So this thought he sent towards her: "I do not know who you are, but I am a lonely Archer on the great cathedral where I have made a vow to tell forever the wandering of the wind. I cannot come to thee, but climb the winding stairs to this high place that I may gaze upon thee. I am lonely."
Now the young girl was walking at sunset in the orchards with her betrothed when through the air this message came to her, and, lifting up her eyes, she said: "See where the last light lies on the Golden Archer. How graceful he is, like a bit of flame above the old white church."
"They say the view is fine from there," answered her sweetheart.
"Let us climb up to-morrow," proposed the maid, whose name was Felice.
So next day at sunset she and her betrothed climbed the winding stair of the cathedral, and emerged on the roof near the Golden Archer, who, when he saw the maiden, felt an old rapture sweep over him. For a moment he so forgot his vow that he stood quite still, though the wind was veering. How beautiful she was with all the beauty of the sweet earth from which he had been so long removed. Her hair was like harvest-corn, and her eyes were like dim places where violets hide. The soft voice of her was as music in the Archer's ears, who had heard too long the jangling of iron bells in the towers beneath him.
And now she was looking at him. Old memories stirred in him beneath the armor that hid his manhood. He wanted to get down from his golden horse and lay aside his bow and arrow, and take her in his arms.
"What a beautiful Archer," she was saying, "how crisp his hair, how clear and firm his lips, how pure his profile."
Now her betrothed could be jealous even of a weather vane, so he said:
"Anyone can be beautiful who is made of metal."
"It is an imperishable beauty," she replied. "Flesh and blood decay."
The Golden Archer was so agitated that he turned his eyes upon her, and all at once she knew that he was alive and her heart was aflame with love for him.