Once upon a time a student took a summer journey through Switzerland.
As a good gymnast, he was a bold and skilful mountain climber, who
liked to scale the steepest cliffs and the highest peaks. In many ways
he was an excellent young fellow; but he had no regard for animals and
plants, which enjoy their lives as well as we, and do not harm human
beings. This was very strange because he was a forester’s son, and
people who live in the woods are usually fond of everything that blooms
and runs and flies, except toadstools and beasts of prey. When he lived
at his father’s house, the student shot squirrels and crows, often even
cuckoos and thrushes, which enliven the silent forest with their calls
and songs.
In Switzerland he would have liked to kill chamois and marmots; but he
did not see these pretty creatures except in the zoölogical garden,
where they were safe from his murderous gun. So he vented his love of
destruction on the poor, defenceless flowers. If he came to an Alpine
meadow, he behaved like a savage. He gathered all the blossoms he could
reach, not a few to put in his hat, not to dry one or another to keep
as a memento of the beautiful days of travel, not even to give to
beloved friends or acquaintances, but from pure wantonness. He pulled
them by dozens, by hundreds, till he had an immense bunch, which he
carried for a while until he grew tired, and then merely threw it away.
He was especially fond of plucking Alpine roses and edelweiss, not only
because they are particularly beautiful, but because they grow in
places very hard to climb, so it needs much strength, skill, and
courage to reach them.
One day he had again climbed the mountains with alpenstock and
knapsack, and came to the border line of the perpetual snow. Below him
lay the dark pine woods and the sunny pastures, on which cows with
tinkling bells were grazing. He could only hear the distant sound, but
did not see the cattle, the meadow, and the huts of the herdsmen, for
he was far above the clouds and they concealed everything below. Before
him was a steep field, completely covered with Alpine roses. Here and
there an edelweiss raised its velvety, star-shaped blossom above the
green grass. The student tore up all the flowers he saw, the single
ones, those growing in bunches, the full-blown blossoms, the partly
opened ones, and the buds. All were stuffed into his knapsack, which
was soon filled. After spending an hour in this way, there were no more
flowers to pick. The field, which had looked like a carpet richly
embroidered with gold and silver, was now entirely green.
He looked around to try to discover a few more victims, and saw at some
distance above him a large rock, which projected like a huge nose from
the precipice. This boulder was completely covered with the most
beautiful edelweiss. He had never seen so many of these wonderful
blossoms in one place. It seemed as though they had fled there to find
a refuge where they would be safe from the pursuit of hostile men, for
it was almost impossible to reach them. The overhanging rock was
connected with the mountain only by a narrow ridge like a bridge, and
even this was so steep and rough that it would have been difficult even
for a chamois to cross it.
“Aha, there’s something for me!” cried the student, joyously, and at
once prepared to risk the dangerous crossing and reach the rock, where
he meant to seize the edelweiss. But he had scarcely touched the narrow
ridge, where he could only move forward on his hands and knees, when he
suddenly saw a woman’s figure. Raising her finger in warning, she
called loudly, “Stop!”
He stood up and stared at her in astonishment. Where could she have
come from? he wondered. Had she perhaps been lying in the tall grass so
that he did not see her? Her appearance was rather unlike other women.
She was dainty, delicate rather than strong, small rather than large.
She wore a full white silk gown over a green petticoat, and her little
silvery white feet were bare. In her golden hair was a wreath of the
most beautiful flowers of every color. In spite of her anger, her face
was very lovely, and she was surrounded by a delicious perfume like the
fragrance of roses, lilies, violets, and carnations, which could be
noticed at a considerable distance.
The student quickly recovered from his surprise and took a step
forward. But the stranger cried a second time: “Stop! No farther!”
“Why not?” he asked insolently. “Does this mountain belong to you?”
“Back!” she called, without answering his question, “you have nothing
to do here.”
“You are very familiar,” he replied scornfully; “perhaps we know each
other?”
“I know you,” said the stranger. “You are a wicked man. You are a
murderer of the flowers. Look at your knapsack! It is filled with
blossoms which you have cruelly killed. But you shall at least leave me
these edelweiss. Why do you pursue them here? Cannot they be safe, even
thus high above the world, from your designs?”
“I will not answer you in the same familiar way,” replied the student,
merrily; “for it is my habit to be courteous to young ladies. But I
shall not turn back for your sermon, excellent as it is. The flowers
are for human beings. I want these edelweiss, and I shall do whatever I
choose with them.”
He again began to climb and creep forward. The stranger drew back
before him, exclaiming, “You will repent it.” He only laughed and soon
reached the projecting rock. The white-robed girl was standing in the
midst of the edelweiss, which were turning their silvery stars toward
her from every direction as if imploring her aid.
“Let me warn you for the last time,” she cried; “do not sin against me
and my flowers!”
The young man’s only answer was to break off a number of the finest
edelweiss and offer the bouquet, with a mocking bow, to the beautiful,
angry girl. She dealt him a light blow on the hand. It was as if a
butterfly had brushed him with its wings in passing; but a shock darted
like lightning through fingers and arm to the shoulder, and he was
obliged to drop the flowers as if paralyzed.
“You have pronounced your own sentence. Go; before the day is over your
punishment will overtake you,” she said solemnly, and before he could
make any reply she had vanished.
Fear suddenly seized him, and he hurried as fast as he could away from
the mysterious rock with the edelweiss, down to the pasture where the
cows with the tinkling bells were grazing. He felt relieved when he saw
the herdsman, asked for a drink of milk, and told him the strange
adventure he had just had.
The herdsman listened intently, and said: “Do you know who that was? It
was the Flower Queen.”
“What? Have you a Flower Queen in free Switzerland?” asked the student,
forcing a jesting tone.
“Don’t mock,” replied the herdsman, very gravely. “She is powerful, and
it is not wise to make her angry.”
The student wished to inquire still farther, and went on: “Queer that
the royal lady runs about barefoot! Doesn’t she catch cold up here? Or
is she trying the Kneipp cure?”
The herdsman cast a sullen look at him, turned his back, and went into
his hut, whose door he banged loudly behind him. The student said no
more and continued his way down the mountain.
True, he did not exactly believe the story of the Flower Queen and her
power, yet he could not conquer a feeling of anxiety, and was much more
careful in climbing than usual. He reached the little town at the foot
of the mountains without accident, went to his hotel, flung the
knapsack with the Alpine flowers carelessly into a corner of his room,
and dressed for dinner.
When he opened his door to go to the dining room, he suddenly stood
still in astonishment. In the corridor was a dense mass of flowers,
which formed a ring around him. There were Alpine roses and edelweiss,
gentians, rhododendrons, and violets, such as he had gathered in his
love of destruction in the meadow above. And not only these, but tall,
proud lilies and irises, modest forget-me-nots and primroses, fragrant
jasmines and scentless corn-flowers and poppies, which he was in the
habit of tearing up or breaking with his cane in his walks through the
fields and meadows. He rubbed his eyes. His senses must be deceiving
him. He had never seen these flowers in the passage before. To convince
himself of their reality, he stepped forward and stretched his hand
toward them. The flowers drew back the same distance, and were beyond
his reach. He turned toward the side—the same thing happened. The
flowers moved away before him and followed behind. Not until he almost
struck the wall with his nose did the blossoms vanish before him; but
wherever there was room for them on the floor to remain at the proper
distance, they stood in close ranks about him. The flower circle moved
with him, swiftly or slowly, as he walked quickly or slowly, stopped
when he stopped, kept always at the same distance, and opened only when
it met a wall or some similar obstruction.
“Hocus-pocus,” he muttered, turning on his heel to convince himself
that he was shut in on all sides. After a moment’s thought, he shrugged
his shoulders, thinking: “What harm will it do me? On the contrary, it
is very amusing to be accompanied by a guard of flowers.”
He now went downstairs to the dining hall, where many other persons had
gathered. He had secretly hoped that he was the only person who saw the
ring of flowers, and it would be invisible to every one else. But he
found at once that this was by no means the case. He had scarcely
entered, surrounded by his moving circle of blossoms, when all the
guests stopped eating and stared at him. Some half rose from their
seats to see better, others even left them and came nearer. One little
girl cried out, “Oh, look at the lovely flowers which are moving near
us!” ran to the ring, and tried to gather a lily. But her hand grasped
only the empty air, and running back to her mother, she hid her face in
the folds of her gown, afraid of these queer flowers which the eye saw,
yet the fingers could not touch.
The student pretended not to notice the stir in the dining room, and
rapped for the waiter. The man came, started at the sight of the
flowers which surrounded the guest and his table, and at first seemed
to wish to climb over them. After a short hesitation, he changed his
mind, and without heeding the student’s impatient calls he went quickly
to the head waiter to tell him the extraordinary thing which he had
just seen. The head waiter told the proprietor of the hotel, and the
latter went himself to the student, toward whom all eyes were turned.
“Sir,” said the landlord, “we cannot have any jugglery here. I beg you
to stop this trick.”
“I won’t allow you to say such things to me,” cried the student,
excitedly. “I’m no juggler, I am a student.”
“Then put a stop to this flower show,” ordered the hotel keeper,
sternly.
The student only shrugged his shoulders, muttering impatiently, “I
cannot.”
“In that case,” replied the hotel-keeper, “I must ask you to leave my
house at once.”
“Very well,” answered the student, “I’ll go early to-morrow morning.
But give me something to eat now, for I’ve been climbing among the
mountains all day and am hungry.”
“No, you’ll get nothing here, and I can’t keep you till to-morrow,”
said the hotel-keeper, resolutely.
The student could do nothing but rise and leave the dining room, still
surrounded by his flower ring, which steadily kept pace with him. When
he reached his chamber and began to pack, he found his knapsack empty.
All the flowers with which he had filled it had disappeared.
He was obliged to carry his baggage himself, for no hotel servant or
porter would be seen in the street with him and his moving circle of
flowers. Children and grown people ran after him with shouts, and at
every hotel where he went with his escort of flowers and yelling
street-urchins he was refused admittance. He could get neither a warm
supper nor a bed, and had nothing to do except, late in the evening, to
take a train and leave the inhospitable little city.
He had scarcely entered the station when the flowers vanished. He
uttered a sigh of relief, for he thought he was freed from his flower
prison. The Flower Queen, he believed gleefully, probably only had
power in her mountain and in the valley at its foot. It went no
farther. But he was very much mistaken, as he was soon to discover. The
flowers had disappeared only because, in the narrow space, whose walls
he could reach everywhere by stretching out his hands and feet, there
was no room for their circle. But he had scarcely gone out after a very
uncomfortable night, scarcely set foot on the broad steps of the
station, when the ring closed around him and moved on at the same pace.
Fury seized him and he hurled his long alpenstock into the midst of the
thick, fresh blossoms. Like lightning they swayed far apart, though
without separating, and the staff did not touch them. When, grinding
his teeth, he picked it up, the gap closed, and the circle was as
regular as before. He saw that it would do no good to act like a crazy
man. The flower prison was securely fastened. He could not escape from
it. All the running, leaping, striking, and throwing missiles was
useless. The flowers were more nimble than he, and the distance between
him and the wide hedge of living flowers never changed.
He actually hated the bright blossoms, whose beauty seemed to mock him,
and shut his eyes so that he could not see them. But he could smell
their perfume, and the delicious fragrance would not let him forget
them for a moment. To escape, he took the only way which had proved
possible. Amid the stares of all the people in the railroad station, he
went on the first train and travelled without stopping home to his
father, the forester.
When the forester saw his son surrounded by his guard of rare and
common flowers, mountain and field blossoms, he remained motionless
with amazement, and could scarcely find words to ask, “Boy, what does
this mean?”
The student told him how the ring had suddenly sprung up around him,
and had left him only in the railroad station; but did not mention his
destruction of the Alpine blossoms and his meeting with the Flower
Queen.
“Oh, father,” he pleaded, after he had finished his story, “help me,
tell me how I can escape from this flower prison. If I don’t get rid of
it, it will be impossible for me to live among human beings.”
The forester thought a long time, then he said: “I have never seen such
a thing, and don’t understand it. But so far as I know, flowers don’t
bloom here in the winter. It will soon be autumn. Stay in the house
till the frost comes. That will probably kill your blossoms, unless all
the laws of nature fail.”
This was a happy thought. The student threw his arms around his wise
father’s neck. He was obliged to interrupt his studies, for he could
not return to the university. But he tried to have patience. Four
months would soon be over, then Christmas would come, and his misery
would be ended.
To shut out the unbearable sight of the flowers, he locked himself into
an attic room, which was almost as small as a closet. No prison could
be so uncomfortable as this tiny chamber. But he preferred to be
surrounded by board walls, rather than by the moving circle of flowers.
He ventured out of his hiding place only on dark nights to stretch his
stiff limbs a trifle by a walk through the forest, and to breathe a
little fresh air. He did not mind running against trees and stumbling
over stumps and roots. He preferred anything, even bruises, bumps, and
aching limbs, to his prison of flowers. Yet even during the darkest
nights they did not remain wholly invisible; for besides the fragrance,
a faint light came from the blossoms, and they shone around him like an
army of glow-worms.
He found the time very long, but it gradually passed, and Christmas
came. The winter proved unusually severe. The snow lay heaped
breast-high, and in the December nights one could hear the boughs,
outside cracking in the forest. After a very cold night, the student
ventured out into the forest early in the morning. He had scarcely
passed the door of the house when the circle of flowers closed around
him. He waded through the deep snow, muttering grimly, “Just wait a
little while, this will finish you.” He stayed in the woods until he
was almost frozen. His nose was blue, his ears were stiff, his fingers
like ice; but the flowers did not seem to be injured by the cold, and
were as fresh and fragrant on the snow as if it were the loveliest May
day. So, after several hours of suffering, the student went back to the
forest house, and with chattering teeth said, “Father, the frost will
kill me before it harms those hateful flowers.”
“Yes, my poor boy,” replied his father, sadly, “and now my knowledge is
over. Think for yourself till you find some way to break this magic
spell.”
The student shut himself up again in his tiny garret room, and thought
of his misfortune and how he could escape from it. At last he had an
idea. Perhaps his father was right; the cold must surely kill the
flowers, only the frost was not severe enough here. Suppose he should
go to the north pole, or as near it as he could get? He would see
whether the blossoms would stand it there too.
No sooner was this plan thought of than it was done. His preparations
were soon made, and that very evening he left his home to go through
the fog and darkness to take the train in the nearest city. For several
days he travelled without stopping straight toward the north, as far as
the railroad went, then he went on board a whaler, which carried him
far up into the icy seas, and did not leave the vessel until the frozen
water would allow no farther passage. But he had scarcely set his foot
upon the boundless plain of ice when the whole circlet of flowers
sprang up on it and moved along with him as gayly as ever, blossoming
as brightly about him as if the mildest spring breeze was stirring
their petals.
This time the student determined to defy them. He set forth, dragging
after him a little sledge loaded with provisions, thinking spitefully
how much the blossoms would suffer in the fierce winter cold. The
northern lights alone brightened the gloomy, pathless wilderness of
ice; the polar bears often trotted up to him, but stopped when they saw
the unknown flowers, and dared not cross their circle. For a week the
young man bore all the discomforts of the polar night; the cold, and
the tiresome tramping over the rough ice; then he saw that the flowers
were not harmed in the least, and discouraged and disheartened he gave
up the trial. Now he attempted to find a ship again. It was not easy,
and when, after many anxious days, he at last discovered one, he sailed
back, always keeping shut in his cabin, to Hamburg.
What was to be done next? The flowers could bear the most severe cold
without injury; he knew that. Perhaps drought and a hot sun would be
worse for them. He determined to go at once to the desert of Sahara,
where no plant can live. Over land and sea, in cars and ships, he
hastened to Africa, and made his way into the wilderness as fast as he
could. When the camels saw his ring of flowers, they dashed madly up to
feed on them. But they only bit the empty air, and looked so
disappointed and astonished that the student would have laughed
heartily if he had felt inclined to be merry. The Bedouins, too,
gathered around the stranger, staring in wonder at the magnificent
flowers on the burning yellow sand, where they had never seen even a
blade of grass or a tiny green leaf. Then they threw themselves in the
dust before him, believing that he must be some great magician. They
invited him into their tents, entertained him with milk and dates, and
made him understand that they wanted him to be their chief.
The flowers throve in the heat of the desert just as well as in the ice
at the pole. The student soon saw this. But here they attracted
flattering notice, and instead of making him miserable brought him
dignity and honor. He became accustomed to the thought of spending his
life among the Bedouins as their lord and ruler. Under such pleasant
circumstances his flower prison did not trouble him, and he snapped his
fingers at the Flower Queen. It was hard to give up his home; but he
was still young, and who could tell what might happen.
But his comfort did not last long. The former ruler, whom the Bedouins
had removed on his account, plotted to ruin his successor. He persuaded
the oldest men of the tribe to ask the Father of the Flowers, as they
called the student, for a perpetually flowing spring and frequent rain
for their oasis. They followed the crafty Bedouin’s advice. The
student, though he could not understand a word of Arabic, knew very
well what they wanted, and replied that he could not fulfil their wish.
They did not believe it, for a magician who could make a thick, fresh
hedge of flowers grow out of the sand of the desert must surely be able
to give them a spring and rain if he only would. His refusal was
nothing but sheer malice, for which they would punish him. They agreed
to kill him in the night. A Bedouin woman, who pitied the young
foreigner, warned him in time, and with her help he escaped in the
twilight.
The glory of ruling and the pleasant life were again over. In despair
he returned to Europe, and when he reached the coast of the
Mediterranean, he asked himself whether it would not be the wisest
thing he could do to jump into the sea and end his imprisonment by
death. But when he was preparing for this wicked act, a secret voice
said: “Perhaps I can soothe the Flower Queen. She looked so young and
lovely. She cannot be pitiless.”
He summoned fresh courage and again travelled day and night, over sea
and land, until he reached Switzerland and the foot of the mountain
chain, where the misfortune had overtaken him. Still surrounded by the
circle of flowers, he climbed with his knapsack to the pine-wood and
the pasture up above the clouds to the steep hillside, saw the
projecting rock, with the dense growth of edelweiss, and with a
throbbing heart climbed across the narrow ridge to the overhanging
boulder. He had scarcely stepped on it when the Flower Queen stood
before him, looked sternly at him, and exclaimed, “Are you here again?”
At the same moment his ring of blossoms scattered, all the flowers
hastened to their Queen, surrounding and nestling closely to her, and
for the first time in many months he was free from his prison, even in
the open air.
Kneeling before the Flower Queen, he raised his hands beseechingly and
said humbly: “Fair Queen, be content with my punishment. Forgive the
crime I committed against you and your flowers, and which I deeply
repent.”
She was silent a short time, and then replied, “Repentance is not
enough; I demand atonement.”
“What shall I do to atone?” he asked anxiously.
“Look at this slope below us. It resembled a gay carpet. Now it is
wholly green, not a single blossom adorns it. You must plant it with
flowers again. When you have made it as gay as it was before, the
punishment shall be taken from you.”
The student wanted to ask her how he should set to work, but she
disappeared, and his flower prison, which had separated, once more
closed around him. He went back to the field, sat down on the grass,
and wondered how he should begin to plant flowers here. Suddenly a
thought darted through his brain. He started up and stretched his hand
toward the circle of flowers. Lo!—it did not move back, his hand did
not grasp the air, but seized a beautiful clump of Alpine violets,
which quietly allowed him to hold them. He pulled gently—the violets,
with all their delicate roots, remained in his hand. True, there was no
gap in the ring, another flower sprang up in the place of the clump of
violets. Digging a hole in the ground with his penknife and his
fingers, he planted the violets and moved away several steps. His ring
of flowers followed, but the violets remained.
Now he knew enough. He hurried down to the little city, bought, amid
the stares of the people, gardening tools and provisions enough to last
for some time, and went back to the field above the clouds. From dawn
till twilight he worked with the greatest industry, dug hole after
hole, took flower after flower from his ring, planted them, watered
them abundantly from a neighboring spring, and scarcely allowed himself
fifteen minutes rest for his scanty meals.
Three or four weeks passed, a large portion of the field was again gay
with beautiful flowers growing thickly together, when to his intense
joy he noticed that the flowers which he still drew from his ring were
no longer replaced with others. The circular hedge first grew narrower,
then gaps appeared, then one-quarter, one-half, three-quarters
vanished, and one day he put the last blossom in the earth, and there
was nothing more left of the ring. He knelt again and called aloud,
“Oh, Queen, are you satisfied with my work?”
But the Flower Queen did not appear, only a strange movement ran
through the countless blossoms in the field, as though they were all
nodding their lovely little heads.
The student picked up his knapsack and went down to the valley. He cast
stolen glances around him on the way, but no flower followed. He was
really free from his prison of blossoms, and could again live with
other men.
But while planting the Alpine meadow he had gained such a taste for
gardening that he resolved to devote himself to this profession. So he
became a very famous florist, and several beautiful varieties of
flowers, which he introduced from foreign countries, still bear his
name.