g like the
marble. She does. Though the grief of the face of the daughter of
Minos as she lies deserted by her lover on the rocky shore of Naxos be
a poignant and a present woe, there is the shadow of its mate on
the brow and lips of the girl who gazes at its pure and pallid and
all-unavailing loveliness.
The Frenchmen have gone with their guide, and there is a great
stillness falling on the place, and no more tourists come that way.
The light is fading, but Hyacinthe turns back to the mutilated Cupid,
and ere long sits down at the base of the statue, and her head rests
well on the cold marble while the darkness grows, and the guardians of
the Vatican either forget or do not distinguish the white of her gown
from the blurred blanchedness of the Greek Love.
So, while the mother waits at home, and wails and prays and wonders
and seeks comfort among her neighbors, the daughter sleeps and dreams;
and her dream is this: The wingless Love looks up and laughs as in
welcome, and Hyacinthe looks up too, and they both see a new marble
standing there in front of them: nay, not a marble, though white as
Parian, for the eyes that laugh back at Love's and hers are blue as
the blue Italian summer skies, and the curling locks of hair on the
brow are of shining gold, and the palms of the beautiful hands are
rosy with the bright blood of life.
And Love asks, "What would you?"
And the strange comer answers, "They say I need nothing."
And Hyacinthe in her dream says, "Is what they say the truth?" But
even while she speaks the stranger sinks farther and farther from her
sight, his glad blue eyes still laughing back at Love and her as he
fades into one with the darkness afar off where Ariadne slumbers in
sorrow. And the wingless Love smiles sadly as he speaks: "Seek your
art, O daughter of a Greek mother! and you will find in it the answer
to your question." And Hyacinthe, sighing, wakes in the dreary dusk of
the first dawn.
She was affrighted at first, and then slowly there came upon her, with
the fast-increasing daylight, a great peace.
"'Seek your art!'" the girl murmured to herself, pushing back her dark
locks and gazing away toward the spot where the hero of her dream had
vanished. "So will I, Cupid, and there I shall find the answer to my
question, to all questions; for I shall find him whom my soul loveth.
Who was he, what was he, so resplendent and shining among all these
old Greeks? Where shall I seek? Say, Cupid? Bu
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