ATTALEA PRINCEPS
In a certain big city there was a botanical garden with a vast greenhouse in it made of iron and glass. It was a very handsome building, supported by slender twisted columns, upon which rested light decorative arches webbed with iron window frames. The greenhouse looked its best in the evening in the red glare of the sunset. It was all aglow then, shot with shifting gleams, like a huge sparkling gem with small-cut facets.
Through the thick transparent glass one could see the imprisoned plants. Vast though the greenhouse was, they were cramped in it. The tangled roots fought one another for moisture and nutrition. The branches of the trees were entwined with the huge leaves of the palms, which they bent and broke, themselves pressing up against the iron frames and bending and breaking in turn. The gardeners were constantly lopping the branches and tying the leaves up with wire to curb their wild growth, but it did not help much. What the plants needed was the wide free spaces of their native habitats. They were natives of hot climes, tender, luxurious creations, who remembered their native countries and yearned for them. However transparent the glass roof might be, it was not the bright sky. Sometimes, in the winter, the panes froze over, and then it would grow quite dark in the greenhouse. The wind would howl and beat against the frames, and rattle them. Snow-drifts covered the roof. Listening to the howling of the wind, the plants would remember another wind, a warm humid wind that gave to them life and health. And they longed to feel its breath upon them again, to have it sway their branches and wanton with their leaves. But the air in the greenhouse was without a stir, except perhaps sometimes in the winter when the storm would smash a pane of glass and a cold sharp flurry, laden with hoarfrost, would find its way under the dome. In the wake of that flurry the leaves turned white, shrank, and wilted. But new panes were put in very quickly. The botanical garden was in charge of an excellent scientific director, who kept things in perfect order, although he spent most of his time with a microscope in a special glass cabin set up in the main building.
Among the plants was a palm-tree, taller and more beautiful than any of the others. The director who sat in his cabin called it by the Latin name Attalea. But that was not its real name: the botanists had made it up. The botanists did not know its native name, and it was not written in lampblack on the white little board that was nailed to the trunk of the palm-tree. One day a traveller from the warm land which the palm-tree had grown up in visited the botanical garden, and when he saw the tree he smiled, because it reminded him of home.
"Ah," he said, "I know that tree." And he called it by its native name.
"Excuse me," the director shouted from his cabin, where he had been carefully slitting open some stalks with a razor, "you are mistaken. The tree you have just mentioned does not exist. This is Attalea princeps, a native of Brazil."
"Oh yes," the Brazilian answered, "I quite believe you that botanists call it Attalea, but it has a real name of its own."
"Its real name is the one that science has given it," the botanist said dryly, and shut the door of his cabin to keep people from interfering with his work, people who did not even understand that when a man of science had something to say the best you could do was to keep silent and listen to him.
But the Brazilian stood looking at the tree, and the longer he looked the sadder he grew. He thought of his country, of her sun and her skies, her luxuriant forests with their wonderful birds and beasts, her deserts, her lovely southern nights. And he thought that nowhere had he been so happy as in his native land, although he had travelled all over the world. He touched the tree with his hand, as if bidding it farewell, and left the garden. The next day found him sailing home in a steamer.
But the palm remained. She felt worse than ever now, although she had felt bad enough before. She was so lonely. She towered thirty feet above the tops of all the other plants, and those other plants disliked her, envied her, thought her proud. Her stature caused her nothing but misery; besides being all alone while they were together, she better remembered her native sky and missed it more, because she was nearer than any of the others to that horrid glass roof that took its place. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of blue through it, a glimpse of sky, alien and wan, but none the less real blue sky. And when the plants chattered among themselves, Attalea was always silent, thinking longingly how good it would be to stand under that sky, pallid and sickly though it was.
"I beg your pardon," said the Sago Palm, who was very fond of moisture, "do you know whether we are going to be watered soon or not? I am afraid I shall be parched today, really."
"You surprise me, dear neighbour," said a pot-bellied Cactus. "Do you mean to say that all that enormous amount of water which they pour out on you every day is not enough for you? Look at me: I am given very little moisture, yet I am always fresh and juicy."
"It is not our habit to scrimp," answered the Sago. "We are not a cactus to grow on such dry meagre soil. We are not accustomed to live just anyhow. And besides, let me tell you your remarks are uncalled for."
And the Sago, in a huff, fell silent.
"As far as I am concerned," interposed the Cinnamon, "I am quite satisfied with my position. To be sure, it is rather dull here, but at least I can live without fear of being barked."
"But not all of us were barked," said the Tree-Fern. "Of course, some may think even this prison a paradise after the miserable existence they led outside."
been able to move there would assuredly have been a fight.
"What are you quarrelling for?" said Attalea. "It won't help you, will it? You are only making yourselves more miserable with all this rancour and bitterness. Instead of quarrelling you would do better to use your wits. Listen to me: grow higher and wider, throw out your branches, press up against the frames and glass, and our greenhouse will come toppling down and we shall all be free. If only one branch presses against the glass, they will cut it off, of course, but what can they do against a hundred strong brave trunks? The thing is to go about it all together, and victory will be ours."
At first Attalea's speech met with no objections: everyone was silent, not knowing what to say. At last the Sago made up her mind.
"That is sheer nonsense," she declared.
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" all the other trees chimed in, and tried to prove to Attalea that what she proposed was simply absurd. "Vain dreams!" they shouted. "Absurd! Ridiculous! The frames are strong, we shall never break them, and even if we do, then what? Men will come along with knives and axes, they will chop off the branches, and mend the frames, and everything will be as before. We shall only have big pieces of ourselves chopped off for our pains."
"Well, just as you please!" answered Attalea. "I know what I have to do now. I shall leave you in peace: live as you will, grumble at one another, quarrel over the water doled out to you, and remain for ever in your glass prison. I will find a way myself. I want to see the sky and the sun not through these bars and panes-and I will!"
And the Palm looked down proudly with her green crown upon the forest of her mates spread beneath her. None of them had the courage to say anything to her face, and the Sago alone whispered to her neighbour the Cycas:
"Very well, we shall see how they will chop that big head of yours off. That will bring you down from your high perch!"
The others, though silent, none the less resented Attalea's proud words. The only one who did not take offence at the Palm's speech was a tiny grass plant. It was the meanest and most despised of all the plants in the green-house-a pale, sickly, crawling thing with limp stubby little leaves. It was in no way remarkable, and its only use in the greenhouse was for covering up the bare earth. It twined itself round the base of the big Palm, and listened to her, and it thought that Attalea was right. Although a stranger to southern climes, it also loved the air and freedom. The greenhouse was a prison to it too. "If I, a weak insignificant little herb, suffer so much without my grey patch of sky, my pallid sun and cold rain, then what must this beautiful and mighty tree suffer in captivity!" it thought, as it snuggled up to the Palm caressingly.
"Why am I not a big tree? I would do as you say. We would grow together, and together we would leave this prison. Then the rest would see that Attalea had been right."
But it was not a big tree, it was only a weak little herb. It could only nestle closer to Attalea's trunk, whisper its love to her, and wish her good luck in her venture.
"Of course, it isn't so warm here, the sky is not so bright, the rains are not so plentiful as in your country, but we do have a sky, and a sun, and winds. We have no plants as luxuriant as you and your companions, plants with such immense leaves and gorgeous flowers, but we have very nice trees growing in our country too: pines, and firs, and birches. I am but a tiny herb and will never reach freedom, but you-you are so great and strong. Your trunk is hard, and you have not far to grow to reach the glass roof. You will break through it into God's bright world. And then you will tell me whether it is as lovely as it used to be. I shall be content with that."
"Why, little grass, don't you want to go out with me together? My trunk is hard and strong; lean upon it, creep up me. I can carry you out quite easily."
"Ah, I wish I could! But look what a poor limp thing I am: I cannot even lift a single limb of mine. No, I am no companion for you. Grow and good luck to you. Only one thing I ask you: when you get out, remember your poor little friend sometimes!"
this rapid growth to the excellent care that was taken of it, and he was proud of the skill and knowledge with which he had organized the greenhouse and was conducting his business.
"Yes, my dear, just look at Attalea princeps," he would say. "Such tall specimens are rarely met with even in Brazil. We do everything to the best of our ability to make these plants grow indoors as freely as they would outside, and I believe that we have achieved some success in this direction."
And with a complacent air, he would give the hard tree a few whacks with his stick. The blows would resound through the greenhouse, the leaves of the Palm would quiver under them. Ah, if that tree could voice its feelings, what a cry of wrath that director would have heard!
"He imagines that I am growing for his pleasure," thought Attalea. "Let him think it!"
And she went on growing upward, using all her juices for the purpose, and depriving her roots and leaves of them. Sometimes it seemed to her as if the distance between herself and the roof was not "diminishing, and then she would exert all her strength. The frames came nearer and nearer, and at last a young leaf touched the cold glass and the ironwork.
"Look," said the plants, "look how high she has climbed! Will she dare to do it?"
"She has grown tremendously," said the Tree-Fern. "Pooh, that's nothing! Now if she could grow the way I do, I could understand," said the fat Cycas, who had a trunk like a barrel. "What's the sense in stretching upward like that! All the same, she will not be able to do anything. The bars are too strong, the glass too thick."
Another month went by. Attalea was still growing. At last she was pressing up against the frames. There was no more room for her to grow. Then her trunk began to bend. The leafy top got crushed, the cold bars of the frame bit into the tender young leaves, cut through them and mutilated them, but the tree was stubborn, it pressed against the bars in spite of everything, and the bars began to give way, although they were made of strong iron. The little grass watched the struggle breathlessly. "But does it not hurt you? If the frames are so strong had you not better give it up?" it said to the Palm.
"Hurt me? What is pain when I want to be free. Did you not encourage me yourself?" answered the Palm.
"I did, but I did not know it would be so hard. I feel sorry for you. You are suffering so."
"Silence, weak plant! Do not pity me! I shall die or be free!"
At that very moment there came a
"What is this?" he exclaimed, starting back at the sight of the falling splinters. He ran out and looked up at the roof. The green crown of the Palm had straightened itself out and was towering proudly above the glass dome.
"Is this all?" she thought. "Is this all I languished and suffered for so much? And to attain this had been my fondest dream?"
and the wind was driving a wrack of clouds before it. It seemed to her as if they were wrapping themselves round her. The trees were already bare, and looked ghostlike and macabre. The pines and firs alone wore their dark green foliage. The trees stared gloomily at the Palm. "You will freeze to death!" they seemed to be saying to her. "You do not know what cold is. You are not used to it. What made you come out of your warm house?"
And it dawned on Attalea that this was the end. She began to freeze. Seek the shelter of the roof again? She could not do that now. She would have to stand there in the cold wind, exposed to its blasts and the sharp touch of the snow-flakes, looking at the bleak sky, at starveling nature, at the dirty backyard of the botanical garden, at the huge dreary city looming through the mist, and waiting for the men down in the greenhouse to decide what to do with her.
"We could build a special cap over her," he said, "but for how long? She will grow again and smash everything. Besides, it will cost too much. Cut her down."
entwined her trunk refused to part with its friend, and was sawn through too. After the Palm had been dragged out of the greenhouse, the sawn stump had crushed and lacerated little stalks and leaves clinging to it.
"Tear up that rubbish and throw it away," said the director. "It has gone yellow, and besides, the saw has damaged it badly. We shall plant something else here/'
One of the gardeners, with a dexterous stroke of the spade ripped away a heap of the grass. He flung it into a basket carried it out and threw it away in the backyard, right on the dead palm-tree, which lay in the dirt, already half-buried in the snow.
1879