He never wearied of turning in his hands the pot in which this floral extravagance stirred.  It imitated the gum-tree whose long leaf of dark metallic green it possessed, but it differed in that a green string hung from the end of its leaf, an umbilic cord supporting a greenish urn, streaked with jasper, a sort of German porcelain pipe, a strange bird’s nest which tranquilly swung about, revealing an interior covered with hair.

“This is really something worth while,” Des Esseintes murmured.

He was forced to tear himself away, for the gardeners, anxious to leave, were emptying the wagons of their contents and depositing, without any semblance of order, the tuberous Begonias and black Crotons stained like sheet iron with Saturn red.

Then he perceived that one name still remained on his list.  It was the Cattleya of New Granada.  On it was designed a little winged bell of a faded lilac, an almost dead mauve.  He approached, placed his nose above the plant and quickly recoiled.  It exhaled an odor of toy boxes of painted pine; it recalled the horrors of a New Year’s Day.

He felt that he would do well to mistrust it and he almost regretted having admitted, among the scentless plants, this orchid which evoked the most disagreeable memories.

As soon as he was alone his gaze took in this vegetable tide which foamed in the vestibule.  Intermingled with each other, they crossed their swords, their krisses and stanchions, taking on a resemblance to a green pile of arms, above which, like barbaric penons, floated flowers with hard dazzling colors.

The air of the room grew rarefied.  Then, in the shadowy dimness of a corner, near the floor, a white soft light crept.

He approached and perceived that the phenomenon came from the Rhizomorphes which threw out these night-lamp gleams while respiring.

“These plants are amazing,” he reflected.  Then he drew back to let his eye encompass the whole collection at a glance.  His purpose was achieved.  Not one single specimen seemed real; the cloth, paper, porcelain and metal seemed to have been loaned by man to nature to enable her to create her monstrosities.  When unable to imitate man’s handiwork, nature had been reduced to copying the inner membranes of animals, to borrowing the vivid tints of their rotting flesh, their magnificent corruptions.

“All is syphilis,” thought Des Esseintes, his eye riveted upon the horrible streaked stainings of the Caladium plants caressed by a ray of light.  And he beheld a sudden vision of humanity consumed through the centuries by the virus of this disease.  Since the world’s beginnings, every single creature had, from sire to son, transmitted the imperishable heritage, the eternal malady which has ravaged man’s ancestors and whose effects are visible even in the bones of old fossils that have been exhumed.

The disease had swept on through the centuries gaining momentum.  It even raged today, concealed in obscure sufferings, dissimulated under symptoms of headaches and bronchitis, hysterics and gout.  It crept to the surface from time to time, preferably attacking the ill-nourished and the poverty stricken, spotting faces with gold pieces, ironically decorating the faces of poor wretches, stamping the mark of money on their skins to aggravate their unhappiness.