Achilles leaned back against the counter, thinking a little. He sighed gently. “I tell you many things,” he said at last.
“About the Parthenon, please,” said Betty Harris.
“You like Athens?” He said it like a child.
“I should like it—if they would tell me real things. I don’t seem to make them understand. But when they say how beautiful it is—I feel it here.” She laid her small hand to her side.
The smile of Achilles held the glory in its depths. “I tell you,” he said.
The clear face reflected the smile. A breath of waiting held the lips. “Yes.”
Achilles leaned again upon his counter. His face was rapt, and he spread his finger-tips a little, as if something within them stirred to be free.
“It stands so high and lifts itself”—Achilles raised his dark hands—“ruined there—so great—and far beneath, the city lies, drawing near and near, and yet it cannot reach... And all around is light—and light—and light. Here it is a cellar”—his hands closed in with crushing touch—“but there—!” He flung the words from him like a chant of music, and a sky stretched about them from side to side, blue as sapphire and shedding radiant light upon the city in its midst—a city of fluted column and curving cornice and temple and arch and tomb. The words rolled on, fierce and eager. It was a song of triumph, with war and sorrow and mystery running beneath the sound of joy. And the child, listening with grave, clear eyes, smiled a little, holding her breath. “I see it—I see it!” She half whispered the words.
Achilles barely looked at her. “You see—ah, yes—you see. But I—I have not words!” It was almost a cry.... “The air, so clear—like wine—and the pillars straight and high and big—but light—light—reaching....” His soul was among them, soaring high. Then it returned to earth and he remembered the child.
“And there is an olive-tree,” he said, kindly, “and a well where Poseidon—”