Читать книгу 'Gloria Victis!' A Romance - Ossip Schubin - Страница 12

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The fragrance of the elder blossoms floated sweet and strong upon the air in the dim warm stillness of the Avenue Labédoyère. The poetry that breathes in the odour of flowers no words can reproduce, music alone can sometimes translate it; it ascended from the full white panicles in the little garden before the Hôtel Truyn and breathed through the open window into Gabrielle's chamber like an exultant yearning, like a song filled with love's delicious pain.

Zinka sat on the edge of the little white bed where the young girl was lying, her golden hair rippling about her brow and temples, while upon her pale face lay the melancholy of illimitable joy; her eyes were moist.

"And you are not surprised, Zini … not at all?" she whispered.

"No, my child," replied Zinka tenderly, "not in the least; I knew you were destined for each other from the first moment that I saw you together."

"Ah," Gabrielle sighed, "I cannot comprehend it yet. It all seems to me like a delicious dream from which I must waken, but even if I must, even if the dear God takes from me all that He has given me, I shall thank Him on my knees as long as I live for this one lovely dream."

"Calm yourself, my darling," Zinka whispered, lovingly stroking the young girl's cheeks, "how your cheeks burn!" And she poured a few drops of essence of orange flowers into a glass of water, "drink this, you little enthusiast."

"It will do no good, dear little mother," said Gabrielle, obediently lifting the composing draught to her burning lips. "Ah, you cannot imagine how I feel, it seems as if--as if my heart would break with happiness!"

Zinka kissed her, made the sign of the cross upon her forehead, drew the coverlet over her shoulders, once more admonished her to be calm, and left her.

Thunder rumbled without; Zinka started and as a second clap resounded she turned back. "Are you afraid of the storm, Ella, shall I stay with you?" she asked gently.

"Ah no, dear little mother," Gabrielle replied in the intoxication of her happiness, "I hardly hear the thunder."

And Zinka departed. "I do not know why I cannot rejoice in this as I ought," she said to herself, "it seems to me as if we had forgotten to invite some one of the twelve fairies to this betrothal."

And whilst the thunder crashed above the Champs Elysées she suddenly recalled an old fairy story that a fever-stricken peasant from the Trastevere had once told her in Rome.

It was a gloomy story, one of those legends in which the popular imagination, boldly overleaping all chronological and historical obstacles, bestows upon Pagan gods the wings of Christian angels, and arms God the Father with the lightnings of angry Jove. It ran somewhat thus:

"There was once a beautiful maiden who was good as an angel, so good that it gave her unutterable pain to see any one sad and not to be able to help; and once when she had cried herself to sleep over the woes of mankind she had a wonderful vision. A dark form with a veiled face approached her and said, 'If you have the courage to cut your heart out of your breast and plant it deep in the earth, there will spring from it a flower so glorious, so wonderful, that whoever inhales its fragrance will feel a bliss so intense that he would gladly purchase it with all the torture of our mortal existence.'

"And the maiden cut her heart out of her breast and planted it deep in the brown earth, and watered it with her tears, and there sprang from it a magically-beautiful flower, with luxuriant green leaves, and large white blossoms with blood-red calyxes, and whoever inhaled the breath of these blossoms felt an intoxicating delight course through his veins, so that in his wild ecstasy he forgot all earthly care and trouble. The flowers unfolded to more and more enchanting loveliness, and through the thick foliage sighed the sweetest music.

"Now when the angels in Heaven heard of this strange plant they entreated the Almighty Father to allow them to go get it and to plant it in Paradise.

"The Lord granted their request. Then they fluttered down from Heaven, but when they approached the wondrous plant a voice spoke from it, saying, 'Let me alone, I blossom for the consolation of the earth, I could not live in Paradise; the soil in which I flourish must be watered with heart's blood and tears!'

"But the angels did not heed these words, and, beguiled by the delicious fragrance, they tried to tear away the roots from the lap of earth; their efforts were vain, they had to return with their purpose unfulfilled.

"When mankind saw this it exulted in its blissful possession. Happy mortals laughed at the angels' futile envy. Then the angels prostrated themselves anew at the feet of the Almighty, and implored Him to revenge them upon the blasphemers. And the Almighty gave ear to their prayer; He hurled a thunderbolt at the plant, and it was swept from off the face of the earth.

"But its roots still slumber underground, and sometimes when in mild spring nights a mysterious fragrance steals upon the air, a fragrance wafted from no visible blossom, these roots are stirring to life, and green leaves shoot upward into the spring. But the sweet perfume still moves the angels to anger, and it scarcely rises aloft before the thunder rolls over the earth and the lightning blasts the green leaves. The flower will never blossom again."