After supper he went for a walk in the garden while his father sat
down at his bed-room window to smoke a pipe and read the evening
paper. He strolled along the paths, revelling in the delicious odours
which a plant only exhales when it is in full bloom, and which is the
finest and strongest extract of etheric oils, containing in a
condensed form the full strength of the individual, destined to become
the representative of the species. He listened to the nuptial song of
the insects above the lime trees, which rings in our ears like a
funeral dirge: he heard the purring call of the night-crow; the ardent
mewing of the cat, which sounds as if death, and not life, were
wooing; the humming note of the dung-beetle, the fluttering of the
large moths, the thin peeping of the bats.

He stopped before a bed of narcissus, gathered one of the while,
starry flowers, and inhaled its perfume until he felt the blood
hammering in his temples. He had never examined this flower minutely.
But during the last term they had read Ovid's story of Narcissus. He
had not discovered a deeper meaning in the legend. What did it mean,
this story of a youth who, from unrequited love, turned his ardour
upon himself and was consumed by the flame when he fell in love with
his own likeness seen in a well? As he stood, examining the white,
cup-shaped petals, pale as the cheeks of an invalid with fine red
lines such as one may see in the faces of consumptives when a pitiless
cough forces the blood into the extremest and tiniest blood-vessels,
he thought of a school-fellow, a young aristocrat, who was a
midshipman now; he looked like that.

When he had inhaled the scent of the flower for some time, the strong
odour of cloves disappeared and left but a disagreeable, soapy smell