And in truth the Child, while looking at her beauty, seemed to have quite forgotten to go on; till the blue larkspur called to him, and asked whether he cared nothing more about his faithful friend; she said that she was unchanged, and that even in death she should look upon him with eyes of unfading blue.
The Child thanked her for her true-heartedness, and passed on to the hyacinth who stood near the puffy, full-cheeked, gaudy tulips. Even from a distance the hyacinth sent forth kisses to him, for she knew not how to express her love. Although she was not remarkable for her beauty, yet the Child felt himself wondrously attracted by her, for he thought no flower loved him so well. But the hyacinth poured out her full heart and wept bitterly, because she stood so lonely; the tulips indeed were her countrymen, but they were so cold and unfeeling that she was ashamed of them. The Child encouraged her, and told her he did not think things were so bad as she fancied. The tulips spoke their love in bright looks, while she uttered her’s in fragrant words; that these, indeed, were lovelier and more intelligible, but that the others were not to be despised.
Then the hyacinth was comforted, and said she would be content; and the Child went on to the powdered auricula, who, in her bashfulness, looked kindly up to him, and would gladly have given him more than kind looks, had she had more to give. But the Child was satisfied with her modest greeting; he felt that he was poor too, and he saw the deep, thoughtful colours that lay beneath her golden dust. But the humble flower of her own accord sent him to her neighbour, the lily, whom she willingly acknowledged as her queen. And when the Child came to the lily, the slender flower waved to and fro, and bowed her pale head with gentle pride and stately modesty, and sent forth a fragrant greeting to him. The Child knew not what had come to him: it reached his inmost heart, so that his eyes filled with soft tears. Then he marked how the lily gazed with a clear and steadfast eye upon the sun, and how the sun looked down again into her pure chalice, and how, amid this interchange of looks, the three golden threads united in the centre. And the Child heard how one scarlet lady-bird at the bottom of the cup, said to another, “knowest thou not that we dwell in the flower of heaven?” and the other replied, “yes, and now will the mystery be fulfilled.” And as the Child saw and heard all this, the dim image of his unknown parents, as it were veiled in a holy light, floated before his eyes: he strove to grasp it, but the light was gone, and the Child slipped, and would have fallen, had not the branch of a currant bush[A] caught and held him; and he took some of the bright berries for his morning’s meal, and went back to his hut and stripped the little branches.
[A] The red currant is called in Germany, Johannis-beere, St. John’s berry.
