DOI article:
Harland, Henry: Cousin Rosalys
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0047
By Henry Harland 43
delightful; the crumbling old statues were delightful, statues of
fauns and dryads, of Pagan gods and goddesses, Pan and Bacchus
and Diana, their noses broken for the most part, their bodies
clothed in mosses and leafy vines. And the flowers were delightful;
the cyclamens, with which—so abundant were they—the walls of
the garden fairly dripped, as with a kind of pink foam ; and the
roses, and the waxen red and white camellias. It was delightful
to stop before the great brown old fountain, and listen to its
tinkle-tinkle of cold water, and peer into its basin, all green with
weeds, and watch the antics of the gold-fishes, and the little
rainbows the sun struck from the spray. And my Cousin Rosalys’s
white frock was delightful, and her voice was delightful ; and that
perturbation in my heart was exquisitely delightful—something
between a thrill and a tremor—a delicious mixture of fear and
wonderment and beatitude. I had dragged myself hither to pay a
duty-call upon my grim old dragon of a great-aunt Elizabeth ;
and here I was wandering amid the hundred delights of a romantic
Italian garden, with a lovely, white-robed, bright-eyed sylph of a
cousin Rosalys.
Don’t ask me what we talked about. I have only the most
fragmentary recollection. I remember she told me that her
father and mother had died in India, when she was a child, and
that her father (Aunt Elizabeth’s “ever so much younger
brother”) had been in the army, and that she had lived with
Aunt Elizabeth since she was twelve. And I remember she
asked me to speak French with her, because in Rome she almost
always spoke Italian or English, and she didn’t want to forget her
French ; and “You’re, of course, almost a Frenchman, living in
Paris.” So we spoke French together, saying ma cousine and
mon cousin, which was very intimate and pleasant ; and she spoke
it so well that I expressed some surprise. “ If you don’t put on at
least
delightful; the crumbling old statues were delightful, statues of
fauns and dryads, of Pagan gods and goddesses, Pan and Bacchus
and Diana, their noses broken for the most part, their bodies
clothed in mosses and leafy vines. And the flowers were delightful;
the cyclamens, with which—so abundant were they—the walls of
the garden fairly dripped, as with a kind of pink foam ; and the
roses, and the waxen red and white camellias. It was delightful
to stop before the great brown old fountain, and listen to its
tinkle-tinkle of cold water, and peer into its basin, all green with
weeds, and watch the antics of the gold-fishes, and the little
rainbows the sun struck from the spray. And my Cousin Rosalys’s
white frock was delightful, and her voice was delightful ; and that
perturbation in my heart was exquisitely delightful—something
between a thrill and a tremor—a delicious mixture of fear and
wonderment and beatitude. I had dragged myself hither to pay a
duty-call upon my grim old dragon of a great-aunt Elizabeth ;
and here I was wandering amid the hundred delights of a romantic
Italian garden, with a lovely, white-robed, bright-eyed sylph of a
cousin Rosalys.
Don’t ask me what we talked about. I have only the most
fragmentary recollection. I remember she told me that her
father and mother had died in India, when she was a child, and
that her father (Aunt Elizabeth’s “ever so much younger
brother”) had been in the army, and that she had lived with
Aunt Elizabeth since she was twelve. And I remember she
asked me to speak French with her, because in Rome she almost
always spoke Italian or English, and she didn’t want to forget her
French ; and “You’re, of course, almost a Frenchman, living in
Paris.” So we spoke French together, saying ma cousine and
mon cousin, which was very intimate and pleasant ; and she spoke
it so well that I expressed some surprise. “ If you don’t put on at
least