Over the coming weeks, RTÉ Culture will present a series of five early short stories written by Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) - these tales, Lady Gregory's only known efforts at short fiction, offer a remarkable insight into one of Ireland's most important literary figures.
Below, James Pethica, who has edited a pair of volumes of Lady Gregory's writings, introduces Lady Gregory's story A Lily, Azure.
Lady Gregory probably wrote A Lily, Azure when alone at Coole Park in Spring 1890, while her husband, Sir William Gregory, was making his final return visit to Ceylon, where he had been Governor in the early 1870s. Its setting in "Felice" is based on Pallanza, on the western shore of Lake Maggiore, where she had stayed during one or more of her Spring travels in Italy in the late 1870s while looking after an invalid brother. The early sequences of the story draw on reminiscences she had recorded in her autobiographical memoir An Emigrant's Note Book in 1883-84.
Her decision to publish the story anonymously may have been prompted by anxiety about venturing into writing fiction; by a sense that its opening sections drew too closely on her own experiences; and possibly by concern that its unfavourable portrait of the "new" priest might give offense to Catholic readers in Ireland. But its main plot involving Lady Ley also surely touched closely enough on her own marital experiences to give her pause in identifying herself as author. She had ended a brief clandestine affair with poet and adventurer Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in 1883—partly from fear of discovery and the "scandal" that would result, but also from a sense that she had failed morally—and had thereafter recommitted herself dutifully to her own marriage. Lady Ley, by contrast, parted from the man she loved rather than having an affair with him, and has mourned their lost relationship, privately, ever since. The story thus rehearses the personal and emotional cost for a woman of upholding, rather than challenging, social convention.
In Irene, a short poem Gregory also wrote and published in 1890, a male speaker meditates on the difference between his nominal wish for an "ideal" woman who should conform to late 19th-century conventions by being beautiful, innocent and artless, and his actual desire for the willful, knowing and mischievous woman who actually attracts him. In both texts the soon-to-be-widowed Gregory reflects on what degree of independence and assertiveness, or compliance with convention, is best, given the gendered conventions of her time.
A Lily, Azure was printed, anonymously, in The Argosy in June 1890.
A Lily, Azure
I was sent by my doctors, after a winter in the south of France, to spend the spring months at Felice on the Lago Maggiore. (1) I was tired of exile, and wanted to be home for the Easter boat race, and it was some days before the beauty of the broad lake and of the sunset over snowy St. Gothard and the blossoming trees forced a kind of contentment upon me. (2)
Sometimes, however, clouds and mists hung over the grey lake, and rain fell with a good will, and then unhappy was the invalid spelling out German newspapers in a damp salon; more unhappy still the youthful bride and bridegroom, already finding their own ideas and conversation begin to flag, yet avoiding and avoided by all fellow-prisoners by mutual consent.
But, happily, rain never lasted very long, and in the sunshine it was pleasant to explore the old town and its neighbourhood.
One Sunday, straying into the village church, I found the children being catechized by the old parish priest, an upright, white-haired man of striking appearance. I lingered to speak to him after the children had gone, and asked him if he would help me to find a teacher, or at least a native whose accent was tolerably pure, and who would talk Italian with me for a little time every day, to accustom my ear to the sound, for mine was little more than book knowledge of the language. The old man listened patiently to my imperfect sentences, talked to me a little, and finding I had no difficulty in understanding his clear, measured accents, he volunteered presently himself to give me a lesson every day. He had little to do; it would be an amusement to him and a pleasure. I wished to offer some equivalent in money, but he put the idea aside very decidedly, and we arranged that I should come and have my first lesson next morning.
So deserted was the part of the village where the old priest lived that it was with some difficulty I found his house—a small, shabby dwelling near the church. A low passage led to a little inner yard, inhabited by poultry. Round this and under the eaves ran a slight wooden balcony, made picturesque by a vine which grew over it, trailing and untrained. From the balcony opened a sitting-room, very slightly and poorly furnished.
In this house my old friend lived, year out, year in, together with his two old grey-haired brothers, one a priest, one a composer; an ancient sister who kept house for them, and four cats. He had lived here, at Felice, all his life; had never had the opportunity of travelling even so far as Rome, to visit which was the desire of his heart. He had seen, but not rejoiced in, the accomplishment of the unity of Italy; since then the people had grown independent and did not show the old respect to their priests. (3)
He was very poor—had just enough for his wants, but not enough to satisfy those of the beggars who came constantly to his door. The members of the little household lived very simply—no superfluity of food or raiment—except, perhaps, in the matter of pocket handkerchiefs, a great display of which might be seen drying on the balcony at the time of the weekly wash. Snuff was the one luxury their allowed themselves.
Most of his life had been monotonous and uneventful. Once he had heard there was a strange lady of distinction in the church, and going there he saw a figure draped in black kneeling before the altar in deep devotion. She spoke to him, when she rose, kind and gracious words, but he could not answer, so overcome was he with reverence and sorrow, for it was the ex-Empress Eugenie after her great loss. (4)
That had been one of the chief events of his life.
Another was, the death of an English nobleman, to whose sick bed he had been called to administer the last sacraments, and who had offered him before he left the room a pile of gold, but he had been obliged to refuse it. Only the Church might receive it; not he, for his personal use; but I think those proffered gold pieces became the groundwork of many dream visions of better living and travel, and larger means of helping the poor, with Rome as the goal of all.
The other grey-haired priest, his brother, looked starved and thin. I saw him but seldom, but the poor old composer often came in and played for me, trying to beat out melodies on the antiquated piano. Many of its notes were fixed and dumb; some of his fingers were useless and stiffened with rheumatism. It fretted him that he could not better express the music he felt within him.
The Padre was very proud of his little church, and showed me its most precious contents. A stone taken from some old Roman temple, with carved figures of dancing nymphs and of a heathen altar—a little blackened picture of the Madonna, visited by sick and diseased pilgrims from afar, because it was said that sometimes its lips had been seen to move as if invoking blessing on a suppliant, and that always in such cases healing had followed; and another Madonna, with sweet eyes and auburn hair and a gracious face, signed with the name of Bernardinis Luini, and visited by tourists, and curtained away from the sight of the everyday congregation in order that an occasional lire might be gained by its unveiling. (5)
Almost close under this picture I noticed that a slab of white marble had been let into the dark stone floor. The words "A rivederci"—till we meet again—were carved on it, with the letter "L" surrounded by a small wreath of flowers in low relief.
"That is the grave of a stranger," the old priest said, seeing me stop to look at it. "He was found kneeling dead before this picture one Easter morning; no one knew whence he had come. He was doubtless and foreigner—English or Tedesco (6) —for his hair was fair. His face was most beautiful."
"And how did he come to be buried here?" I asked.
"Ah," the Padre answered, with some reserve I fancied. Two days after his death an order came from the bishop of the diocese that he was to be buried here in this spot, and afterwards the slab was placed over him. But come, the children are waiting for the catechising."
"But did no friends come to tell his name or visit the grave?" I said, still lingering by the white slab.
"Every Easter Day since he died, eighteen years ago, a blue wreath is laid there; that is all we know," was the answer.
And then the old priest began to talk to some of the little children coming into the church, and question them, his own remarks and explanations becoming longer and more earnest, until at least, instead of walking up and down the aisle, he remained standing near the altar, and with growing eloquence expounded the clause in the creed which formed that day's lesson: "I believe in the Communion of Saints," (7) and spoke of the mutual help and sympathy between the three Churches—the church "militante," the church "purgante," and the church "trionfante" in heaven. (8) I think the good old man had some hope of weaning me from heretical ideas, and leading me into the true fold by his eloquent earnestness.
The days were monotonous but passed quickly enough at Felice. I was gaining health and strength; was able to take long morning walks as well as boating expeditions in the afternoon—a lazy kind of boating when I lay in the stern and was pulled along by a bright, handsome boy, Luigi, of about seventeen, who would chatter away by the hour, to the great benefit of my Italian—about the poverty of the country and the quarrels amongst the ill-paid soldiers, and the glories of the annual festa held under the arcade, and the pride of all the village in its Campanile, the most beautiful on all the lake. (9)
"The Intra people, who are so rich, subscribed, and were determined to have a more beautiful one than ours, and they built it four feet higher; and soon afterwards one of the great summer storms came and blew down all the new part; and since then they had not been so proud, and had said nothing about rebuilding it. And no other village had a picture like ours that had worked miracles, or a beautiful Madonna with eyes like those of the rich English lady who came every year to the grand villa she had built at Stresa. She came there always in the spring—sometimes with her husband and his friends with her; and then they filled the house with company and had a festa every day." (10)
I had heard of the "English lord," Sir Robert Ley, and his beautiful villa. Indeed, I had been given a letter of introduction to him by Blake, my college friend, who sometimes came to stay with him, but not feeling strong enough for society, I had not delivered it. (11)
Easter Sunday came round, my last Sunday at Felice, for "after Easter" the doctors had said I might begin moving homewards, and I intended to take them at their word.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and the bells of distant villages could be heard from over the water as I strolled through the village to take my last look at the old church. It was filled with the people of the village and the country round, in their holiday dress. Some stayed and joined in the service going on; others—the men chiefly—came in for a few moments only, knelt down, crossed themselves, said a silent prayer, and went away noiselessly. Little children clinging to their mother’s hand looked round with wondering eyes at the red cloth on the pillars, the gay flowers on the altar, and the unveiled Madonna.
The old priest stood at the altar. In his sacerdotal robe, and with the incense smoke about him, he seemed no longer the gentle, kind old man, the servant of all, but rather the mediator, the advocate of the wandering multitude, bearing the knowledge of their sins in his prayer, and the knowledge of pardon in his benediction.
I stayed till the service was at an end, and then stood aside while the crowd passed out. Two or three young girls remained behind in the corner near the Luini Madonna and I saw they were pointing at some object on the while marble slab.
"Casa c’è?" I asked one who was leaving the church, and stopped to dip her finger reverently in the stone basin of holy water. (12)
"The blue wreath," she whispered, as she sprinkled the sacred drops on her breast and forehead, and passed out.
I drew near the stranger’s grave, and saw that the blue wreath of which I had heard from the Padre was indeed there—forget-me-not and starry gentian from the high Alps the flowers of which it was composed.
"Who placed it there?" I asked.
"Ah, no one can tell that," a little girl answered. "Always on Easter day it is found there; always a beautiful blue wreath; but no one is ever seen bringing it, and often the flowers are such as do not grow in our country. Graziella, the baker’s widow, declared one Easter Eve she would watch and see who brought it, but at daybreak she came home stiff with cold and terrified, because she said while she was waiting white wings had suddenly brushed past her; and she was in bed for a month with rheumatism; and the Padre said it was right punishment for her vain curiosity, and that we would do better to tend the graves of our own dead than to spy on others who remembered their duty more faithfully than ourselves—for Graziella had never said a mass for her husband, or put a wreath on his grave. So now no one likes to ask any questions about it, but I think myself that whoever lies in this spot was a saint; and that the wreath is laid here by an angel who saw him die."
I stayed a little time there, musing. For eighteen years, the priest had said, the grave had never been neglected; that seemed a long devotion in this hurried, forgetful world.
Next day I said good-bye to the little household where I had always been welcomed. I found the poor old faces brighter and more animated than usual. A great event had happened—a famous musician had come from Milan to play the organ at Baveno on a feast day; and the mass he had chosen was one written long before by my poor old withered friend, who had sometimes tried to play a few bars of it to me, and the famous musician had sent across the lake to Felice to tell him this, and to ask for his presence at the church. He had never heard his mass performed before, and his eyes brightened and his poor old hands trembled as he spoke of it.
I left, I think, on that very day, and never heard how the old man bore the fulfilment of his longing desire, or whether the music of that Easter time was the last he heard on earth.
II.
Two years later I was again at Felice.
Business had called me to North Italy, and before returning home I resolved to spend a little time amongst the beautiful lakes. I passed some days exploring the unexpected windings of Como; one or two at little bright Lugano; and at Stresa, on Maggiore, I lingered for a few more, chiefly kept there by the neighbourhood of my friend Blake, who was staying at the great show villa belonging to the "English lord" I used to hear of at Felice—Sir Robert Ley.
The villa was full of guests. Blake told me of them and their doings, and I saw them sometimes driving in canopied phaetons along the shores of the lake, or skimming over its surface in gaily-decked pleasure-boats. It was very inconvenient to Sir Robert having to come abroad just then, Blake told me; but his wife had been ailing and needed change; and she could never be persuaded to leave her home in the fens except for these spring months, which she liked to spend on Maggiore.
I gathered that she took little part in the festivities of the villa. She spent most of her time in the garden, or on the lake with an old boatman devoted to her service; or sometimes she would visit the little chapel at Stresa, and though not a Catholic would stay there for hours. (13) She could seldom be persuaded to join in any excursions; had withstood all solicitation to spend a day at Felice a little time ago, though it was her birthday and they had all begged her to come. Her guests seemed to look on her with respect and some little awe.
I spent an evening at the villa, but she was not well and did not appear; but a day or two after I met her as I was walking along the brink of the lake. She was looking across the water to the setting sun; her hands clasped, and, as it seemed to me, her eyes full of tears. She had the remains of great beauty, a graceful figure and large dark eyes, though her hair was quite white, contrasting with them. She bowed slightly on seeing me, and walked slowly back towards the villa gardens, entering by a low side door, half hidden with Banksia roses. (14)
A day or two later I went back to my old quarters at Felice. My first visit was to the house of my good friend the priest, but, to my sorrow, it was deserted. The old man had died some months earlier; both his brothers in the previous year. The poor old sister had alone survived, and had with her little possessions gone to live with some relative in another village; for the tumble-down house was no longer safe to live in.
The new Padre had established himself in a more substantial one, having some private means of support. I made his acquaintance soon: a hard-looking, taciturn man, a great contrast to his gentle, genial predecessor.
The complete disappearance of the little household I had felt so much interest in lessened the attraction Felice had for me, and I resolved to go on to Turin early in the next week, when the Easter fêtes would be over.
I found some of my old acquaintances, however, living and working as they used to do; amongst them Luigi, my favourite boatman, talkative as of old. The times did not seem to have mended, by his account. The taxes were still heavy. There was very little money in the country. The soldiers were as ill-fed and discontented as ever. The new Padre was not popular, I found; though better off than his predecessor, he was not as ready to share his superfluity with those in need; he was harsh also in his manner, and had changed some of the old customs; only opened the church at certain hours, instead of leaving it unlocked day and night, as of old, and had the morning service at an hour when all the working-men were already in the field and could not attend. No rich stranger came and built a beautiful villa at Felice as the English lord had done at Stresa. Ah! he was so rich! spent more in the couple of months he stayed there than all the tourists who came to the great hotel at Felice. And the signora: she gave away hundreds of lire every year; even sending a present to Felice every Easter for the poor and the sick; always good and kind to the poorest beggar and wanderer, though she looked so proud and grand.
So chattered Luigi on Easter Eve, as he rowed me slowly over the great lake, till we could see the golden gate of the St. Gothard Pass, veiled in the changing sunset hues. Luigi, however, thought less of the purple and gold than of the background of dark clouds to which he pointed.
"That means a storm,’ he said. "We shall have bad weather before morning."
The air was hot and oppressive, and after dinner at the table d’hôte, not feeling attracted by any of the guests, I strolled down the garden to the border of the lake, and presently going through the village I went up the broad steps of the old church, which I had not yet visited.
It was silent and deserted. Black cloth, left there since the Good Friday service, hung heavily from the pillars and covered the altar. My thoughts went back to the catechising I had heard so often heard there, to the eager children’s faces, the good old priest’s serene kindness; the heartfelt eloquence of his discourses; his pride in his church and its contents; the story of the stranger who had died there under the picture of the Madonna, and of the white slab which had been placed over his grave.
I had unconsciously taken a seat close to it, and suddenly noticing it bare and cold in the moonlight, I remembered the wreath which used to be laid on it by unseen hands, and wondered if on the morrow it would as usual be found there, or if the silent tenant of the tomb was at last forgotten. The heat of the evening and my idle thoughts and the stillness of the place so affected me that at last sleep stole upon me unawares.
It must have been after midnight, and it was quite dark, when with a sudden start I awoke.
All was changed from the stillness of the evening. The wind howled round the church and rattled the window frames. Hailstones beat against the leaded panes, and now and then I could hear the distant growl of thunder. I groped my way to the door, thinking that I might gain the more genial shelter of some house in the village, but I could not open it; it was locked outside.
I remembered the little door in the corner near the white slab, and painfully felt my way to it, but its fastenings also resisted my efforts. The recollection of what Luigi had said about the new Padre and his regulations flashed upon me, and I guessed that the doors must have been locked for the night while I was asleep.
It was a dreary prospect: that of a long night in the old church. I lay down again on the bench where I had fallen asleep, but sleep was not to be won a second time. The storm grew more furious, the thunder louder and more frequent, flashes of lightning lit up the black-palled pillars and the weird monuments. I shut my eyes and drew my hat over them.
Suddenly it seemed to me as if above the noise of the wind and hail there rose the cry of a human voice outside the door near which I sat, and I could hear that someone tried in vain to undo its fastenings. I went nearer the door and listened, thinking it might be some friend come to help me, but it was a despairing voice I heard.
"Lawrence! Lawrence!" it cried, "let me in; why should I be shut out? For twenty years have I not come and brought you the only gift you can take from me now? What sin have I been guilty of that I must be punished like this? Have I not repented long enough of my pride that sent you away? And it is only once in the year I can come and ask you to forgive me, and why must the door be shut against me at last?"
A gust of wind seemed to whirl away the words and turn them into a shriek of despair. Presently the voice was raised again, pleading and suppliant.
"Ah, Lawrence, it will break my heart if I am kept outside. Is it not my only happiness to come and kneel beside you for a little time? Ah, let me in."
I could hear the door rattled and shaken, but I knew it was in vain, no ordinary force could open it. A sob of despair mingled with the rising wind.
Then suddenly a great peal of thunder was heard. Flash after flash of lightning illumined the church. The wind rose and shrieked, and in a moment—whether from the fury of the storm, or by some electric force or the strength of some human effort—the window-frame above me was dashed in and crashed upon the floor, and hail and rain were beating on my head.
Bewildered, I sought shelter near the altar. Crash after crash of thunder warned me that the storm had not spent itself yet. Then I could hear the rain coming down in torrents. The wind grew quieter by degrees, and at last all was still; and the first ray of sun-rise shone in through the east window—shone upon the white marble slab, where, amongst the shattered lead and glass and half-melted hailstones, lay a wreath of lilies—not white, but blue—blue as the glimpse of sky between a rift in the clouds above.
I recognized in a moment the wonderful blue lilies of Zanzibar (Nymphaea Zanzibarensis) (15); but was almost too cold and weary and bewildered and benumbed to wonder how they had come there through the storm and the barred doors. I saw that the broken window opened a way of escape to me, and quickly availed myself of it, clambering up to it with the help of one of the benches. I found my way back to the hotel through the deserted streets, and in my comfortable bed almost forgot the fears and trouble of the night, and awoke at mid-day rather doubtful as to what had been a dream and what reality.
Strolling out in the afternoon, I was surprised to see Blake in the hotel garden.
"What has brought you hear?" I asked. "Are you tired of your villa and its luxuries?"
He looked grave as he answered:
"Oh, there has been a melancholy wind-up to our party there! Lady Ley has been taken dangerously ill, and we have all had to leave. It was very sudden; for last night she seemed all right when she said good-night to us after dinner as usual; but this morning we were told by Sir Robert that she was very ill indeed. He said no more: gave no particulars; but there is an idea that the poor thing must have been sleep-walking. They say she was found senseless on the shore near the lake; her hands all cut and bleeding. The old boatman, who was the first to find her, was trying to carry her up to the house, when one of the maids who was going to early mass saw her and gave the alarm."
Blake seemed troubled and anxious, and was expecting a messenger from Stresa with the latest news. At nightfall it came: Lady Ley had never recovered consciousness, and had died at sunset.
Two days later Blake asked me to go with him to Stresa. There was to be a funeral service at the little chapel in the grounds of the Villa Ley, before the poor lady’s body was taken back to England, and he wished to attend.
We found a large gathering there, some of the late guests at the villa, some English acquaintances of the neighbourhood, and many of the poor villagers from round about who had benefited by the open-handed generosity of the dead woman, whose loss would be felt the more that her husband had already resolved to shut up the villa, sell it or let it, but never to come to it again.
There were many tears shed during the short, impressive service. When it was over and the people had dispersed, Blake and I still lingered, waiting for the evening boat to take us back to Felice.
An old man, the gardener, who had been waiting near, came to the chapel door, a small basket covered with leaves in his hand. He recognised Blake, and stopped to speak to him.
"Ah, the signora, the poor lady!" he said, passing his hand across his eyes. "When shall we see her like? May God bless her always; may God give her peace. She was most good; most noble; most gracious; the most gentle lady in the world; ah, how the flowers will droop now she is gone! She loved them so much, she used to come out every morning to tend to them, and would speak to me about them as if they were her friends. She always loved the blue ones best; she told me it was for the sake of a friend who had loved them too, and who had died. Her blue lilies, poor soul, I thought she was laughing at me when she spoke of them, but she had skilled men from Milan to make a house and a pond for them, and they were planted in the water, and she taught me to tend them, and at last this year they bloomed—a wonderful sight at sunrise! the little pond was covered with them. But on the day of her death they were stolen; some evil-disposed one must have made his way in and taken them, for it was not until mid-day I thought of going to look at them; I was watching at the door all the morning for news of my lady, and when I went back to the pond they were all gone—only one little bud left. And now it has opened, and I brought it to send with her to her cold grave in England."
He opened the little basket and took the flower out reverently. It was a blue Zanzibar lily.
NOTES
(1) "Felice" is Italian for "happy" or "glad", but AG may also have been recalling the Via Felice Cavallotti, a street in the eastern part of Pallanza.
(2) "The Boat Race" between Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club, first held in 1829, has been contested annually since 1856, usually on the Thames between Mortlake and Putney in west London. The race takes place in early April or late March each year. The St. Gottard pass, north of Pallanza, crosses the Alps, and was for centuries one of the principal routes between Italy and Switzerland.
(3) The independent states of the Italian peninsula were consolidated onto the Kingdom of Italy in 1871. Papal forces had resisted the national party led by Garibaldi, and unification was consequently deplored by Catholics, who saw it as a victory for secular republicanism.
(4) Eugénie de Montijo (1826-1920), Empress of France following her marriage to Napoleon III in 1853. Napoleon was overthrown in 1870 following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, and he and the Empress took refuge in England, where he died in 1873.
(5) AG here likely combines details from two or more churches in Pallanza. The church of Santo Stefano, near the center of Pallanza, holds a marble votive cippus, known as the "Altar of the Matrons", dating from Roman times, one side of which features five female figures dancing; the Church of Madonna di Campagna, north of the town centre, has a long-venerated 14th-century fresco depicting the Madonna, along with frescos attributed to Bernadino Lanino and to Cesare Luini, son of Bernardino Luini (c.1480-1532), who worked with Leonardo da Vinci. AG may have seen another Madonna, signed "Bernadinus" and once attributed to Luini, during her European gallery visits; in which case the spelling in the story may be a compositor's error.
(6) Tedesco: Italian for "German".
(7) From the Apostles' Creed, in use in Latin since the 8th century: "I believe in the Holy Spirit; The Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body; And the life everlasting. Amen."
(8) In Christian theology, the Church is traditionally divided into three "states": the Church Militant, consisting of Christian believers on earth who must struggle against sin and the devil; the Church Penitent, consisting of believers currently in Purgatory; and the Church Triumphant, consisting of those who have ascended to Heaven. The narrator of the story is clearly not Catholic.
(9) The campanile at Pallanza adjoins the Church of San Leonardo, close to the lake shore, near the centre of Pallanza. Festivals have long been held in the portico or "arcade" of the Town Hall, featuring 32 pillars of pink granite from nearby Baveno.
(10) The small town of Intra adjoins Pallanza to the east. AG is probably referring to the construction of the bell tower added to the Basilica of San Vittore, between 1840 and 1877. Stresa is a little over a mile to the south of Pallanza, across the Borromean inlet of Lake Maggiore.
(11) In naming her fictional "Sir Robert Ley", AG may have had in mind James Ley (1552-1629), 1st Earl of Marlborough, whose title became extinct with the death of his son William in 1679.
(12) Probably a compositor's misreading of "cos’è" or "cos’è quello": "what’s this".
(13) Presumably the Chapel of Santa Caterina at the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso in Stresa, which hangs on a rock face directly over Lake Maggiore.
(14) A species of thornless roses which grow like vines.
(15) A blue water-lily, originally native to Africa; its flowers close at night, and only last a few days before withering.
