actual torment.

The passion for plants did not develop until later, about the age of
nine years, and I did not really begin to understand their life until
about the age of fifteen. I remember the circumstances under which it
happened. It was in summer, one Thursday, on a scorching afternoon.
I was passing through the botanical garden of a great city with my
mother. A white sun, dense blue shadows, and perfumes so heavy that
one could almost feel them cling, made of this half desert spot a
kingdom whose portal I crossed at last.

In the tepid and reddish-brown water of the ponds plants vegetated;
some were leathery and gray, and others long, soft, and transparent.
But from the very heart of these poor and sad algae there rose into
the very blue of the sky itself, green lance-like stalks whose
rose and white umbels challenged the ardent day with their grace;
water-lilies slept on their leaves as in a trustful afternoon sleep.

To the plants of the water, the plants of the earth answered. I recall
an alley where students, a handkerchief about the neck, were as if
buried beneath the beauty of the leaves. It was the alley of the
_umbelliferae_. The fennel and the ferula raised their crowns upon
their stems with glistening sheaths. The perfumes spoke to each other
in the silence. And one felt that a silent understanding went from
plant to plant, and that over this isolated realm there hovered
something like resignation.

Since then I have understood the flowers and that their _families_
belonged together and have a natural affinity, and are not merely
divided into classes as an aid to our slow memories. Toward what