"Do you think I destroyed it?" said Boris gravely. "I saw her going to early mass," I said, "and she looked as fresh and sweet as that lily-before you destroyed it." I saw he was mocking, and threatened him with a mahl-stick, but he only laughed and changed the subject. Perhaps," he continued, smiling, "perhaps it is the vital spark of the creature escaping to the source from whence it came." "I don't know, it always comes when I immerse any living thing. "It looked like a sunbeam true enough," he said.
"There is one thing I'm curious about," I said, "and that is where the ray of sunlight came from." "I don't know," he replied, "but you had better not try." Once more it seemed filled with clearest crystal. But if you held it to the light the stone was beautifully veined with a faint blue, and from somewhere within came a rosy light like the tint which slumbers in an opal. The fish looked as if sculptured in marble.
Yesterday I tried one of Geneviève's gold-fish,-there it is." "I have no idea why the veins and heart are tinted, but they always are. "Don't ask me the reason of that," he smiled, noticing my wonder. The marble was white as snow, but in its depths the veins of the lily were tinged with palest azure, and a faint flush lingered deep in its heart. "You see," he said, "it is without a flaw. It had turned to stone, to the purest marble. He held the lily toward me, and I took it in my hand. "There is no danger," he explained, "if you choose the right moment. At the same instant he plunged his hand into the basin and drew out the flower. Changing tints of orange and crimson played over the surface, and then what seemed to be a ray of pure sunlight struck through from the bottom where the lily was resting. For a second the lily was enveloped in a milk-white foam, which disappeared, leaving the fluid opalescent. Instantly the liquid lost its crystalline clearness. He picked up an Easter lily which Geneviève had brought that morning from Notre Dame, and dropped it into the basin. We all have laid aside disguise but you.ĬAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!Īlthough I knew nothing of chemistry, I listened fascinated.
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