Читать книгу The Story Without an End онлайн

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To this the butterfly assented; and he told, how, once on a time, he too had been greedy and sordid; how he had thought of nothing but eating, and had never once turned his eyes upwards to the blue heavens. At length, however, a complete change had come over him; and instead of crawling spiritless about the dirty earth, half dreaming, he all at once awaked as out of a deep sleep. And now he would rise into the air;—and it was his greatest joy sometimes to play with the light, and to reflect the heavens in the bright eyes of his wings; sometimes to listen to the soft language of the flowers and catch their secrets. Such talk delighted the Child, and his breakfast was the sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and flower seemed to him more bright and cheering.

But when the bee had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the butterfly had fluttered away to his playfellows, the dragonfly still remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body, more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the sunbeam; and her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because they could not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and the rain. The dragonfly sipped a little of the Child’s clear dew-drops and blue violet-honey, and then whispered her winged words. And the Child made an end of his repast, closed his dark blue eyes, bent down his beautiful head, and listened to the sweet prattle.