of the vines, and the fruit that bent the branches of
the vines, and the frail winged creatures that swung on
the vines. And if any would buy he might sell such
work, for Jouse was a just and good-natured master.
So to Anfos the boy would go with some object in
which he himself had discerned great beauty — for
now he saw beauty in many a thing that had seemed
in the past unworthy of notice — the young leaf of a
mulberry tree, very green, very neat, and a network
of delicate veining; a sprig of wild lavender plant
from the hills, quiet and retiring but persistently
fragrant; a soft, foolish moth with the eyes of an owl
and wings of the intangible colour of twilight—a moth
rescued by Christophe's careful hands from a fiery-
grave in the lamp above Anfos.
Took, Anfos,5 he would say: cit has down on its
wings — a kind of shining silvery powder!5
Then Anfos would lay down his tool and look, his
doglike eyes full of profound admiration: *Beu Dieu,5
he would murmur, for his words were few, so that
whenever his heart was moved or his childish mind
animated to pleasure, he could only call upon a
beautiful God —but this tribute would seem all-
sufficing to Christophe. Thus it was that these two,
the boy and the half-wit who had knelt to this boy
when he was a baby, that these two were now drawn
very close by a perception which has little to say to
the intellect — the inward and spiritual perception
of beauty.
But at times Christophe needed to be alone, and
would wander off by himself to the hill on the summit
of which stands the ruined fortress. Climbing slowly
with his eyes bent upon the ground, while his head
felt heavy with unanswered problems, he would
finally reach the old citadel, now held by the bright-
eyed garrison of lizards. And sometimes he would
stretch out a quite friendly hand, and would make that
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