:
straw-coloured roses, lemon-coloured roses, sun-coloured roses--every
shade of the necks which are ambered by glowing skies. Then there was
skin of softer hue: among the tea roses, bewitchingly moist and cool,
one caught glimpses of modest, bashful charms, with skin as fine as silk
tinged faintly with a blue network of veins. Farther on all the smiling
life of the rose expanded: there was the blush white rose, barely
tinged with a dash of carmine, snowy as the foot of a maid dabbling in a
spring; there was the silvery pink, more subdued than even the glow
with which a youthful arm irradiates a wide sleeve; there was the clear,
fresh rose, in which blood seemed to gleam under satin as in the bare
shoulders of a woman bathed in light; and there was the bright pink rose
with its buds like the nipples of virgin bosoms, and its opening flowers
that suggested parted lips, exhaling warm and perfumed breath. And
the climbing roses, the tall cluster roses with their showers of white
flowers, clothed all these others with the lacework of their bunches,
the innocence of their flimsy muslin; while, here and there, roses dark
as the lees of wine, sanguineous, almost black, showed amidst the bridal
purity like passion's wounds. Verily, it was like a bridal--the bridal
of the fragrant wood, the virginity of May led to the fertility of
July and August; the first unknowing kiss culled like a nosegay on
the wedding morn. Even in the grass, moss roses, clad in close-fitting
garments of green wool, seemed to be awaiting the advent of love.
Flowers rambled all along the sun-streaked path, faces peeped out
everywhere to court the passing breezes. Bright were the smiles under
the spreading tent of the glade. Not a flower that bloomed the same: the
roses differed in the fashion of their wooing. Some, shy and blushing,
would show but a glimpse of bud, while others, panting and wide open,
seemed consumed with infatuation for their persons. There were pert,
gay little things that filed off, cockade in cap; there were huge ones,
bursting with sensuous charms, like portly, fattened-up sultanas; there
were impudent hussies, too, in coquettish disarray, on whose petals the
white traces of the powder-puff could be espied; there were virtuous
maids who had donned low-necked garb like demure _bourgeoises_; and
aristocratic ladies, graceful and original, who contrived attractive
deshabilles. And the cup-like roses offered their perfume as in precious
cr