ess could have lived
apart from the world for a few centuries. From out it steps our dear
Venus of Milo in proper person, leading by the hand a half-grown boy,
who is no less a person than the little Amor. They are both but
scantily clad, and gaze around with wondering eyes upon a world that
has greatly changed since last they saw it. A city lies before them,
with battlements and towers of strange shape standing out against the
sky. Horsemen and pedestrians are coming out of the gate, dressed in
bright-colored garments of a peculiar cut, which were nowhere in
fashion in the world when the old gods were worshiped. The sky is
clouded over, and a drizzling rain is gently falling, which forces the
lady and her little boy to seek another place of refuge, since they can
no longer find their way back to their old retreat. Yet they lack the
courage to enter the town, with its swarming mass of human beings. But
in the mountain over across the valley stands a high stone building,
from which a tower, with a beautiful chime of bells, seems to ring out
over the land an invitation for all men to draw near. It is true, this
cannot be expressed in the sketch, but then the cloister over on the
hill must have something homelike about it, so that everybody will
understand why the fugitives, standing below in the rain, under shelter
of a laurel bush, are gazing up at it with longing eyes. And now,
when the sun breaks forth again, they muster up their courage and knock
at the cloister gate. The nuns rush out at the cry their sister
gate-keeper utters when she sees this queenly woman, with the
black-eyed child of the gods, standing on the threshold, both half
naked, and with their blonde hair falling about their shoulders. Then,
too, as is natural, the nun understands no Greek, which would have
enabled her to interpret the stranger's request for hospitality; nor
can the abbess herself make out anything more as to the strangers'
origin and character. But of one thing she is certain--this is not a
strolling beggar of the usual sort. Thus, in the third picture, we see
Madame Venus sitting in the refectory seeking to still her hunger; but
the food is too coarse for her, and she tastes nothing but the cloister
wine. They offer her a coarse, woolen nun's-dress, which, however, she
scorns to wear. The only other dress they have on hand is the thin gown
belonging to a beggar who died in the cloister a short time before.
This she consents to put on; a