Crossing the lake, he and his wife looked down at their reflections in the still, black water.  Shielded by the pavilion on one side and the high garden wall on the other, the villa in the distance, Axel felt composed and secure, the plain with its encroaching multitude a nightmare from which he had safely awakened.  He put one arm around his wife’s smooth waist and pressed her affectionately to his shoulder, realising that he had not embraced her for several years, though their lives together had been timeless and he could remember as if yesterday when he first brought her to live in the villa.

“Axel,” his wife asked with sudden seriousness.  “Before the garden dies … may I pick the last flower?”

Understanding her request, he nodded slowly.

One by one the succeeding evenings, he picked the remaining flowers, leaving a single small bud which grew just below the terrace for his wife.  He took the flowers at random, refusing to count or ration them, plucking two or three of the smaller buds at the same time when necessary.  The approaching horde had now reached the second and third crests, a vast concourse of labouring humanity that blotted out the horizon.  From the terrace Axel could see clearly the shuffling, straining ranks moving down into the hollow towards the final crests, and occasionally the sounds of their voices carried across to him, interspersed with cries of anger and the cracking of whips.  The wooden carts lurched from side to side on tilting wheels, their drivers struggling to control them.  As far as Axel could tell, not a single