The Life of the Bee 
[ 50 ] 
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. 
180 
