rden, but still draws his golden bow.
It is no crippled and faded Eros of the city that dwells among us, but
the golden-thighed God himself. For we do all things with refinement,
and not like those outside, seeing to it that in all our acts we keep
our souls and bodies both delicate and pure."

We came to the door of a long wall, and knocked. White-robed
attendants appeared in answer to our summons, and I was stripped,
bathed, and anointed by their deft hands. All the while a sound of
singing and subdued laughter made me eager to be in the garden. I was
then clothed in a very simple white silk garment with a gold clasp;
the open door let sunshine in upon the tiles, and my friend, also
clothed in silk, awaited me. We walked out into the garden, which was
especially noticeable for those flowers which have always been called
old-fashioned--I mean hollyhocks, sweet-william, snapdragons, and
Canterbury bells, which were laid out in regular beds. Everywhere
young men and women were together: some were walking about idly in the
shade; some played at fives; some were reading to each other in the
arbours. I was shown a Grecian temple in which was a library, and
dwelling-places near it. I afterwards asked a girl called Fiore di
Fiamma what books the Florentines preferred to read, and she told me
that they loved the Poets best, not so much the serious and strenuous
as those whose vague and fleeting fancies wrap the soul in an
enchanting sorrow.

I asked: "Do you write songs, Fiore di Fiamma?"

"Yes, I have written a few, and music for them."

"Do sing me one, and I will play the guitar."

So she sang me one of the most mournful songs I had ever heard, a song
which had given up all hope of fame, written for the moment's laughter
or for the moment's tears.

"Wind," I said that night, "stay with me many years in the garden."

But it was not the Wind I kissed.

VI

OUTSIDE

I passed many years in that sad, enchanted place, dreaming at times of
my mother's roses, and of friends that I had known before, and
watching our company grow older and fewer. There was a rule that no
one should stay there after their thirty-seventh birthday, and some
old comrades passed weeping from us to join the World Outside. But
most of them chose to take poison and to die quietly in the Garden; we
used to burn their bodies, singing, and set out their urns on the
grass. In time I became Prince of the Garden: no one knew my age, and
I gre