Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/146

 forms a far-reaching arch around the broad hollow, the greater part of which is covered with a dense growth of leafy forest. We rode from the town in a south-easterly direction towards these peaks. They here stretch quite close up behind the town, and their lower slopes reach as far as the bay itself, along which they are piled in a long row up to the sea, where a dark rock of curious shape projecting sharply into the water, closes this panorama like the remotest background in a piece of theatrical scenery. All the sides of this peak are interlocked with those of its neighbors, and only its rounded breast separated from the others by deep ravines, and its open summits standing out clearly in their manifold shapes against the bright sky, are revealed to the gaze as a range of mountain tops by themselves. They are covered with a growth of low but rank and leafy thickets, in whose fresh and lovely green the gloomy shadows of the cypress tops are here and there mingled.

After we had passed the outermost extremity of the bay, we found ourselves at the foot of one of these peaks. There, by a little Cossack guardhouse, we were stopped for a moment by an interesting sight. On the green meadow at the foot of the montain a company of Cossacks were going through their drill. The Black Sea Cossacks have, it is true, a uniform, as far as the shape of the clothing is concerned, but not at all with regard to its color. The long coat of one is black, of the second white, of the third brown, of the fourth violet, and so on. Their trousers also, and in fact even their boots, are of various colors. As a result, a troop of them seen somewhere from the distance, resembles a many-colored flower-bed. It was really a rare pleasure to watch this motley throng of sturdy bearded men, for the most part duskily sunburnt, galloping to and fro on their small horses across the meadow and filling the air with the hundredfold glitter of their polished weapons, metal belts, and the gold and silves adornments on their attire flashing in the sun,—it was like gazing into a kaleidoscope whose varied pattern changes every moment.

Behind the guardhouse we had to ascend the mountain side gradually. The pathway, which was covered with grass and which bore only scanty traces of wheels, twined itself along the slope with an abundance of curves. At first we could ride only two abreast. In front rode the Colonel with the surgeon, the remainder in no particular order behind them; I brought up the rear with Uljana.

Oh blissful moment of life! Oh sweet power of memory! I recognised the spring in its full enchantment, and ever since, my spirit has been radiant with the delightful lustre of this image, into which I plunged my insatiable gaze that day, until in spite of myself, I felt it grow dim with the moisture of joyful emotion. What more could I say? Am I to describe how the surrounding air was like transparent gold, and how I felt it wafted on my brow like the breath of a maiden in amorous yearning? Am I to describe the freshness of the herbage with its range of manifold shades, the intoxicating fragrance of countless flowers? Everything there was like a single flower. Never before have I seen so many of thein, and such beautiful ones, together at one time. Flora has here scattered a veritable deluge of flowers from her lap, flinging them forth prodigally in lavish handfuls. Here a thorn-bush is hidden by a cluster of glittering white starlets like newly fallen snow; yonder another shrub is red with great wild roses, and next to that others are covered with flowers of varying shapes and colors. Around the shrubberies was thickly heaped a wonderful medley of many-colored calyces and pods. It was a regret to me then that my paltry botanical knowledge did not permit me to recognize, in addition to the plants most familiar to me from home, the rest of the glorious springtide retinue by genus and name. But what use would it be to you, who are not botarists even if I filled up several lines here with long Latin words barbarously patched together?

One flower especially took my fancy; it consisted of little stars of a dark blue color, unusually beautiful and brilliant, which stood out with a double vividness from the grey shadow of the shrubberies, along whose fringe this plant mostly grew, peeping with its tiny blue blossoms through the glossy green foliage of the dense branches.

I remarked to Uljana how much I liked this flower.

“Ah, I am in love with it too,” said Uljana eagerly. “Although I have lived in this region for several years, I always welcome with joyful admiration year by year the blue eyes of the spring flower, whose beautiful color I really do not know what I can compare to.”

At this she questioningly fixed her clear blue eyes on me. Oh, I knew full well what would serve admirably as a comparison with those beautiful blue blossoms, but I kept my thoughts to myself; I am not fond of gallant phrases of that kind, and in any case, even though it were the truth, what would have been the use for me, an uninteresting stranger, to flatter this young and graceful girl?

I had always been somewhat puzzled by the words with which Heine begins a song of his:but at that moment it seemed to me that I fully understood, why the poet had called faith in marvels a blue blossom.

I was dragged away from these thoughts by a scream of terror which resounded in front of us. We rode up quickly with the rest to Anna Kirilovna, who had frightened us with this scream, and who now, with lively gestures of horror, with staring eyes and outstretched finger,