Part 27 (1/2)
THE RED FLOWER.
What it was, where it grew, I should find it difficult to tell you. I had seen it once, when a little child, in a stony road, among the thorns of a hedge; and I had gathered it. Ah! that was certain! It waved at the end of a long stalk; its petals were of a flame-like red; its form was unlike anything known, resembling somewhat a censer, from which issued golden stamens.
Since those earliest days, I had often sought it, often asked for it.
When I mentioned it, people laughed at me. I spoke of the flower no more, but I sought for it still.
”Impossible!” Experience writes the word in the dictionary of the man.
In the child's vocabulary, it has no existence. The marvellous to him is perfectly natural. Things which he sees to be beautiful arrange themselves along his path; why should he have a doubt of this or of that? By and by, exact bounds will limit his domain. A faint line, then a barrier, then a wall: erelong the wall will rise and surround the man,--a dungeon from which he must have wings to escape.
Around the child are neither walls nor boundary lines, but a limitless expanse, everywhere glowing with beautiful colors. In the far-off depths, reality mingles with revery. It is like an ocean whose blue waves glimmer and sparkle on the horizon, where they kiss the sh.o.r.es of enchanted isles.
I sought the red flower. Have you never searched for it too?
This morning, in the spring atmosphere, its memory came back to my heart. It seemed to me that I should find it; and I walked on at random.
I went through solitary footpaths. The laborers had gone to their noonday repose. The meadows were all in bloom. Weeds, growing in spite of wind and tide spread a golden carpet beside the rose-colored meadow-gra.s.s. In the wet places were tangles of pale blue forget-me-nots; beyond them, tufts of the azure veronica, and over the stream hung the straw-colored lotus. Under the grain, yet green, corn-poppies were waving. With every breeze a scarlet wave arose, swelled, and vanished.
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Blue b.u.t.terflies danced before me, mingling and dispersing like floating flower-petals in the air. Under the umbelled plants was a pavement of beetles, of black and purple mosaic. On the tufts of the verbena gathered insects with sh.e.l.ls blazoned like the escutcheons of the knights of the Middle Ages. The quail was calling in the thickets; three notes here, and three there. I found myself on the skirt of a pine forest, and I seated myself on the gra.s.s.
The red flower! I thought of it no longer. The b.u.t.terflies had carried it away. I thought how beautiful life is on a spring morning; what happiness it is to open the lips and inhale the fresh air; what joy to open the eyes and behold the earth in her bridal robes; what delight to open the hands and gather the sweet-smelling blossoms. Then I thought of the G.o.d of the heavens, that, arching above me, spoke of his power. I thought of the Lord of the little ones,--of the insects that, flitting about me, spoke of his goodness. All these accents awoke a chord in harmony with that which burst forth from the blossoming meadows.
I arose, and came to a recess in the shadowy edge of the forest.
As I walked, something glowed in the gra.s.s; something dazzled me; something made my heart throb. It was the red flower!
I seized it. I held it tightly in my hand. It was the flower; yes, it was the same, but with a strange, new splendor. I possessed it, yet I dared not look upon it.
Suddenly I felt the blossom tremble in my fingers. They loosened their grasp. The flower dilated. It expanded its carnation petals, slightly tinged with green; it spread out a purple calyx; two stamens, two antennae, vibrated a moment. The blossom quivered; some breath had made it shudder; its wings unfolded. As I gazed, it fluttered a little, then rose in a golden sunbeam; its colors played in the different strata of the air, the roseate, the azure, the ether; it disappeared.
O my flower! I know whither thou goest and whence thou comest! I know the hidden sources of thine eternal bloom. I know the Word that created thee; I know the Eden where thou growest!
Winged flower! he who falters in his search for thee will never find thee. He who seeks thee on earth may grasp thee, but will surely lose thee again. Flower of Paradise, thou belongest only to him who searches for thee where thou hast been planted by the hand of the Lord.
_Madame De Gasparin._
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THE STORY WITHOUT AN END.
I.
There was once a child who lived in a little hut, and in the hut there was nothing but a little bed, and a looking-gla.s.s which hung in a dark corner. Now the child cared nothing at all about the looking-gla.s.s, but as soon as the first sunbeam glided softly through the cas.e.m.e.nt and kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him merrily with their morning songs, he arose and went out into the green meadow. And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet, and b.u.t.ter of the b.u.t.tercup; he shook dew-drops from the cowslip into the cup of a harebell; spread out a large lime-leaf, set his little breakfast upon it, and feasted daintily. Sometimes he invited a humming-bee, oftener a gay b.u.t.terfly, to partake of his feast; but his favorite guest was the blue dragon-fly. The bee murmured a good deal, in a solemn tone, about his riches; but the child thought that if _he_ were a bee, heaps of treasure would not make him gay and happy; and that it must be much more delightful and glorious to float about in the free and fresh breezes of spring, and to hum joyously in the web of the sunbeams, than, with heavy feet and heavy heart, to stow the silver wax and the golden honey into cells.
To this the b.u.t.terfly a.s.sented; and he told how, once on a time, he too had been greedy and sordid; how he had thought of nothing but eating, and had never once turned his eyes upwards to the blue heavens. At length, however, a complete change had come over him; and instead of crawling spiritless about the dirty earth, half dreaming, he all at once awaked as out of a deep sleep. And now he could rise into the air; and it was his greatest joy sometimes to play with the light, and to reflect the heavens in the bright eyes of his wings; sometimes to listen to the soft language of the flowers, and catch their secrets. Such talk delighted the child, and his breakfast was the sweeter to him, and the suns.h.i.+ne on leaf and flower seemed to him more bright and cheering.