Short Fiction · Chapter
The Garden explained
Nycteris, taking precautions to avoid detection, explores the garden for the first time after discovering a hidden passage.
What happens
Nycteris, taking precautions to avoid detection, explores the garden for the first time after discovering a hidden passage. She revels in the sensory delights of the natural world—the soft grass, the trees, a fountain, and the flowers—before sitting by the river, where she experiences a moment of complete bliss.
Themes in this chapter
Reality vs. Illusion
Nycteris contrasts the living garden with the painted representations on her walls and carpets, exploring the boundary between artificial and real experience.
Characters to notice
- Nycteris
Discovers a hidden passage and explores the garden, experiencing nature and freedom for the first time.
- Watho
Mentioned as being ill and confined to bed, which allows Nycteris to explore without immediate discovery.
- Falca
Fasts the door to prevent Nycteris's usual exit, inadvertently leading her to find a new passage.
Key passages
“Noiseless as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs, her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, by the very touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so sweet and friendly to them.”
She moved silently into the shelter of the trees and bushes, feeling the living grass beneath her bare feet, which made the ground feel welcoming and kind.
Describes Nycteris's first sensory experience of the garden's living ground.
“But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the very first. What wonderful creatures they were!—and so kind and beautiful—always sending out such colours and such scents—red scent, and white scent, and yellow scent—for the other creatures!”
She immediately felt a kinship with the flowers, marveling at their vibrant colors and fragrances, which she imagined they shared with the world.
Highlights Nycteris's personification and appreciation of the flowers.