Baron Corvo, “Why the Rose Is Red”
This week’s story needs some explaining. I have no explanation to give. Baron Corvo was a very strange writer who wrote very strange stories. He seems to have wanted to belong to the Oscar Wilde/Aubrey Beardsley decadent aesthetic, but he was socially unacceptable and in all ways too much of an eccentric. I can’t say whether this story’s strange mixture of cod-Catholic mythology, unsubtle homoeroticism, and typographical profusion is typical; it is, anyway, deliriously entertaining. It was found in the 1901 book In His Own Image.
Breakfast was ready, under the magnolia-tree. I like these late-spring breakfasts in the sun.
Guido and Ercole had executed a masterpiece in their simplicity, with three great bowls of beaten brass, one in the middle to support my book, one each at the opposite corners of the table, all filled with damask roses of the darkest purple, fresh, and breathing liquid odours as of cloves celestial! I gave the creatures compliments, and sat down to breakfast. Cocomeri ripieni, Port Salut, olives, perfumed oranges, pitch-flavoured wine, — delicious!
At the end, Guido and Ercole went away to fetch coffee. Toto, who had been shedding his city clothes, and getting his breakfast, came and stood by the left side of my table. I happened to reach for another mandarin, and I saw him with the corner of my eye.
Good gracious! The boy was livid, stiff and stark, convulsed with silent rage. I never saw such a fury. But, of course, I took no notice. I was going to have an emotion by and bye; and I became as demurely watchful as my yellow cat Annia.
When Guido and Ercole returned, I saw Toto’s right fist clench till the knuckles grew quite pale, and Guido let the coffee-pot fall onto the grass. Toto snarled, “A — po — plex — y,” in a turgid undertone.
I dislike imprecations, and I said, “Sh;” while Guido ran to the house for another pot of coffee.
While I was sipping it, and using a cigarette, I made the following secret observations:
(a) Guido, who is Toto’s very delicately slim and agile little brother of thirteen years, with the most beautiful white to his eyes like chrusoberul, stood on the right side of my table, turned to alabaster, looking wildly on the face of Toto, and with tears streaming down his cheeks;
(b) Ercole — a lusty bronze Roman with the visage of Iuvenis Octavianus — stood, a little behind and to the right side of Guido, presenting an image of horror of the unknown;
(c) and, across the table, Toto glared like — the witch’s head.
Guido and Ercole had executed a masterpiece in their simplicity, with three great bowls of beaten brass, one in the middle to support my book, one each at the opposite corners of the table, all filled with damask roses of the darkest purple, fresh, and breathing liquid odours as of cloves celestial! I gave the creatures compliments, and sat down to breakfast. Cocomeri ripieni, Port Salut, olives, perfumed oranges, pitch-flavoured wine, — delicious!
At the end, Guido and Ercole went away to fetch coffee. Toto, who had been shedding his city clothes, and getting his breakfast, came and stood by the left side of my table. I happened to reach for another mandarin, and I saw him with the corner of my eye.
Good gracious! The boy was livid, stiff and stark, convulsed with silent rage. I never saw such a fury. But, of course, I took no notice. I was going to have an emotion by and bye; and I became as demurely watchful as my yellow cat Annia.
When Guido and Ercole returned, I saw Toto’s right fist clench till the knuckles grew quite pale, and Guido let the coffee-pot fall onto the grass. Toto snarled, “A — po — plex — y,” in a turgid undertone.
I dislike imprecations, and I said, “Sh;” while Guido ran to the house for another pot of coffee.
While I was sipping it, and using a cigarette, I made the following secret observations:
(a) Guido, who is Toto’s very delicately slim and agile little brother of thirteen years, with the most beautiful white to his eyes like chrusoberul, stood on the right side of my table, turned to alabaster, looking wildly on the face of Toto, and with tears streaming down his cheeks;
(b) Ercole — a lusty bronze Roman with the visage of Iuvenis Octavianus — stood, a little behind and to the right side of Guido, presenting an image of horror of the unknown;
(c) and, across the table, Toto glared like — the witch’s head.
* * *
I went to take a look round my studio.
Toto followed. “Permission to forsake la sua eccellenza during ten minutes,” he asked. I nodded forward. He tore away like one frantick. From the terrace, I watched his tremendous legs stride headlong down the Via Livia to the city.
I played about for a little by myself and resolved to have a lazy hour doing nothing at all.
But here came a most shocking thing.
In the studio there is a large glass door which opens upon a little terrace, giving a lovely wide vista of the city below, then the Campagna, and beyond that the sea, fourteen miles away. At the side of the terrace a stair leads down into the garden.
Darkening this doorway, Toto towered on high, with the hair of Guido in his right hand, and the hair of Ercole in his left. He forced them down upon their knees, and they wept piteously, and antiphonally, they cried to me:
“V. Oh, pardon!”
“R. Pardon!”
“V. Ah, we did not know!”
“R. We did not know!”
“V. To la sua eccellenza, we wished to give pleasure!”
“R. To la sua eccellenza, we tried to give pleasure!”
“V. But it was our evil day!”
“R. If la sua eccellenza would only believe!”
“V. Oh, pardon!”
“R. Pardon!”
I became very angry. I am very cutting, in my rages. I said, “Go away, little sillies!”
They expected to be killed, I know. They were quite heart-broken, plainly. They got up and went away. Toto was for following, but I recalled him. There was a hideous bulge on his stomach. He had got some lump stowed away beneath his shirt at the waist.
“Beast,” I said, “what is the meaning of this? What have those rudikopaide done that you should make me such a scene?”
“Sir, they repent; and they ask for pardon.”
“Oh, yes! — pardon! — But for what crime? — They’ve broken something. — I know it! — ”
“No, sir. But for the insult.”
“Heaven be my aid and grant me final perseverance!” I cried, “what are you driving at?”
“The insult, sir; and they shall take their penance now,” he turned away, looking positively rhadamanthine.
“Toto! — Come back! — Don’t dare to move! — Here, go to the throne, and pose — like this!” I seized a little cast of the Hebe from Virinium in Carinthia and shoved it forward, musing over the inscription incised on the front of the right thigh, A. POPLICIVS. D. LANTIOC. TI. BARBIVS. Q. PL. TIBER.
Then I shut the doors and attended to the lighting of the model. He threw his vesture behind a screen, emerged, mounted the throne, considered the Hebe for a minute, undulated deliciously, and stiffened into the pose, — a horrid one, but one that served my purpose. I had my lion on a leash, and I began to fiddle with a charcoal stick on a bit of brown paper.
After ten minutes, I said, “Are you cold?”
Toto stirred not from his stony stillness; but his answering voice proceeded from a whisper to a roar, like this——
crescen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . do
pp “No, sir:” — p “Hot:” — f “Awful:” — ff “Burning.”
“You have taken a fever, my lad,” I said; “driving over to the Campagna last night, I suppose.” I went and felt his flesh. That was normal: also, his pulse.
“No, sir; but the insult!”
“Look here Toto,” I said; “if you will drop your beastly elliptical Latin manner of leaving every important thing to my imagination, and will try to express yourself like an Englishman for once, you will improve my temper. Dash it all, boy, what do you mean?”
“Sir, the insult!”
“Per Cristo! What insult? Two words now!”
“Sir, in the pip of an apple — the Roses!”
“Well! And the Roses?”
“They were Red, sir! Oh!” (with another roar) “they shall bleed, — those boar-pigs, — they shall bleed!”
“Silence!” I cried. “Come here!”
He descended the throne, and came to me. Fauno Furibondo — that’s what he was! There was something of terrible in the boy. You could see his heart-beats. I looked upon him with disgust.
“Dress,” I said.
He retired behind the screen. I must chain this lion more securely.
I made him kneel at my feet; and I took his throat in my two hands.
“Now lend me both your ears,” I said. I saw attention concentrated in his eyes. “I think the Roses on my table to have been entirely exquisite. Simpaticissime! I am pleased with those Roses. Understand?”
He looked at me with unfeigned amazement; and, oh, how earnestly I watched the changes in his expression!
“I think Guido and Ercole to have very beautiful souls, or they could not have invented so beautiful a decoration for my table.”
He thought me guilty of mockery. I saw anger in his glance; and I throttled him a little.
“Pax!” I said. “I mean what I say. I am delighted with those Roses.”
Two emotions coursed processionally through his eyes. First, penitent appeal. Second, veneration.
“Tell me, Toto; what is that under your shirt?”
He put his hand into his bosom, and drew out a very nasty, coiled-up thing.
“What is it?’
“Sir, the sinew of a bullock.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Sir, I ran down to the butcher for it.”
“What do you intend to do with it?”
“Sir, I intend to flay the hides off Guido, my brother, and off Ercole of Rome, in order to appease la sua eccellenza who is so deeply wounded by vinegar-sons-of-wine that he has no words left wherewith to curse them.”
I throttled him again. “For putting Red Roses on my table?”
“Yes, sir.”
Without speaking, I looked long through the eyes into the soul of this amazing creature.
Then, I said, “Toto, I am a child; a baby; knowing nothing. I must have a teacher to make me understand. — What is the sin of Red Roses? Tell me?”
“Sir, it is the supreme insult, to offer Red Roses to an Englishman.”
“Why?”
“Sir, the Red Rose is stained with blood — the blood of Holy Innocents. Therefore, it is a badge of infamy.”
“Oh,” I said. “Very well. And you are going to flay Guido and Ercole?”
“I am going to flay Guido and Ercole.”
I released his throat.
“Toto mio,” I said; “what good will those kids be to me without their skins? I prefer to give them their penance myself.”
“Sir, if you will take that trouble, it will be better so. But, very humbly, I ask you to forgive them also.”
“Yes, I forgive them freely.” He bent down and kissed my ring. “Bring them to the anti-camera, now; and treat them very kindly. If you make them unhappy any more, I will kill you. Remember!”
* * *
Oh, such pathetick little abjects came in! Distressed ones, who, having innocently insulted the lord whom they adored, only wished to die; for they had forfeited his favour for ever; and their hearts were broken! What an emotion!
I made the three boys sit down on the stools. I was going to be impressive, and so I sat on the high chair. I said, “Guido and Ercole, you have offered me an insult: but you did it in innocence; and you are truly contrite. Is that so?”
“Oh, sir, yes!”
“Then, for your penance, you must promise to believe what I am going to tell you. Do you promise?”
“Oh, sir, yes!”
“Then listen. All through my life I have loved Red Roses. Therefore, you did not offend me by putting Red Roses on my table. But now I have learned that an Englishman ought to hate Red Roses, and not to love them. So I am converted, and you must never offer my any more red roses.”
“No, sir, never, sir!”
“Well, then, you are forgiven. And because I like you to be happy, we will all make an expedition to Velletri, to-morrow.”
“Oh, sir!”
“And, for his penance, Toto, who committed the sin of anger because he wishes me well, must tell us why the Red Rose is a badge of infamy.”
As though a tap had been turned on, Toto began to intone rhythmick cadences.
“When the Padre Eterno made the world, He resolved to plant a garden; and He sent one of the seven angels with a mete-yard of gold, to mark out a fine situation by the river-side, where were gentle hills and dales.
“He marked out this garden in the shape of a square, one thousand and five hundred miles each ay, enclosed by an impenetrable hawthorn bush, white and pink, with flowers and fragrance on the inside, and piercing thorns without. Round the four sides of the garden went this hawthorn bush, one hundred and seventy-three cubits high, and one hundred and seventy-three cubits deep.
“The Padre Eterno planted groves of trees, all in beautiful order: orange trees, and almond-trees, and apple-trees, and lemon-trees, and cherry-trees, with the blossoms always on the one side, for pleasure to sight and smell; and ripe fruit always on the other side for pleasure to the taste.
“The hills He crowned with pine-forests; and He decked their slopes with little olive-groves. Here were vineyards of white and purple grapes. There were palms and poplars by the brooks. Along the pools, He placed osiers and willow-trees and bulrushes for bordures: and He made great lawns of fine green grass as soft as the fur of cats, where the young Lord Adamo might rest under shady trees. Each lawn was surrounded by bushes of a different kind; and on each lawn were different kinds of trees and different kinds of flowers. One lawn was bordured by syringa-bushes and adorned with wall-flowers, and heliotrope, and golden-rod. Another lawn was bordured by blue hydrangea bushes, and studded with poppies and meadow-sweet. A third lawn was bordured by bushes of rosemary, and ornamented with southernwood and lilies; and there were white peacocks, and peacocks purple in their pride. Under the walnut-trees were hyacinths, under the sycamore-trees were primroses, under the mulberry-trees were asphodels, under the cedar-trees were forget-me-nots, under the chestnut-trees were daisies, under the oak-trees were violets. On the pools, great white lilies floated; and, at their marges, were iris and marigold, and moss.
“Oh, what a beautiful garden!
“Yet the Padre Eterno was not content. What He had done was very good, according to the Scripture; but it was not His best. He had not done His all: and He wished for one more flower to be the queen of all the garden. So, under the oak-trees, He planted a thorn; and He starred the thorn with a bloom having five petals, tender as wings of butterflies, white as the soul of a little child, and having a heart of purest gold.
“Then the Nine Quires of angels came singing through the garden; and, in a blossom of magnolia, they collected odours from the lily, and the violet, and the hyacinth, and thyme and wall-flower and orange-blossom and meadow-sweet and southernwood and rosemary. And the Padre Eterno poured the perfume from the magnolia-chalice over the new white flower, and called it the Rosa Mystica. He appointed the Sixth Quire of angels, that is to say, the Dominations, to guard and tend it night and day.
“These things having been done, the Padre Eterno put the young Lord Adamo into His garden. And, in order that he might not be alone, He made him sleep: and while he slept, He gently divided him into two pieces, a large one, and a small, but each piece alive by itself though belonging to the other. The large piece of the Lord Adamo was called Man; and the small piece was our Mother Eva, who is Woman. But Sathanas, who always goes against Domeniddio in everything, was very angry when he saw this; and he struggled with the Padre Eterno, to prevent Him from dividing the Lord Adamo. And so the pieces came in different shapes, being unevenly divided: there is more of man than of woman; and the one always longs for the other; for, until they are joined together, neither the man nor the woman is complete and perfect, as the Padre Eterno designed.
“That was in the first hour. Then came the business of the animals; and, when that was finished, the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva walked in the beautiful garden, tasted the fruit, admired the flowers, and loved each the other well under the shade of trees.
“On the lawn of lilies there were two strange trees: the one a quince-tree which was called the Tree of Wisdom; the other a tree of blood-red pomegranates, which was called the Tree of Life. Who ate the fruit of one, knew all the wisdom that the world has ever known or shall know. Who ate the fruit of the other, became immortal like the gods. And the Padre Eterno had forbidden the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva to touch those trees, though they were free to use all the rest of the garden at their will.
“At the fifth hour the sun was in his strength, and the Lord Adamo left our Mother Eva sleeping under the great quince-tree, and went down to the water-side for coolness.
“Sathanas saw his opportunity. He came into the garden shaped like a serpent covered with green scales, having the head and bosom of a woman, black as the pit. He coiled around the trunk of the quince-tree, and he whispered to our Mother Eva, sleeping, while she thought it was a dream, advising her to eat the quinces, and to gain wisdom.
“At the sixth hour the Lord Adamo came up from the water, cool and fresh. He could not see Sathanas, who was too cunning to let himself be caught by Man.
“But our Mother Eva rose up in her sleep, and she mounted on a coil which the serpent made for her, till she could reach the quinces in the tree. And, in her dream, she pluckd quinces, and she ate them; she gave quinces also to the Lord Adamo, saying that they would make him wise, and in his admiration, he ate them too.
“So, tempted and deceived by Sathanas, they disobeyed. Then, to the Lord Adamo and to our Mother Eva, came wisdom in an overwhelming torrent. Every good thing they had known before, and now they knew every bad thing as well, and they had much fear (for knowledge brings fear), thinking of the anger of the Padre Eterno when He should know their sin.
“They wandered through the garden, hand in hand, weeping, weighted with all the wisdom that all men have ever had or shall have. Also, they wept because they knew that they had stripped themselves of the favour of the Padre Eterno, and were naked and unarmed against Sathanas.
“While they wandered weeping, the sun began to lose his power, and at the seventh hour the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva found themselves upon the lawn of lilies. But what a change! What ruin! And what horror! For the peacocks had broken all the snow-white lily-blooms, and trampled down their slender graceful stems, and all the serpent’s trail was strewn with violets crushed and dead.
“Suddenly soft music from a distance floated through the trees, and the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva shivered with fear, knowing the Padre Eterno to be walking in the garden, and they hid themselves in the bushes of rosemary.
“Ah! who can hide from the Signor Iddio Onnisciente? Then, for their penance, the Padre Eterno drove the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva out into the wicked world, and the garden of paradise faded like a dream.
“But the angels of the Sixth Quire kneeled down and confessed, saying, ‘O Padre Celeste e Domeniddio, we have sinned, and yet we know not how, for the Rose which You deigned to give into our care has changed, — changed though we never ceased to watch it, — white were all its flowers, white as the soul of a little child, and behold, now Maestà, some are as red as blood.”
“The Padre Eterno answered: ‘XXXO Dominations, to whose charge We have given the Rose, you have no blame. Sathanas has stained Our garden with Sin. For, by disobedience, Man has gained wisdom, and wisdom brings Sin. And there shall be many nations of the Man: they will be wise, and they will sin. And the nations will separate themselves through the sin of envy; and each nation will mark itself by some sign through the sin of Pride. One nation will wear the violet for its sign; and the violets will be crushed by the serpent of deceit. Another nation will wear the lilies for its sign; and the peacocks of pride will trample down the lilies of humility. And yet another nation will wear the Rose for its sign; and cruelty will stain the wearers of the Rose. Strong shall they be, and some strong without mercy or pity. They will live on the lives of the weak, or feeble, whom they make their slaves; they will stain the whiteness of the Rose with the blood of innocents. Yet, not all will sin, for though some will choose the evil, more will choose the good, and there remain White Roses for the nation which We shall choose to crown with glory and honour, and to which we shall give dominion over the works of Our Hands, Benedicat vos Omnipotens Deus XXX Pater XXX et Filius XXX et Spiritus Sanctus.’
“Then the garden of paradise was carried up to heaven, on the wings of the Nine Quires of Angels. And, once in the life of every man an angel of the Sixth Quire brings to him a White Rose for remembrance, that the mystery of its fragrant purity may remind him of that lost garden where the gods are waiting for him, if he wills it to come.1”
I made the three boys sit down on the stools. I was going to be impressive, and so I sat on the high chair. I said, “Guido and Ercole, you have offered me an insult: but you did it in innocence; and you are truly contrite. Is that so?”
“Oh, sir, yes!”
“Then, for your penance, you must promise to believe what I am going to tell you. Do you promise?”
“Oh, sir, yes!”
“Then listen. All through my life I have loved Red Roses. Therefore, you did not offend me by putting Red Roses on my table. But now I have learned that an Englishman ought to hate Red Roses, and not to love them. So I am converted, and you must never offer my any more red roses.”
“No, sir, never, sir!”
“Well, then, you are forgiven. And because I like you to be happy, we will all make an expedition to Velletri, to-morrow.”
“Oh, sir!”
“And, for his penance, Toto, who committed the sin of anger because he wishes me well, must tell us why the Red Rose is a badge of infamy.”
As though a tap had been turned on, Toto began to intone rhythmick cadences.
“When the Padre Eterno made the world, He resolved to plant a garden; and He sent one of the seven angels with a mete-yard of gold, to mark out a fine situation by the river-side, where were gentle hills and dales.
“He marked out this garden in the shape of a square, one thousand and five hundred miles each ay, enclosed by an impenetrable hawthorn bush, white and pink, with flowers and fragrance on the inside, and piercing thorns without. Round the four sides of the garden went this hawthorn bush, one hundred and seventy-three cubits high, and one hundred and seventy-three cubits deep.
“The Padre Eterno planted groves of trees, all in beautiful order: orange trees, and almond-trees, and apple-trees, and lemon-trees, and cherry-trees, with the blossoms always on the one side, for pleasure to sight and smell; and ripe fruit always on the other side for pleasure to the taste.
“The hills He crowned with pine-forests; and He decked their slopes with little olive-groves. Here were vineyards of white and purple grapes. There were palms and poplars by the brooks. Along the pools, He placed osiers and willow-trees and bulrushes for bordures: and He made great lawns of fine green grass as soft as the fur of cats, where the young Lord Adamo might rest under shady trees. Each lawn was surrounded by bushes of a different kind; and on each lawn were different kinds of trees and different kinds of flowers. One lawn was bordured by syringa-bushes and adorned with wall-flowers, and heliotrope, and golden-rod. Another lawn was bordured by blue hydrangea bushes, and studded with poppies and meadow-sweet. A third lawn was bordured by bushes of rosemary, and ornamented with southernwood and lilies; and there were white peacocks, and peacocks purple in their pride. Under the walnut-trees were hyacinths, under the sycamore-trees were primroses, under the mulberry-trees were asphodels, under the cedar-trees were forget-me-nots, under the chestnut-trees were daisies, under the oak-trees were violets. On the pools, great white lilies floated; and, at their marges, were iris and marigold, and moss.
“Oh, what a beautiful garden!
“Yet the Padre Eterno was not content. What He had done was very good, according to the Scripture; but it was not His best. He had not done His all: and He wished for one more flower to be the queen of all the garden. So, under the oak-trees, He planted a thorn; and He starred the thorn with a bloom having five petals, tender as wings of butterflies, white as the soul of a little child, and having a heart of purest gold.
“Then the Nine Quires of angels came singing through the garden; and, in a blossom of magnolia, they collected odours from the lily, and the violet, and the hyacinth, and thyme and wall-flower and orange-blossom and meadow-sweet and southernwood and rosemary. And the Padre Eterno poured the perfume from the magnolia-chalice over the new white flower, and called it the Rosa Mystica. He appointed the Sixth Quire of angels, that is to say, the Dominations, to guard and tend it night and day.
“These things having been done, the Padre Eterno put the young Lord Adamo into His garden. And, in order that he might not be alone, He made him sleep: and while he slept, He gently divided him into two pieces, a large one, and a small, but each piece alive by itself though belonging to the other. The large piece of the Lord Adamo was called Man; and the small piece was our Mother Eva, who is Woman. But Sathanas, who always goes against Domeniddio in everything, was very angry when he saw this; and he struggled with the Padre Eterno, to prevent Him from dividing the Lord Adamo. And so the pieces came in different shapes, being unevenly divided: there is more of man than of woman; and the one always longs for the other; for, until they are joined together, neither the man nor the woman is complete and perfect, as the Padre Eterno designed.
“That was in the first hour. Then came the business of the animals; and, when that was finished, the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva walked in the beautiful garden, tasted the fruit, admired the flowers, and loved each the other well under the shade of trees.
“On the lawn of lilies there were two strange trees: the one a quince-tree which was called the Tree of Wisdom; the other a tree of blood-red pomegranates, which was called the Tree of Life. Who ate the fruit of one, knew all the wisdom that the world has ever known or shall know. Who ate the fruit of the other, became immortal like the gods. And the Padre Eterno had forbidden the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva to touch those trees, though they were free to use all the rest of the garden at their will.
“At the fifth hour the sun was in his strength, and the Lord Adamo left our Mother Eva sleeping under the great quince-tree, and went down to the water-side for coolness.
“Sathanas saw his opportunity. He came into the garden shaped like a serpent covered with green scales, having the head and bosom of a woman, black as the pit. He coiled around the trunk of the quince-tree, and he whispered to our Mother Eva, sleeping, while she thought it was a dream, advising her to eat the quinces, and to gain wisdom.
“At the sixth hour the Lord Adamo came up from the water, cool and fresh. He could not see Sathanas, who was too cunning to let himself be caught by Man.
“But our Mother Eva rose up in her sleep, and she mounted on a coil which the serpent made for her, till she could reach the quinces in the tree. And, in her dream, she pluckd quinces, and she ate them; she gave quinces also to the Lord Adamo, saying that they would make him wise, and in his admiration, he ate them too.
“So, tempted and deceived by Sathanas, they disobeyed. Then, to the Lord Adamo and to our Mother Eva, came wisdom in an overwhelming torrent. Every good thing they had known before, and now they knew every bad thing as well, and they had much fear (for knowledge brings fear), thinking of the anger of the Padre Eterno when He should know their sin.
“They wandered through the garden, hand in hand, weeping, weighted with all the wisdom that all men have ever had or shall have. Also, they wept because they knew that they had stripped themselves of the favour of the Padre Eterno, and were naked and unarmed against Sathanas.
“While they wandered weeping, the sun began to lose his power, and at the seventh hour the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva found themselves upon the lawn of lilies. But what a change! What ruin! And what horror! For the peacocks had broken all the snow-white lily-blooms, and trampled down their slender graceful stems, and all the serpent’s trail was strewn with violets crushed and dead.
“Suddenly soft music from a distance floated through the trees, and the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva shivered with fear, knowing the Padre Eterno to be walking in the garden, and they hid themselves in the bushes of rosemary.
“Ah! who can hide from the Signor Iddio Onnisciente? Then, for their penance, the Padre Eterno drove the Lord Adamo and our Mother Eva out into the wicked world, and the garden of paradise faded like a dream.
“But the angels of the Sixth Quire kneeled down and confessed, saying, ‘O Padre Celeste e Domeniddio, we have sinned, and yet we know not how, for the Rose which You deigned to give into our care has changed, — changed though we never ceased to watch it, — white were all its flowers, white as the soul of a little child, and behold, now Maestà, some are as red as blood.”
“The Padre Eterno answered: ‘XXXO Dominations, to whose charge We have given the Rose, you have no blame. Sathanas has stained Our garden with Sin. For, by disobedience, Man has gained wisdom, and wisdom brings Sin. And there shall be many nations of the Man: they will be wise, and they will sin. And the nations will separate themselves through the sin of envy; and each nation will mark itself by some sign through the sin of Pride. One nation will wear the violet for its sign; and the violets will be crushed by the serpent of deceit. Another nation will wear the lilies for its sign; and the peacocks of pride will trample down the lilies of humility. And yet another nation will wear the Rose for its sign; and cruelty will stain the wearers of the Rose. Strong shall they be, and some strong without mercy or pity. They will live on the lives of the weak, or feeble, whom they make their slaves; they will stain the whiteness of the Rose with the blood of innocents. Yet, not all will sin, for though some will choose the evil, more will choose the good, and there remain White Roses for the nation which We shall choose to crown with glory and honour, and to which we shall give dominion over the works of Our Hands, Benedicat vos Omnipotens Deus XXX Pater XXX et Filius XXX et Spiritus Sanctus.’
“Then the garden of paradise was carried up to heaven, on the wings of the Nine Quires of Angels. And, once in the life of every man an angel of the Sixth Quire brings to him a White Rose for remembrance, that the mystery of its fragrant purity may remind him of that lost garden where the gods are waiting for him, if he wills it to come.1”
1 — Toto never knew, and never shall know, that the Red Rose is the badge of the Duchy of Lancaster — a duchy infested by as naturally unkind a race of people as the Spaniards. But I try to have a due regard for the fitness of things, and, in my opinion, the Badge of the Red Rose suits the Duchy of Lancaster quite well. I refrain from recording personal experiences, and content myself with the remark that, until a few years ago, Lancashire Cotton Mills were run by night as well as by day, two sets of children being employed, and forced to slave their little lives out in terror of the overlooker’s cane. These innocents were pauper children, imported by contract from the West and South of England, and they only survived amid their appalling surroundings for an average space of five years (cf. evidence of Robert Owen before Royal Commission of 1817). When I reflect that, while the world rang with shouts of English triumph after Waterloo, a Lancastrian section of the House of Commons was found to oppose Bills — introduced by Sir Robert Peel, for preventing children, under nine years of age, from working more than seventy-four hours each week — I feel very thankful that the White Rose — the pure prime-rose, for example — is the Rose of England, and not the infamous Local Rose of Lancaster, dyed Red with the Blood of Innocents, victims of minotaur-manufacturers.
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