I was pushing aside a leaf with the underside of my blade when a young tree with healthy, shining bark appeared before me in all its beauty. It soared quite high into the sky and I loved it instantly. I pressed my cheek against it. I loved it with love. In the darkness, femininity overcame masculinity within me, because I had wanted to visit the place of springs and spells, and so betray mankind in the time of the night.
On my knees at the foot of the tree, pressing my lips to its soft bark, I spoke to it tenderly in a kind of half-sung whisper, drawn from the deepest part of my being and my truth. My song was a little hoarse, modulated in my mouth like an animal’s growl. I unfastened my belt buckle, put my arms round the tree and acted the woman with it, my chest bare, my loins bare, gripping the trunk tightly between my thighs. Like this, I sank into pure, simple, absolute, delicious sensual pleasure. I loved the tree, I desired the tree. My personality inclined me to be unreservedly happy. In this land of painted caves, the most distant realms of the Past looked upon me with approval. In my relations with the tree, the womanly part of me derived from the first nights of the earth; this love of leaves dated from the very first evenings, the first Paradises, and gave me the curious character of an enchantress. A deep-seated memory returned to me in a flood of pleasure.