And yet but a week ago, rhododendrons at New Athos,
wild roses and mallow in full bloom at Gudaout, acres of saffron
hollyhocks, and evening primroses at Sotchi!
I had entered an exposed country, colder than much of the land that
lay far to the north.
Two days later the clouds moved away, the zenith cleared, and after it
the whole sky, and then along the west and the south, as far as eye
could see, was a great snow-field, mountain after mountain, and slope
after slope all white to the sky. A cold wind, as of January, blew
keenly from the snow, and even froze the puddles on the road. It
seemed we had journeyed thus suddenly not only to autumn, but to
winter itself.
But at noon the sun was hot again. The new-born brimstone butterflies
were upon the wing, a flutter of lambent green. They were of the time,
and young. They must live all winter and waken every sunny day till
next spring--the ambassadors of this summer to the next.
All that belongs to the past is tired, and even at the bidding of
the sun insect life is loth to rise. The grasshopper is tired, the
dragon-fly loves to crouch among the shadows, the summer-worsted
fritillary butterflies pick themselves out of their resting-places to
flutter a little further; their wings, once thick with yellow down and
shapely, are now all broken, transparent, ragged.
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