Love's Comedy Part 22

AUNTS [delighted].

Yes, that's the way!

MRS HALM.

Agreed!

MISS JAY.

That cuts the knot.

[SVANHILD and the maids have meantime laid the tea-table beside the verandah steps. At MRS. HALM's invitation the ladies sit down. The rest of the company take their places, partly on the verandah and in the summer-house, partly in the garden.

FALK sits on the verandah. During the following scene they drink tea.

MRS. HALM [smiling].

And so our little storm is overblown.

Such summer showers do good when they are gone; The suns.h.i.+ne greets us with a double boon, And promises a cloudless afternoon.

MISS JAY.

Ah yes, Love's blossom without rainy skies Would never thrive according to our wishes.

FALK.

In dry land set it, and it forthwith dies; For in so far the flowers are like the fishes--

SVANHILD.

Nay, for Love lives, you know, upon the air--

MISS JAY.

Which is the death of fishes--

FALK.

So I say.

MISS JAY.

Aha, we've put a bridle on you there!

MRS. STRAWMAN.

The tea is good, one knows by the bouquet.

FALK.

Well, let us keep the simile you chose.

Love is a flower; for if heaven's blessed rain Fall short, it all but pines to death-- [Pauses.

MISS JAY.

What then?

FALK [with a gallant bow].

Then come the aunts with the reviving hose.-- But poets have this simile employed, And men for scores of centuries enjoyed,-- Yet hardly one its secret sense has. .h.i.t; For flowers are manifold and infinite.

Say, then, what flower is love? Name me, who knows, The flower most like it?

MISS JAY.

Why, it is the rose; Good gracious, that's exceedingly well known;-- Love, all agree, lends life a rosy tone.

A YOUNG LADY.

It is the snowdrop; growing, snow enfurled; Till it peer forth, undreamt of by the world.

AN AUNT.

It is the dandelion,--made robust By dint of human heel and horse hoof thrust; Nay, shooting forth afresh when it is smitten, As Pedersen so charmingly has written.

LIND.

It is the bluebell,--ringing in for all Young hearts life's joyous Whitsun festival.

MRS. HALM.

No, 'tis an evergreen,--as fresh and gay In desolate December as in May.

GULDSTAD.

No, Iceland moss, dry gathered,--far the best Cure for young ladies with a wounded breast.

A GENTLEMAN.

No, the wild chestnut tree,--high repute For household fuel, but with a bitter fruit.

SVANHILD.

No, a camellia; at our b.a.l.l.s, 'tis said, The chief adornment of a lady's head.

MRS. STRAWMAN.

No, it is like a flower, O such a bright one;-- Stay now--a blue one, no, it was a white one-- What is it's name--? Dear me--the one I met--; Well it is singular how I forget!

STIVER.

None of these flower similitudes will run.

The flowerpot is a likelier candidate.

There's only room in it, at once, for one; But by progressive stages it holds eight.

STRAWMAN [with his little girls round him].

No, love's a pear tree; in the spring like snow With myriad blossoms, which in summer grow To pearlets; in the parent's sap each shares;-- And with G.o.d's help they'll all alike prove pears.

FALK.

So many heads, so many sentences!

No, you all grope and blunder off the line.

Each simile's at fault; I'll tell you mine;-- You're free to turn and wrest it as you please.

[Rises as if to make a speech.

In the remotest east there grows a plant;(4) And the sun's cousin's garden is its haunt--

THE LADIES.

Ah, it's the tea-plant!

FALK.

Yes.

MRS. STRAWMAN.

His voice is so Like Strawman's when he--

STRAWMAN.