Part 28 (1/2)

The child's heart was full of joy even to the brim. He set himself down, and he almost thought he should like to take root there, and live forever among the sweet plants and flowers, and so become a true sharer in all their gentle pleasures. For he felt a deep delight in the still, secluded twilight existence of the mosses and small herbs, which felt not the storm, nor the frost, nor the scorching sunbeam, but dwelt quietly among their many friends and neighbors, feasting in peace and good-fellows.h.i.+p on the dew and cool shadows which the mighty trees shed upon them. To them it was a high festival when a sunbeam chanced to visit their lowly home; whilst the tops of the lofty trees could find joy and beauty only in the purple rays of morning or evening.

VI.

And as the child sat there, a little mouse rustled from among the dry leaves of the former year, and a lizard half glided from a crevice in the rock, and when they saw that he designed them no evil, they took courage and came nearer to him.

”I should like to live with you,” said the child to the two little creatures, in a soft, subdued voice, that he might not frighten them.

”Your chambers are so snug, so warm, and yet so shaded, and the flowers grow in at your windows, and the birds sing you their morning song, and call you to table and to bed with their clear warblings.”

”Yes,” said the mouse, ”it would be all very well if all the plants bore nuts and mast, instead of those silly flowers; and if I were not obliged to grub under ground in the spring, and gnaw the bitter roots, whilst they are dressing themselves in their fine flowers, and flaunting it to the world, as if they had endless stores of honey in their cellars.”

”Hold your tongue!” interrupted the lizard, pertly; ”do you think, because you are gray, that other people must throw away their handsome clothes, or let them lie in the dark wardrobe under ground, and wear nothing but gray too? I am not so envious. The flowers may dress themselves as they like for all me; they pay for it out of their own pockets, and they feed bees and beetles from their cups; but what I want to know is, of what use are birds in the world? Such a fluttering and chattering, truly, from morning early to evening late, that one is worried and stunned to death, and there is never a day's peace for them. And they do nothing, only snap up the flies and the spiders out of the mouths of such as I. For my part, I should be perfectly satisfied, provided all the birds in the world were flies and beetles.”

The child changed color, and his heart was sick and saddened when he heard their evil tongues. He could not imagine how anybody could speak ill of the beautiful flowers, or scoff at his beloved birds. He was waked out of a sweet dream, and the wood seemed to him a lonely desert, and he was ill at ease. He started up hastily, so that the mouse and the lizard shrank back alarmed, and did not look around them till they thought themselves safe out of the reach of the stranger with the large severe eyes.

VII.

But the child went away from the place; and as he hung down his head thoughtfully, he did not observe that he took the wrong path, nor see how the flowers on either side bowed their heads to welcome him, nor hear how the old birds from the boughs and the young from the nests cried aloud to him, ”G.o.d bless thee, our dear little prince!” And he went on and on, farther and farther into the deep wood; and he thought over the foolish and heartless talk of the two selfish chatterers, and could not understand it. He would fain have forgotten it, but he could not. And the more he pondered, the more it seemed to him as if a malicious spider had spun her web around him, and as if his eyes were weary with trying to look through it.

And suddenly he came to a still water, above which young beeches lovingly intwined their arms. He looked in the water, and his eyes were riveted to it as if by enchantment. He could not move, but stood and gazed in the soft, placid mirror, from the bosom of which the tender green foliage, with the deep blue heavens between, gleamed so wondrously upon him. His sorrow was all forgotten, and even the echo of the discord in his little heart was hushed. That heart was once more in his eyes; and fain would he have drunk in the soft beauty of the colors that lay beneath him, or have plunged into the lovely deep.

Then the breeze began to sigh among the tree-tops. The child raised his eyes and saw overhead the quivering green, and the deep blue behind it, and he knew not whether he were awake or dreaming; which were the real leaves and the real heavens,--those in the heights above, or in the depths beneath? Long did the child waver, and his thoughts floated in a delicious dreaminess from one to the other, till the dragon-fly flew to him in affectionate haste, and with rustling wings greeted her kind host. The child returned her greeting, and was glad to meet an acquaintance with whom he could share the rich feast of his joy. But first he asked the dragon-fly if she could decide for him between the upper and the nether,--the height and the depth. The dragon-fly flew above, and beneath, and around; but the water spake: ”The foliage and the sky above are not the true ones; the leaves wither and fall; the sky is often overcast, and sometimes quite dark.”

Then the leaves and the sky said, ”The water only apes us; it must change its pictures at our pleasure, and can retain none.” Then the dragon-fly remarked that the height and the depth existed only in the eyes of the child, and that the leaves and the sky were true and real only in his thoughts; because in the mind alone the picture was permanent and enduring, and could be carried with him whithersoever he went.

This she said to the child; but she immediately warned him to return, for the leaves were already beating the tattoo in the evening breeze, and the lights were disappearing one by one in every corner.

Then the child confessed to her with alarm that he knew not how he should find the way back, and that he feared the dark night would overtake him if he attempted to go home alone; so the dragon-fly flew on before him, and showed him a cave in the rock where he might pa.s.s the night. And the child was well content; for he had often wished to try if he could sleep out of his accustomed bed.

VIII.

But the dragon-fly was fleet, and grat.i.tude strengthened her wings to pay her host the honor she owed him. And truly, in the dim twilight, good counsel and guidance were scarce. She flitted hither and thither without knowing rightly what was to be done; when, by the last vanis.h.i.+ng sunbeam, she saw hanging on the edge of the cave some strawberries who had drunk so deep of the evening red that their heads were quite heavy. Then she flew up to a harebell who stood near, and whispered in her ear that the lord and king of all the flowers was in the wood, and ought to be received and welcomed as beseemed his dignity. Aglaia did not need that this should be repeated. She began to ring her sweet bells with all her might, and when her neighbor heard the sound, she rang hers also; and soon all the harebells, great and small, were in motion, and rang as if it had been for the nuptials of their mother earth herself with the prince of the sun. The tone of the bluebells was deep and rich, and that of the white, high and clear, and all blended together in a delicious harmony.

But the birds were fast asleep in their high nests, and the ears of the other animals were not delicate enough, or were too much overgrown with hair, to hear them. The fire-flies alone heard the joyous peal, for they were akin to the flowers, through their common ancestor, light. They inquired of their nearest relation, the lily of the valley, and from her they heard that a large flower had just pa.s.sed along the footpath more blooming than the loveliest rose, and with two stars more brilliant than those of the brightest fire-fly, and that it must needs be their king. Then all the fire-flies flew up and down the footpath, and sought everywhere till at length they came, as the dragon-fly had hoped they would, to the cave.

And now, as they looked at the child, and every one of them saw itself reflected in his clear eyes, they rejoiced exceedingly, and called all their fellows together, and alighted on the bushes all around; and soon it was so light in the cave that herb and gra.s.s began to grow as if it had been broad day. Now, indeed, was the joy and triumph of the dragon-fly complete. The child was delighted with the merry and silvery tones of the bells, and with the many little bright-eyed companions around him, and with the deep red strawberries which bowed down their heads to his touch.

IX.

And when he had eaten his fill, he sat down on the soft moss, crossed one little leg over the other, and began to gossip with the fire-flies. And as he so often thought on his unknown parents, he asked them who were their parents. Then the one nearest to him gave him answer; and he told how that they were formerly flowers, but none of those who thrust their rooty hands greedily into the ground and draw nourishment from the dingy earth only to make themselves fat and large withal; but that the light was dearer to them than anything, even at night; and while the other flowers slept, they gazed unwearied on the light, and drank it in with eager adoration,--sun, and moon, and starlight. And the light had so thoroughly purified them, that they had not sucked in poisonous juices like the yellow flowers of the earth, but sweet odors for sick and fainting hearts, and oil of potent ethereal virtue for the weak and the wounded; and at length, when their autumn came, they did not, like the others, wither and sink down, leaf and flower, to be swallowed up by the darksome earth, but shook off their earthly garment, and mounted aloft into the clear air.

But there it was so wondrously bright that, sight failed them; and when they came to themselves again, they were fire-flies, each sitting on a withered flower-stalk.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And now the child liked the bright-eyed flies better than ever; and he talked a little longer with them, and inquired why they showed themselves so much more in spring. They did it, they said, in the hope that their gold-green radiance might allure their cousins, the flowers, to the pure love of light.

X.