Such as these was the water-lily, and also
like one of those wretches whose peculiar torments, repeated indefinitely
throughout eternity, aroused the curiosity of Dante, who would have
inquired of them at greater length and in fuller detail from the victims
themselves, had not Virgil, striding on ahead, obliged him to hasten after
him at full speed, as I must hasten after my parents.
But farther on the current slackened, where the stream ran through a
property thrown open to the public by its owner, who had made a hobby of
aquatic gardening, so that the little ponds into which the Vivonne was
here diverted were aflower with water-lilies. As the banks at this point
were thickly wooded, the heavy shade of the trees gave the water a
background which was ordinarily dark green, although sometimes, when we
were coming home on a calm evening after a stormy afternoon, I have seen
in its depths a clear, crude blue that was almost violet, suggesting a
floor of Japanese cloisonne. Here and there, on the surface, floated,
blushing like a strawberry, the scarlet heart of a lily set in a ring of
white petals.
Beyond these the flowers were more frequent, but paler, less glossy, more
thickly seeded, more tightly folded, and disposed, by accident, in
festoons so graceful that I would fancy I saw floating upon the stream, as
though after the dreary stripping of the decorations used in some Watteau
festival, moss-roses in loosened garlands.
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