The monk Francis said: "Ah," and then he brought out the words: "Father in God, I too have seen her—and twice. When I thought of the Young Lovell."
Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head. Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the monk come look at a picture.
This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the two pages of the book.
"I had this book in Rome," the Bishop said, "of a Greek called Josephus. Look upon this picture."
The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns, where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over against him reclined a great man with a lion's hide who leant upon a club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod, twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man rising from the blue waves of the sea.
Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher up the mountain, above the temple.
"Look upon this," he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves.
"I do not know who these be," the monk Francis said. "I was never in Rome."
Then the Bishop said harshly:
"Was the woman you saw like this woman?"