Page:Garshin - A Red Flower (1911).djvu/31

Rh without undressing himself in his bed in the corner room. He shook as in a fever, and pressed vehemently his bosom, which was impregnated, as it seemed to him, with some unheard-of deadly poison.

He had not slept a wink through the night. He had broken off this flower because he saw in his action a duty. At his first glance through the glass door the red petals had attracted his attention, and it now seemed to him that he had fulfilled that which he was to accomplish on earth. In this bright red flower was concentrated all evil. He knew that opium was made out of poppy; perhaps it was this thought which, growing and assuming various monstrous forms, had created in his mind the fearful fantastic idea. The flower, as he saw it, ruled over evil; it absorbed in itself all innocently-shed blood (that is why it was so red), all tears and all the gall of humanity. It was an awful and mysterious being, the antithesis of God, an Ahriman presenting a most unassuming and innocent appearance. It was necessary to