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By Root 1252 0

put up its bouquet of immense Chinese screens; and in a corner a banana tree, heavy with fruit, reached out in all directions with long horizontal leaves large enough for two lovers to lie beneath if they held each other tight. In the corners the euphorbia from Abyssinia resembled prickly candles, misshapen things whose many ugly protuberances oozed poison. Underneath the trees, providing ground cover, low ferns, the maiden-hair and strap, spread their subtle patterns of delicate lace. Plants of a taller genus, the alsophila, arrayed their branches in symmetrical tiers, hexagons of such regularity that they resembled large pieces of china, fruit bowls intended for some gigantic dessert. The clumps of trees were edged with begonia and caladium, the begonia with their twisted leaves superbly spotted with green and red, and the caladium with leaves shaped like the head of a spear, white with green veins, resembling the wings of a big butterfly—strange plants whose foliage derived an odd vitality from the splendor of poisonous blossoms both light and dark.

Behind the clumps of trees a second, narrower path circled the outer circumference of the conservatory. There, arranged in tiers that partially hid the heating pipes, grew maranta, as soft to the touch as velvet; gloxinia, with its violet blossoms shaped like bells; and dracaena, like strips of old lacquer.

Among the charms of this winter garden were the verdant caverns in each of the four corners, ample arbors sealed off by thick curtains of vine. Here, bits of virgin forest had built leafy walls, impenetrable tangles of stems, of supple shoots clinging to branches, leaping the void with a bold thrust or dropping from the vault like the tassels on sumptuous tapestries. A stalk of vanilla, whose ripe beans exhaled penetrating fragrances, followed the curve of a moss-covered portico. Cocculus from the Levant carpeted the slender columns with their round leaves. Bauhinias with their red seedpods and quisqualis with flowers hanging like necklaces of glass beads crept and oozed and entwined themselves like slender snakes playing endlessly and slithering their way ever deeper into the darkness of the vegetation.

And here and there beneath the arches and between the clusters of trees hung baskets attached to thin metal chains and filled with orchids, bizarre plants that grow in midair and put out compact shoots in all directions—gnarled, crooked shoots that dangle like diseased members. There were Venus’ slippers, the flowers of which resemble a marvelous slipper with dragonfly wings adorning the heel; aerides, so sweetly fragrant; and stanhopea, with pale, striped flowers whose strong, acrid odor can be smelled from quite a distance, like foul exhalations from the infected throat of a convalescent.

Yet what most struck visitors from every vantage in the conservatory was the giant Chinese hibiscus, which covered the entire side of the house where the conservatory was attached with a vast expanse of leaf and blossom. The big purple flowers of this gigantic mallow lived only a few hours, but fresh blossoms were constantly appearing to replace the ones that died. They looked for all the world like sensual, gaping female mouths—like the red lips, soft and moist, of some enormous Messalina,18 bruised by kisses yet perpetually resurrecting their insatiable bloody smiles.

Renée, standing close to the pool and surrounded by all this floral splendor, was shivering. Behind her, a great sphinx of black marble crouching on a block of granite turned its head toward the aquarium with a stealthy, cruel, feline smile. This figure, with its gleaming thighs, seemed to be the somber idol of this land of fire. At this hour the globes of frosted glass lent a milky sheen to the greenery. Statues, busts of women with their heads thrown back, puffed up with laughter, blanched in the thickets of vegetation, their mad glee contorted by patches of shadow. A strange light played over the viscous, stagnant water of the pool, revealing vague shapes, glaucous masses with monstrous outlines. Waves of brightness