Now that the shapes have capitulated comes the question of conquering
the region of the proscribed colours, of the reserved shades, which the
autumn, as we can see, denies to the flowers that represent it. Lavishly
it bestows on them all the wealth of the twilight and the night, all the
riches of the harvest-time: it gives them all the mud-brown work of the
rain in the woods, all the silvery fashionings of the mist in the
plains, of the frost and the snow in the gardens. It permits them, above
all, to draw at will upon the inexhaustible treasures of the dead leaves
and the expiring forest. It allows them to deck
[Illustration]
themselves with the golden sequins, the bronze medals, the silver
buckles, the copper spangles, the elfin plumes, the powdered amber, the
burnt topazes, the neglected pearls, the smoked amethysts, the calcined
garnets, all the dead but still dazzling jewellery which the North Wind
heaps up in the hollows of ravines and footpaths; but it insists that
they shall remain faithful to their old masters and wear the livery of
the drab and weary months that give them birth. It does not permit them
to betray those masters and to don the princely, changing dresses of the
spring and the dawn; and if, sometimes, it suffers a pink, this is only
on condition that it be borrowed from the cold lips, the pale brow of
the veiled and afflicted virgin praying on a tomb. It forbids most
strictly the tints of summer, of too youthful, ardent and serene a life,
of a health too joyous and expansive. In no case will it consent to
hilarious vermilions, impetuous scarlets, imperious and dazzling
purples. As for the blues, from the azure of the dawn to the indigo of
the sea and the deep lakes, from the periwinkle to the borage and the
cornflower, they are banished on pain of death.