"Good heavens, is it evening so soon?" asked the anemones, who thought that it had turned quite dark.
"No, this is death," said Dame Spring. "Now you're over. It's the same with you as with the best in this world. All must bud, blossom and die."
"Die?" cried some of the small anemones. "Must we die so soon?"
And some of the large anemones turned quite red in the face with anger and arrogance:
"We know all about it!" they said. "It's the beech that's killing us. He steals the sunshine for his own leaves and grudges us a single ray. He's a nasty, wicked thing."
They stood and scolded and wept for some days. Then Dame Spring came for the last time through the wood. She still had the oaks and some other querulous old fellows to visit:
"Lie down nicely to sleep now in the ground," she said to the anemones. "It's no use kicking against the pricks. Next year, I will come again and wake you to new life."
And some of the anemones did as she told them. But others continued to stick their heads in the air and grew up so ugly and lanky that they were horrid to look at:
"Fie, for shame!" they cried to the beech-leaves. "It's you that are killing us."