Finally, when their two souls had reached a state of complete understanding and intimacy, Ali crossed the stream, drawn by some indiscernible power. He approached the girl and embraced her, bestowing kisses upon her lips, then her neck, then her eyes. She barely stirred within his arms, as though the rapture of his embrace had sapped her of all will and the delicacy of his caress had deprived her of her faculties. She surrendered, as the perfumed breath of the jasmine submits to the buffeting wind. She dropped her head upon his breast like one exhausted, heaving a deep sigh that betrayed the relief her grief-stricken heart had found and announced the trembling of a bosom that had awakened from its slumber. She raised her head and looked into his eyes, signalling her disdain for the mere converse of humans in favor of a profound stillness—the language of spirits—and her displeasure with the idea that words could ever incarnate the essence of love.

The two lovers walked amid the willow grove. The oneness of each of them was a pair of lips declaring their unity, an ear listening to the revelations of their love, and an eye dazzled by the splendor of happiness. The lambs followed them, grazing upon the tips of grasses and flowers. Sparrows were arrayed before them on all sides warbling the songs of daybreak.

Thy reached the edge of the valley as the sun cast a golden robe on the surrounding hills. They sat near a boulder in whose shade a bed of violets had taken shelter. After a moment, the girl looked into Ali’s two jet pupils while the breeze toyed with her hair, as though attempting to kiss her with unseen lips. She felt as though enchanted fingertips played about her tongue and lips against her will. She said, with a voice imbued with painful sweetness, “Astarte has returned our spirits to this world, lest we be deprived of the delights of love and the glories of youth, O my beloved!”

Ali closed his eyes as the music of her words made present to him the outlines of a dream he had repeatedly seen in his sleep. He felt as though invisible wings had lifted him from that place and deposited him in a strange room, near a bed on which lay the corpse of a beautiful woman that death had deprived of her luster and the warmth of her lips. He gave a scream of anguish at the horror of the scene, then opened his eyes and found that same girl sitting beside him, a smile of love on her lips, rays of life in her gaze. His countenance illumined, his spirit reinvigorated, he found that the specters of his vision faded. He forgot the past and its dead ends . . .

The two lovers embraced and drank the wine of their kisses until inebriated, and they slept in one another’s arms until the shade receded and the sun’s heat awakened them.