Page:Pantadeuszorlast00mick.djvu/99

72 spouted, and at once, as if it sought the shade, took refuge amid the tall, thick greenery, which, watered by it, grew luxuriantly on all sides. There that swift rogue, swaddled in grasses and bedded upon leaves, motionless and noiseless, whispered unseen and almost inaudibly, like a tired child laid in a cradle, when its mother ties above it the bright green curtains, and sprinkles poppy leaves beneath its head. It was a lovely and quiet spot; here Telimena often took refuge, calling it the Temple of Meditation.

Standing above the stream, she threw on the greensward, from her shoulders, her waving shawl, red as carnelian; and, like a swimmer who bends down to the wintry bath before she ventures to plunge in, she knelt and slowly inclined on her side; finally, as if drawn down by the stream of coral, she fell upon it and stretched out at full length: she rested her elbow on the grass, her temple on her palm, with her head bent down; beneath her head glittered the vellum paper of a French book; over the alabaster pages of the book there wound her black ringlets and pink ribbons.

Amid the emerald of the luxuriant grass, on the carnelian shawl, in her long gown, as though in a wrapper of coral, against which her hair was relieved at one end and her black shoes at the other, while along the sides glittered her snowy stockings, her handkerchief, and the whiteness of her hands and face, she showed from afar like a many-coloured caterpillar, crawling upon a green maple leaf.

Alas! all the charms and graces of this picture vainly awaited experts to appreciate them; no one heeded them, so deeply were all engrossed in the gathering of mushrooms. But Thaddeus heeded them and kept