Page:Sologub Sweet Scented Name.djvu/103



N a flower-bed in a garden grew a lily. She was all white and red—proud and beautiful.

She spoke gently to the wind passing over her. "Be more careful," said she. "I am a royal lily, and even Solomon, the wisest of men, was not clothed so luxuriously and so beautifully as I."

Not far away, in the kitchen garden, a cabbage was growing.

She heard the lily's words, and she laughed and said:

"That old Solomon, in my opinion, was just a sans-culotte. How did they clothe themselves, these ancients? They cut out somehow or other a garment to cover their nakedness, and they imagined that they were arrayed in the very best fashion. But I taught people how to dress themselves, and the credit ought to be given to me.

"You take a bare cabbage-stalk and you