The legendary rosemary water was created as a remedy for gout or rheumatism, which the elderly Hungarian Queen Elizabeth suffered from. A beautiful legend tells that a miraculous formula was created for rejuvenation, which happened so successfully that the queen became famous as Ninon de Lanclos, and at the age of 72 she captivated men with her beauty and youth, which made the Polish king offer her his hand and heart.
The ancient Greeks used a drink from this evergreen plant to improve memory. Hence the student custom of weaving a sprig of rosemary into his hair.
In the language of flowers, rosemary means loyalty and memory.
The Greeks and Romans considered rosemary sacred. It symbolized love and death. In ancient Greece, a wreath of rosemary flowers was placed on the grave, rosemary branches were given to the relatives of the deceased. The Egyptians put a branch of rosemary in the hand of the deceased, it was believed that its fragrance would brighten up the journey to the land of the dead. The image of the rosemary branch is often used on tombstones. Rosemary's message is: remember and be faithful.
Remember and be faithful – this is a message for me on my 10th birthday. Rosemary as a gift so that I remember what I forgot…It remains only to remember.
Chapter 5. Henry's Epiphany
A week after the incident with rosemary, Henry returned from London. We ran out to meet him. How nice it was to see the joy in his eyes. It was not only the joy of returning to his family after an absence, it was the joy of understanding what had been eluding him all this time.
– I remember everything, I understand! – the doctor's first words as he approached the house.
He told how he met his classmates and a professor in the city. How they spent their time, but this was only a prelude to the main news.
"Sivana, I'm your real father," Dr. Reindir said when Pauline and Mary left to wash the dishes after dinner and we were left alone at the table.
– How is this possible? I was surprised.
– I got to London a little more than thirty years ago, I didn't remember how you did, how I got there and what happened before that. I was 26 years old at the time. The professor studied me for a long time, made samples, studied my blood. It's the same as yours, I've already told you that. We have been at a loss for many years, looking for a solution. Therefore, only, I seemed to the professor an unusual case. He took me to the university for his course without any preliminary exams and interviews with the dean. The professor saw something more in me, he saw a mystery that needed to be solved, " Henry grinned, not without a certain amount of self-satisfaction and understanding of his exclusivity.