gambols, delighted in offering herself at all seasons strange nosegays
not meant for any hand to pluck. A rabid fury seemed to impel her to
overthrow whatever the effort of man had created; she rebelliously cast
a straggling multitude of flowers over the paths, attacked the rockeries
with an ever-rising tide of moss, and knotted round the necks of marble
statues the flexible cords of creepers with which she threw them down;
she shattered the stonework of the fountains, steps, and terraces with
shrubs which burst through them; she slowly, creepingly, spread over the
smallest cultivated plots, moulding them to her fancy, and planting on
them, as ensign of rebellion, some wayside spore, some lowly weed which
she transformed into a gigantic growth of verdure. In days gone by the
parterre, tended by a master passionately fond of flowers, had displayed
in its trim beds and borders a wondrous wealth of choice blossoms. And
the same plants could still be found; but perpetuated, grown into such
numberless families, and scampering in such mad fashion throughout the
whole garden, that the place was now all helter-skelter riot to its very
walls, a very den of debauchery, where intoxicated nature had hiccups of
verbena and pinks.

Though to outward seeming Albine had yielded her weaker self to the
guidance of Serge, to whose shoulder she clung, it was she who really
led him. She took him first to the grotto. Deep within a clump of
poplars and willows gaped a cavern, formed by rugged bits of rocks which
had fallen over a basin where tiny rills of water trickled between the
stones. The grotto was completely lost to sight beneath the onslaught of
vegetation. Below, row upon row of hollyhocks seemed to bar all entrance
with a trellis-work of red, yellow, mauve, and white-hued flowers, whose
stems were hidden among colossal bronze-green nettles, which calmly
exuded blistering poison. Above them was a mighty swarm of creepers
which leaped aloft in a few bounds; jasmines starred with balmy flowers;
wistarias with delicate lacelike leaves; dense ivy, dentated and
resembling varnished metal; lithe honeysuckle, laden with pale coral
sprays; amorous clematideae, reaching out arms all tufted with white
aigrettes. And among them twined yet slenderer plants, binding them
more and more closely together, weaving them into a fragrant woof.
Nasturtium, bare and green of skin, showed open mouths of ruddy gold;
scarlet runners, tough as whipcord, kind