Mother inexhaustible, incorruptible, creatrix, first-born, self-conceived, self-created, enjoyed of thyself alone and issue of thyself, Astarte!Oh, p… - Pierre Louÿs

He presses me so closely that he will crush me, poor little girl that I am. But when he is within me, I know nothing more in the world, and they might cut off my limbs without recalling me from my ecstasy.

An enormous fig tree let fall its flat leaves and its lilac coloured fruit like a carpet over the balustrade. On the left the park was massed with its magnolias which had already lost their flowers, its shuddering eucalyptus, its squat Japanese palms, its magnificent lunar sago trees. A hedge of aloes hemmed in the dark garden and the plain stretched beyond, to the Stars.

Stripped of my clothes, naked, I climbed into a tree. My bare thighs in a close embrace pressed the smooth damp bark. My sandals trod upon the branches.Almost at the top, but still under the leaves in the shadow from the heat, I put myself astride of a projecting branch, my legs dangling in the air.The rain came, and cool drops fell upon me and ran over my skin. My hands were soiled with moss, and my toes were red with the juice of crushed flowers.I felt the life of the beautiful tree when the wind blew through its branches. Then I pressed my thighs together in an ecstasy, and laid my open lips against the hairy nape of a limb.