‘Beautiful as Antinous!.... Rather as the young Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the slaughter of the Python. Why should not he, too, become a slayer of Pythons, and loathsome monsters, bred from the mud of sense and matter? So bold and earnest! I can forgive him those words for the very fact of his having dared, here in my fathers house, to say them to me.... And yet so tender, so open to repentance and noble shame!—That is no plebeian by birth; patrician blood surely flows in those veins; it shows out in every attitude, every tone, every motion of the hand and lip. He cannot be one of the herd. Who ever knew one of them crave after knowledge for its own sake?.... And I have longed so for one real pupil! I have longed so to find one such man, among the effeminate selfish triflers who pretend to listen to me. I thought I had found one—and the moment that I had lost him, behold, I find another; and that a fresher, purer, simpler nature than ever Raphael’s was at its best. By all the laws of physiognomy—by all the symbolism of gesture and voice and complexion—by the instinct of my own heart, that young monk might be the instrument, the ready, valiant, obedient instrument, for carrying out all my dreams. If I could but train him into a Longinus, I could dare to play the part of a Zenobia, with him as counseller.... And for my Odenatus—Orestes? Horrible!’
She covered her face with her hand a minute. ‘No!’ she said, dashing away the tears—‘That—and anything—and everything for the cause of Philosophy and the gods!’
CHAPTER XI: THE LAURA AGAIN
Not a sound, not a moving object, broke the utter stillness of the glen of Scetis. The shadows of the crags, though paling every moment before the spreading dawn, still shrouded all the gorge in gloom. A winding line of haze slept above the course of the rivulet. The plumes of the palm-trees hung motionless, as if awaiting in resignation the breathless blaze of the approaching day. At length, among the green ridges of the monastery garden, two gray figures rose from their knees, and began, with slow and feeble strokes, to break the silence by the clatter of their hoes among the pebbles.
‘These beans grow wonderfully, brother Aufugus. We shall be able to sow our second crop, by God’s blessing, a week earlier than we did last year.’
The person addressed returned no answer; and his companion, after watching him for some time in silence, recommenced—
‘What is it, my brother? I have remarked lately a melancholy about you, which is hardly fitting for a man of God.’
A deep sigh was the only answer. The speaker laid down his hoe, and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of Aufugus, asked again—
‘What is it, my friend? I will not claim with you my abbot’s right to know the secrets of your heart: but surely that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken to me, however unworthy I may be to hear it!’