But here, innumerous, disordered, many-coloured, tumultuous, drunk with
dawns and noons, come the luminous dances of the daughters of Summer!
Little girls with white veils and old maids in violet ribbons,
school-girls home for the holidays, first-communicants, pale nuns,
dishevelled romps, gossips and prudes. Here is the Marigold, who breaks
up with her brightness the green of the borders. Here is the Camomile,
like a nosegay of snow, beside her unwearying brothers, the Garden
Chrysanthemums, whom we must not confuse with the Japanese
Chrysanthemums of autumn. The Annual Helianthus, or Sunflower, towers
like a priest raising the monstrance over the lesser folk in prayer and
strives to resemble the luminary which he adores. The Poppy exerts
himself to fill with light his cup torn by the morning wind. The rough
Larkspur, in his peasant's blouse, who thinks himself more beautiful
than the sky, looks down upon the Dwarf Convolvuluses, who reproach him
spitefully with putting too much blue into the azure of his flowers. The
Virginia Stock, arch and demure in her gown of jaconet, like the little
servant-maids of Dordrecht or Leyden, washes the borders of the beds
with innocence. The Mignonette hides herself in her laboratory and
silently distils perfumes that give us a foretaste of the air which we
breathe on the threshold of Paradise. The Peonies, who have drunk their
imprudent fill of the sun, burst with enthusiasm and bend forward to
meet the coming apoplexy. The Scarlet Flax traces a blood-stained furrow
that guards the walks; and the Portulaca, creeping like a moss, studies
to cover with mauve, amber or pink taffeta the soil that has remained
bare at the foot of the tall stalks. The chub-faced Dahlia, a little
round, a little stupid, carves out of soap, lard or wax his regular
pompons, which will be the ornament of a village holiday. The old,
paternal Phlox, standing amid the clusters, lavishes the loud laughter
of his jolly, easygoing colours. The Mallows, or Lavateras, like demure
misses, feel the tenderest blushes of fugitive modesty mount to their
corollas at the slightest breath. The Nasturtium paints his water
colours, or screams like a parakeet climbing up the bars of its cage;
and the Rose-mallow, Althæa Rosea, Hollyhock, riding the high horse of
her many names, flaunts her cockades of a flesh silkier than a maiden's
breast. The Snapdragon and the almost transparent Balsam are more
timorous and awkward and fearfully press their flowers against their
stalks.
Next, in the discreet corner of the old families, are crowded the
long-leaved Veronica; the red Potentilla; the African Marigold; the
ancient Lychnis, or Maltese Cross; the Mournful Widow, or Purple
Scabious; the Foxglove, or Digitalis, who shoots up like a melancholy
rocket; the European Aquilegia, or Columbine; the Viscaria, who, on a
long, slim neck, lifts a small, ingenuous, quite round face to admire
the sky; the lurking Lunaria, who secretly manufactures the "Pope's
money," those pale, flat crown-pieces with which, no doubt, the elves
and fairies by moonlight carry on their trade in spells; lastly, the
Pheasant's Eye, the red Valerian, or Jupiter's Beard, the Sweet William
and the old Carnation, that was cultivated long ago by the Grand Condé
in his exile.
Besides these, above, all around, on the walls, in the hedges, among the
arbours, along the branches, like a people of sportive monkeys and
birds, the climbing plants make merry, perform feats of gymnastics, play
at swinging, at losing and recovering their balance, at falling, at
flying, at looking up at space, at reaching beyond the treetops to kiss
the sky. Here we have the Spanish Bean and the Sweet Pea, quite proud at
being no longer included among the vegetables; the modest Volubilis; the
Honeysuckle, whose scent represents the soul of the dew; the Clematis
and the Glycine; while, at the windows, between the white curtains,
along the stretched string, the Campanula, surnamed Pyramidalis, works
such miracles, throws out sheaves and twists garlands formed of a
thousand uniform flowers so prodigiously immaculate and transparent that
they who see it for the first time, refusing to believe their eyes, want
to touch with their finger the bluey marvel, cool as a fountain, pure as
a source, unreal as a dream.
Meanwhile, in a blaze of light, the great white Lily, the old lord of
the gardens, the only authentic prince among all the commonalty issuing
from the kitchen-garden, the ditches, the copses, the pools and the
moors, among the strangers come from none knows where, with his
invariable six-petalled chalice of silver, whose nobility dates back to
that of the gods themselves: the immemorial Lily raises his ancient
sceptre, august, inviolate, which creates around it a zone of chastity,
silence and light.
V
I have seen them, those whom I have named and as many whom I have
forgotten, all thus collected in the garden of an old sage, the same
that taught me to love the bees. They displayed themselves in beds and
clusters, in symmetrical borders, ellipses, oblongs, quincunxes and
lozenges, surrounded by box hedges, red bricks, earthenware tiles or
brass chains, like precious matters contained in ordered receptacles
similar to those which we find in the discoloured engravings that
illustrate the works of the old Dutch poet, Jacob Cats. And the flowers
were drawn up in rows, some according to their kinds, others according
to their shapes and shades, while others, lastly, mingled, according to
the happy chances of the wind and the sun, the most hostile and
murderous colours, in order to show that nature acknowledges no
dissonance and that all that lives creates its own harmony.
From its twelve rounded windows, with their shining panes, their muslin
curtains, their broad green shutters, the long, painted house, pink and
gleaming as a shell, watched them wake at dawn and throw off the brisk
diamonds of the dew and then close at night under the blue darkness that
falls from the stars. One felt that it took an intelligent pleasure in
this gentle, daily fairy-scene, itself solidly planted between two
clear ditches that lost themselves in the distance of the immense
pasturage dotted with motionless cows, while, by the roadside, a proud
mill, bending forward like a preacher, made familiar signs with its
paternal sails to the passers-by from the village.