They were grouped in disciplinary order and not in accordance with a spirit of elegance--like some Eldorado confided to the care of a gendarme. Their ranks separated themselves brutally from one another, like so many categories; the pots stood in military array, and each of them bore a label, which had to do with botany rather than with gardening, and gave evidence rather of science than of art. This circumstance gave one food for meditation. After all, could I admit for a moment that Lerne could possibly do gardening for pleasure? Prosecuting my researches, I let my charmed eyes wander over all those marvels, incapable in my ignorance of naming any of them. I tried to do so, however, mechanically, and then that luxuriance, which on a cursory general look had shown a sort of exotic character, began to appear to me as it really was.... Incredulous, and a prey to a fever of curiosity, I looked at a cactus. In spite of my want of expert knowledge, I could not be mistaken, but its red flower utterly puzzled me.... I looked at it minutely, and my perplexity only grew. There was no possible doubt: this demoniac flower with its insolent look, this rocket which soared up green to break in fiery stars, _was a geranium_! I went on to the next flower: three bamboo stalks rose out of the soil, and capitals which crowned their slim columns were--dahlias. Almost afraid, breathing in the unnatural perfumes in short breaths, I looked questioningly at the place around me, and its miracle-like incoherence clearly showed itself. Spring, Summer, and Autumn reigned there in company, and Lerne had doubtless suppressed Winter, which extinguishes flowers like flames. They were all there, and all fruits too, _but neither flower nor fruit had grown on its own tree_! A colony of cornflowers garnished a stalk ceded by moss-roses, and which now waved about, a thyrsus thenceforward blue. An araucaria unfolded at the tip of its bristling branches the indigo-colored bells of the gentian, and along an espalier among nasturtium leaves and on the loops of its serpentine stalk, camelias and parti-colored tulips blossomed fraternally together. Opposite the entrance-door, a clump of bushes rose up against the glass wall. The shrub which stood highest drew my attention. Pears were hanging from it, and it was an orange tree! Behind it two vine-stocks with branches worthy of the land of Canaan flung their garlands round a trellis; their gigantic clusters differed as their stocks; the one bore yellow fruit, the other purple--_but each grape was a Mirabelle plum or a damson_! On the twigs of a miniature oak, on which several rebellious acorns were obstinately forming, one beheld walnuts and cherries rubbing shoulders. One of these fruits was an abortion: neither “chalk nor cheese” it was forming into a glaucous tumor streaked with pink--a thing monstrous and repellant.