“Yea, lead, though I’m charmed in this presence.”
“I’d lead to the ‘Rest of the Aged.’”
“To the retreat with door like a castle? What are those amazon forms in armor?”
“The Peri?”
“I bid them welcome in Miriamne’s name, having learned that she is serious as well as cunning in weaving the manna-bearing garlands of every myth about her ideals. Say on.”
“They say there is beneath the Caucasian mountains a wondrous city builded of pearls and precious stones, in which dwells a race of surpassing beauty of person. I’ve utilized the tradition.”
“Oh, the fabled Peri; but I’m mystified.”
“They also say,” continued Miriamne, “that Dives, a wicked genus, wages constant war against the Peri, hoping to possess the treasures of the Peri capital, but that they successfully repel him and make their happiness secure. I have a similitude of the Peri city.”
“In truth, I wonder now. What fitness for such an allegory here?”
“I think I have come near to a profound truth. Listen; here at the west, I have planned to show what makes approaching age a terror.”