Then she stole forth again through the moonlit casement, and Pygmalion slept on unconscious. In the morning the sunlight streamed in through the window, and fell full upon his face. With a start he awoke, and looked up at the statue, and to his sun-dazed eyes it seemed to move.
"O Aphrodite," he cried, "mock me not! Thou hast deceived me so often."
In despair he cast his arms about the image, certain that once again he would find her a cold white stone. But lo! instead of unyielding marble he was clasping in his arms a living woman. Her arms were about his neck, her lips on his lips, and she looked into his eyes with a fire that answered the fire in his own.
"At last, at last," said he, "my love has prevailed!"
"Even in the heart of a stone, Pygmalion," she said, "love can kindle love. My form is the work of thy hand, and my soul is the child of thy love. As long as stone can last, so long shall my body last; and as long as thy love can live, so long shall my soul live also."
"My love," he said, "will live for ever."
"Then for ever," said she, "my soul will live with thine."
So as husband and wife they lived together for many a long year. The cunning came back to Pygmalion's hand, and many a fair statue did he make for the people of Cyprus. In time he died in a green old age. His spirit fled away to the dwelling-place of souls, and with him the spirit of Galatea, his wife; and her body returned to the form in which Pygmalion first had made her—a fair white marble image. In the garden where he, in his childhood, had learned to model the clay, the Cyprians buried him, building a fair tomb over him, and in a niche they placed the statue of Galatea. So the words she had spoken when she came to life were fulfilled. Her form lived as long as stone could live, and her soul lived as long as Pygmalion could love her. And which of us can say that this could not be for ever, or that they do not still live in the light of each other's love in the dwelling-place of souls?
