his hand.

Glaucon waited a moment to pay for the figure. Then he followed
Charmides who had walked on. He was standing on the bridge gazing at the
water.

"Glaucon," he said, "I must see that statue of Hermes."

They stood there talking about the wonderful works of Praxiteles and of
many another artist. Glaucon pointed to a little wooden shed lying in
the meadow.

"That," he said, "is the workshop of Phidias. There he made the gold and
ivory statue of Zeus that you shall see in Zeus's temple. That workshop
will stay there many a year, I think, for people to love because so
great a thing was done there."

"Is it so wonderful?" asked Charmides.

"When it was finished," Glaucon answered solemnly, "Phidias stood before
it and prayed to Zeus to tell him whether it pleased the god. Great Zeus
heard the prayer, and in his joy at the beautiful thing he hurled a
blazing thunderbolt and smote the floor before the statue as if to say,
'This image is Zeus himself.' But I have never seen it, for a slave may
not pass the sacred wall."

Now the full moon had risen, and the world was swimming in silver light.
The statue of Victory hung over the sacred place on spread wings. Many
another great form on its high pillar seemed standing in the deep sky
above the world. The little pool in the pebbly river had stars in the
bottom.

"This Kladeos is a savage little river in the spring," said Glaucon. "It
tries to tear away our Olympia or drown it or cover it with sand. You
see, men have had to fence it in with stone walls."

But Charmides was looking at the sacred place and its soft shining
statues in the sky.

"Let us walk around the wall," he said.

So they left the river and passed the gymnasium and the gate. Along this
side the wall cast a wide shadow. Here they walked in silence. Here
there were no tents, no torches, no noisy people. Everything was quiet
in the evening air. The far-off sounds of the fair were a gentle hum. A
hundred pictures were floating in Charmides' mind--Phidias, Zeus, Creon
with the strigil, his own little Hermes, the strange people in the fair,
the marble Apollo under the sculptor's tent. In a few moments they
turned a corner and came out into the soft moonlight. A little beyond
gleamed a broad river, the Alphaeus. Charmides and the slave went over
and strolled along its banks. Here they were again in the crowd and
among tents. They saw a group of people and went toward them. A man
sat on a low knol