From this heap of sacred rubbish, poor rags, and broken goblets, rose a perfume of death and mildew, a sad and tender odour, as of incense to gods profaned.
A gentle melancholy came over Gnyphon's heart. He smiled, remembering something perhaps of his childhood; sweet cakes of barley and thyme, field daisies and jessamine which he used to carry with his mother to the altar of the village goddess; his childish prayers, not to the distant God, but to the little gods polished by the frequent touch of hands, carven in beechwood—the holy Penates. He pitied the vanished gods, and sighed sadly, but suddenly returned to himself and muttered—
"Suggestions of the Devil!"
The workmen were carrying up a heavy slab of marble, an antique bas-relief, stolen many years before and discovered in the hovel of a cobbler whose kitchen oven it had served to repair. Philomena, the old wife of a neighbouring clothier, a devout Christian, hated the cobbler's wife, who used to let her ass stray into Philomena's cabbage-yard. War had been maintained between them for years, but the Christian woman was in the end triumphant; for acting on her information the workmen had penetrated into the cobbler's house, and in order to carry off the bas-relief and slab had been obliged to demolish the oven.
This was a terrible blow to the cobbler's wife. Brandishing her shovel, she called down vengeance from all the gods on the impious; pulled her hair out in handfuls, groaning over her scattered pots and pans while her children squealed round her like the young birds of a devastated nest. But the bas-relief was carried off, despite her struggles, and Philomena set about the work of cleansing it. The draper's wife zealously scrubbed the marble which had been blackened by smoke and made greasy with spilt broth. Little by little the severe lines of the divine sculpture became visible. The young Dionysus, naked and proud, lay half-reclined, as if fatigued by Bacchic feasting, letting his hand, which held a cup, fall idly. A leopardess was licking up the last drops from the goblet, and the god, giver of joy to all living things, was gazing with a benign smile at the strength of the beast subdued by the grape. The bas-relief was hauled into position. The jeweller, clambering up before the image of Dionysus, inlaid the orbits of the god with two splendid sapphires, to serve as eyes.
"What's he doing there?" asked Gnyphon.
"Can't you see? They are eyes."
"Yes, certainly, but where do the stones come from?"
"From the monastery."
"But why have the monks allowed it?"