Rosemarie Artmann-Graf
„Frost Pattern“
Embroiderer Dehljan

The cyclamen and the ice flower
Some people feel that the empty windowsill between the glass and the curtains looks too bare, so they fill it with a houseplant. That’s how the cyclamen ended up between curtain and window. She felt very lonely – there was no other flower to talk to. To start with she passed the time watching the birds in the front garden. But soon it was winter, the birds were no longer cheerful, and the days shrouded in misty greys. The cyclamen became sad and her head was drooping. She did not want to be lonely anymore. The weather turned bitterly cold. Snow and ice arrived over night. The next morning the lonely flower could not believe her eyes: a visitor had arrived. A beautiful ice flower had grown on the windowpane. The cyclamen was baffled. ‘Good morning,’ she said, ‘who are you, and where do you come from?’ ‘Frost has sown me onto the glass, and I blossomed this morning.’ The two flowers looked at each other in wonderment and silence. At last the ice flower said, ‘I really envy you. You are so beautiful and pretty. Have you been blooming here on the windowsill for a long time?’ The cyclamen sighed, ‘Yes, very long indeed. I am quite desperate because I am so lonely. I am the most unhappy flower ever.’ ‘How silly you are’, the guest on the windowpane replied and its ice crystals sparkled angrily. ‘You are so very lucky. You can bloom for many months and don’t have to die as fast as I do.’ Full of longing the ice flower raved about the wonderful life of a real flower: never having to dread the sun’s rays it could grow in peace, without fear of the next day or a change in the weather. ‘My life is over so very quickly,’ the ice flower went on, ‘before I ever get to know whether…’

At this very moment the sun broke through the clouds and sent its warm rays towards the window. The ice flower could not finish the sentence, and soon it had disappeared. Only three teardrops of water were running down the windowpane.

Text by Rosmarie Artmann-Graf


Dehljan died of cancer in the spring of 2013. (P.G)