The gentlemen
had a walk in a greenhouse by the church, along vegetable patches, and watched tomatoes
spread on the frames.
I wonder if
this may be a four o’clock flower, asked the educated father Hyacinth. I read once
that it blooms only when it is raining.
I have never
seen a four o’clock flower, but this tomato over there, said monsignor Paul, reminds
me of a friend of mine, a rector, who turned fifty last August. He received plenty
of gifts on that occasion, and among other things a pot flower called fuchsia. So
glad was my rector! He was simply full of such positive expectations, as, say
the poet Mayakovski when he opened a Marx's volume every morning like shutters
in his home. This felt my rector, opening his breviary and glancing at the
window on which a fuchsia rush lay...
And so he
waited, continued monsignor Paul - a week, two, a month, for his fuchsia to
blossom, but it would not. So he began to read gardening manuals, but they all said
different things, and often contradictory. One advised that fuchsias liked
fertilize ground and humidity, so my rector decided to take care of proper
humidity, but to tell honestly, he was generally physically and spiritually
drained, for which I do not reproach him at all... And then he read that he should
best keep his fuchsia in the shade, but again it all turned into a wet puddle,
and again the existence would not, so to say, hatch from its floral potency.
I do not think
I get it, interrupted master Adalbert, but monsignor Paul continued:
- ... then he
tried again with slurry, but then his fuchsia released such a long, bare head,
split at the end as a snake’s tongue, and at the end of that split there were
two tips full with pollen, but they quickly broke apart and the pollen spilled
over the floor under the sill, and his fuchsia was done...
"Well,
the poor guy came to me finally, darkened all over with sadness, and said – how
much I like these potted flowers, but see here, this fuchsia of mine would not blossom.
And I told him this: you know, it's a tropical flower, it blossoms in the
jungle. "Well, so we cannot do anything about it," he said.
"It's not that bad," I answered, " an old man, a Dominican, once
gave me a hint, and a good one...
- Which was?
Father Adalbert came to life again.
- Pinch the
tops! Shouted monsignor Paul so loud that windows in the greenhouse shivered.