lowers also: fleshy ranunculi with rusty tints,
hyacinths and tuberoses that exhaled asphyxia and died from their own
perfume. But the cinerarias were most conspicuous, crowding thickly in
half-mourning robes of violet and white. In the middle of this gloomy
spot a mutilated marble Cupid still remained standing, smiling beneath
the lichens which overspread his youthful nakedness, while the arm with
which he had once held his bow lay low amongst the nettles.

Then Albine and Serge passed on through a rank growth of peonies,
reaching to their waists. The white flowers fell to pieces as they
passed, with a rain of snowy petals which was as refreshing to their
hands as the heavy drops of a thunder shower. And the red ones grinned
with apoplectical faces which perturbed them. Next they passed through
a field of fuchsias, forming dense, vigorous shrubs that delighted them
with their countless bells. Then they went on through fields of purple
veronicas and others of geraniums, blazing with all the fiery tints of
a brasier, which the wind seemed to be ever fanning into fresh heat. And
they forced their way through a jungle of gladioli, tall as reeds, which
threw up spikes of flowers that gleamed in the full daylight with all
the brilliance of burning torches. They lost themselves too in a forest
of sunflowers, with stalks as thick as Albine's wrist, a forest darkened
by rough leaves large enough to form an infant's bed, and peopled with
giant starry faces that shone like so many suns. And thence they passed
into another forest, a forest of rhododendrons so teeming with blossom
that the branches and leaves were completely hidden, and nothing but
huge nosegays, masses of soft calyces, could be seen as far as the eye
could reach.

'Come along; we have not got to the end yet,' cried Albine. 'Let us push
on.'

But Serge stopped. They were now in the midst of an old ruined
colonnade. Some of the columns offered inviting seats as they lay
prostrate amongst primroses and periwinkles. Further away, among the
columns that still remained upright, other flowers were growing in
profusion. There were expanses of tulips showing brilliant streaks like
painted china; expanses of calceolarias dotted with crimson and gold;
expanses of zinnias like great daisies; expanses of petunias with petals
like soft cambric through which rosy flesh tints gleamed; and other
fields, with flowers they could not recognise spreading in carpets
beneath the sun,