Robin Hood's Barn 



seemed an impenetrable hedge. There, led by- 

 earthy smells and languorous perfumes, I was 

 soon inside. But not even then were all the 

 mysteries revealed. In a small enclosure I had 

 come upon the roses, some still pointed buds, 

 others cupping in their depths the radiance of ap- 

 proaching day. But the garden itself was a 

 labyrinth in the true sense; no mere matter of 

 clipped hedges and intricate design, but fash- 

 ioned out of natural growth from clethra and 

 wild clematis. Elusive and provocative, they led 

 me by their fragrance to what they held beyond. 

 Sometimes they opened out upon a prospect of 

 gold-banded lilies, their spotted petals and bronze 

 stamens just unfolding to the first pale rays of 

 sunlight; or upon begonias, so low the sun had 

 not yet reached them and flaming like great 

 moths that had ventured forth into some tropic 

 twilight. At times, they closed in upon a niche 

 of green where, as though left undisturbed, tail 

 ferns uncurled their fronds amid a tracery of 

 leaves. And suddenly, when I had grown accus- 

 tomed to the dimness and the shadows, I came 

 out upon the world ablaze, the sky bare and 



[io8] 



