“I don’t see it,” said Panope, almost sharply. “He may be a goose, but he is not a prig. I do wish you ever could talk about any one else, Cymodoce! I am tired to death of the pious Æneas.”
“So am I,” said Arethusa; “he was a humbug if ever there was one.”
“What an expression!” said Cymodoce.
“Never mind,” said Arethusa; “suppose we do this poor merman a good turn, and get Aphrodite to make his wooden thing a live creature. Don’t you think she would do as much for wood as she did for marble?”
“We could ask her,” said Cymodoce. “I have some influence with her. I was so well acquainted with her son, the pious—”
“Oh bother him!” said Arethusa, who had been a mountain nymph originally, and was apt to be a little brusque.
“I don’t believe she’d be good for much if she did come alive,” said Panope, looking down. “I’ve heard that match of Pygmalion’s didn’t turn out very well. I saw the marble woman once. She was pretty enough, but so stiff, and she walked as though she weighed a ton, and hadn’t a word to say for herself. And as for this wooden thing, the woodenness would always remain in her mind and manners. But we can try. Come, if you like;” and the three slipped into the sea and went swimming after the merman, but he never saw them. He had caught sight of his wooden goddess, and had no eyes for the real ones. He thought he had never seen his idol looking so beautiful, so lifelike. “She wood!” he thought as he leaned back in the water and looked up in her face. Meanwhile, some strange influence was at work upon the wooden image. A kind of thrill ran over it. It began slowly to breathe.
“Dear me!” thought the wooden creature, for it could think a little now. “I must be coming alive! How very disagreeable! I can see—even feel. I don’t like it. It’s too much trouble. What is that thing in the sea staring at me?” and she actually bent her head and looked down.
The merman, of course, was in ecstasies, for he thought she was coming to him.
“I certainly am growing alive,” thought the wooden thing. “I won’t come alive; I was made wood, and wood I’ll stay; I won’t go out of my sphere; I’m sure it’s not proper;” and she stiffened herself as stiff as she could. “I will be wood,” she thought, and wood she was, for even a goddess can’t make a thing alive against its own will. “Yes, this is much the best way,” was the wooden image’s last thought, as the breath of life went away from her and left her more wooden than ever.