But the very breeze is laden with heat, and the
fountain's noise does but whet the thirst of the grass, the flowers,
the trees. The earth sulks under the burden of the unmerciful sun.
Love itself, one had said, would be languid here, pale and supine,
and, faintly sighing for things past or for future things, would sink
into siesta. But behold! these are no ordinary lovers. The gushing
fountains are likelier to run dry there in the grotto than they to
falter in their redundant energy. These sanguine lords and ladies
crave not an instant's surcease. They are tyrants and termagants of
love.
If they are thus at noon, here under the sun's rays, what, one
wonders, must be their manner in the banqueting hall, when the tapers
gleam adown the long tables, and the fruits are stripped of their
rinds, and the wine brims over the goblets, all to the music of the
viols? Somehow, one cannot imagine them anywhere but in this sunlight.
To it they belong. They are creatures of Nature, pagans untamed,
lawless and unabashed. For all they are robed in crimson and saffron,
and are with such fine pearls necklaced, these dames do exhale from
their exuberant bodies the essence of a quite primitive and simple
era; but for the ease of their deportment in their frippery, they
might be Maenads in masquerade.
Pages:
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242