The Life of the Bee 



[5°] 

 Let us go on, then, with the story of 

 our hive ; let us take it up where we left 

 it ; and raise, as high as we may, a fold of 

 the festooned curtain in whose midst a 

 strange sweat, white as snow and airier 

 than the down of a wing, is beginning to 

 break over the swarm. For the wax that 

 is now being born is not like the wax that 

 we know ; it is immaculate, it has no 

 weight; seeming truly to be the soul of 

 the honey, that itself is the spirit of flowers. 

 And this motionless incantation has called 

 it forth that it may serve us, later — in 

 memory of its origin, doubtless, wherein 

 it is one with the azure sky, and heavy 

 with perfumes of magnificence and purity 

 — as the fragrant light of the last of 

 our altars. 



i8o 



