. At night-time, when the moonlight falls, pearly grey, on
the indeterminate crest of the forests, the trees look like an army of
phantoms in long, trailing veils. In the daytime a crowd of large,
beautiful butterflies, brilliant humming birds, and blue-winged jays and
parroquets come and cling to the moss, which then resembles a white
tapestry embroidered with splendid and varied hues.

"Every evening we made a great fire and built a shelter out of a large
hollow piece of bark, fixed on four stakes. The forests were full of
game, which I easily brought down with the bow and arrows I took when we
fled from the camp, and as it was now autumn, the forests were hung with
fruit. Every day I became more and more joyful, but Atala was strangely
quiet. Sometimes, as I suddenly turned my head to see why she was so
silent, I would find her gazing at me, her eyes burning with passion.
Sometimes she would kneel down, and clasp her hands in prayer and weep
like a woman with a broken heart. What frightened me above all was the
secret thought that she tried to conceal in the depths of her soul, but,
now and then, half revealed in her wild, sorrowful, and lovely eyes. Oh,
how many times did she tell me:

"'Yes, I love you, Chactas, I love you! But I can never be your wife!'

"I could not understand her. One minute she would cling round my neck
and kiss me; another, when I wished in turn to caress her, she would
repulse me.

"'But as I intend, Atala, to become a Christian, what is there to
prevent us marrying?' I said, again and again.

"And every time I asked this question she burst into tears and would not
answer. But the wild loneliness, the continual presence of my beloved,
yes, even the hardships of our wandering life, increased the force of my
longing. A hundred times I was ready to fold Atala to my breast. A
hundred times I proposed to build her a hut in the wide, uninhabited
wilderness, and live my life out there by her side.

"Oh, Rene, my son, if your heart is ever deeply troubled by love, beware
of loneliness. Great passions are wild and solitary things; by
transporting them into the wilderness you give them full power over your
soul. But in spite of this, Atala and I lived together in the great
forests like brother and sister. On and on we marched, through vaults of
flowery smilax, where lianas with strange and gorgeous blossoms snared
our feet in their twining ropy stems. Enormous bats fluttered in our
faces, rat