"The xoanon!" said Florence Marsh.
"What! You have heard of the xoanon?" cried Fregoso. And from this point on he addressed only the American girl. "In that case, Miss Marsh, you are capable of understanding the beauty of these three examples of art. They are unique.—Neither that of Delos, that of Samos, or that of the Acropolis is worthy to be compared with them.—You can see the creation of life in them.—Here you see the body in its sheath, and what a sheath!—One as shapeless and rough as the harshest of wools. And yet it breathes, the bosom is there, the hips, the legs are indicated.—Then the material grows supple, becoming a delicate fabric of fine wool, a long divided garment that lends itself to every movement. The statue awakes. It walks.—Just look at the grandeur of the torso under the peplum, the closely fitting cloak gathered in closely fitting folds on one side and spread fanlike on the other. Don't you admire the pose of the goddess as she stands, the weight of her body thrown upon the right foot, with the left advanced?—Now she moves, she lives!—Oh! Beauty! Heavenly Beauty!—And look at the Apollos!"
He was so excited by his feverish enthusiasm that he could no longer speak. He pointed in speechless admiration to three trunks carved in stone that had been turned red by a long sojourn in a ferruginous soil. They were headless and armless, with legs of which only the stumps remained.
"Are they not the models of those at Orchomenos, Thera, and Tenea?" asked Miss Marsh.
"Certainly," replied the Prince, who could no longer contain his happiness. "They are funeral images, statues of some dead hero deified in the form of Apollo.—And to think that there are barbarians in the world who pretend that the Greeks went to Egypt and to Mesopotamia in search of their art!—Do you think an Egyptian or an Asiatic could ever have imagined that proud carriage, that curved chest, that strong back?—They never made anything but sitting idols glued to the wall.—Just look at the thighs! Homer says that Achilles could leap fifty feet. I have studied the subject deeply, and I find that the tiger's leap at its maximum is exactly that distance. It appears incredible to us that a man could do that. But look at those muscles—that makes such a leap a possibility. Art is seen at its perfection there; magnificent limbs capable of magnificent efforts. 'I moti divini,' as Leonardo said. If you put that energy at the service of the city and represent that city by gods, by its gods, you have Greece before you."
"And you have Venice, you have Florence, you have Sienna, you have Genoa, all Italy, in fact!" interrupted Don Fortunato.
"Italy is the humble pupil of Greece," replied Fregoso, solemnly. "She has received touches of grand beauty, but she is not the grand beauty."
Looking around, he added mysteriously:—
"Ah! we must close the shutters and lower the curtains. Will you help me, Don Fortunato?"
When the room had thus been darkened, the old man handed a lighted taper to the abbé and made a sign for them all to follow him. Approaching a head carved in marble placed upon a pedestal, he said, in a voice broken with emotion:—