O Rapaz de Bronze

Florinda, a nostalgic woman, returns to the garden of her youth many years after her last visit. Guided by the Bronze Boy — a statue that, at night, becomes the king of the garden — she recalls the night when a beautiful and vain gladiolus organized a grand ball and invited her.

Her father, the gardener, never picked the gladiolus to decorate the house vases, where parties were held every night. Saddened for not being chosen, the gladiolus gathered the rose, the carnation, the orchid, the begonia and the tulip to form a committee to organize the great ball of the flowers.

In a clearing among the plane trees, fireflies illuminated the lake; an orchestra of frogs, cuckoos and woodpeckers animated the night, and the stone vase in the garden had to be adorned with something very special. If, in human parties, vases are decorated with flowers, in the flowers’ celebration vases had to be decorated with people. It was the Bronze Boy who thought of choosing someone as beautiful as a flower: Florinda. And this became the most beautiful celebration she had ever witnessed. All the flowers in the garden came and danced until the rooster crowed, announcing dawn.