"But let us leave the Phœnicians and return to the inscription. I translate, then: 'To the Venus of Boulternère Myro dedicates by his command this statue, the work of his hand.'"
I took good care not to criticise his etymology, but I wanted, on my own account, to put his penetrative faculties to the proof, so I said to him: "Wait a bit, Monsieur, Myro dedicated something, but I do not in the least see that it was this statue."
"What!" he exclaimed, "was not Myro a famous Greek sculptor? The talent would descend to his family; and one of his descendants made this statue. Nothing can be clearer."
"But," I replied, "I see a little hole in the arm. I fancy it has been used to hold something, perhaps a bracelet, which this Myro gave to Venus as an expiatory offering, for Myro was an unlucky lover. Venus was incensed against him, and he appeased her by consecrating a golden bracelet. You must remember that fecit is often used for consecravit. The terms are synonymous. I could show you more than one instance if I had access to Gruter or, better still, Orellius. It is natural that a lover should behold Venus in his dreams, and that he should imagine that she commanded him to give her statue a golden bracelet. Myro consecrated a bracelet to her.... Then the barbarians, or perhaps some sacrilegious thief—"
"Ah! it is easily seen that you are given to romancing," cried my host, lending his hand to help me down. "No, Monsieur, it is a work after the School of Myro. Only look at the work, and you will agree."
Having made it a rule never to contradict pig-headed antiquarians outright, I bowed my head as though convinced, and said—
"It is a splendid piece of work."
"Ah! my God!" exclaimed M. de Peyrehorade, "here is yet another mark of vandalism! Someone has thrown a stone at my statue!"
He had just seen a white mark a little below the breast of the Venus. I noticed a similar mark on the fingers of the right hand, which at first I supposed had been scraped by the stone in passing, or perhaps a fragment of it might have broken off by the shock and rebounded upon the hand. I told my host the insult that I had witnessed and the prompt punishment which had followed. He laughed heartily, and compared the apprentice to Diomede, wishing he might see all his comrades changed into white birds, as the Greek hero did.
The breakfast bell interrupted this famous interview; and, as on the previous evening, I was forced to eat as much as four people. Then M. de Peyrehorade's tenants came to see him, and, whilst he gave them audience, his son took me to see a carriage which he had bought for his fiancée at Toulouse, and, of course, I admired it properly. After that I went with him to the stables, where he kept me half an hour praising his horses and telling me their pedigrees and the prizes he had won at the country races. At last he spoke of his future bride, by a sudden transition from the grey mare that he intended for her.