XIX
The roses had found the right location in a wonderful jar of decorated crystal. They gloried in the supreme color of elegance and their perfume reminded of May and the first blossoms. The vase was ripe red and intense as a Burmese ruby. They were many and beautiful and different from each other in the veins of the petals and the reflections of daylight. However, they were sad and almost cried. Those hands, long and slender, who belonged to a young and aristocratic woman, had disregarded their expectations. Once in the so refined house, they were taken and beaten on a square table of the nineteenth century, and a snap of those sharp scissors had cut painfully a few inches off the stems. Then they had been put into the water and had received two slaps to be arranged before even noticing
