"
"Tell me of your lovers, Silencieux."
"Nearly three thousand years ago I loved a woman of Mitylene, very fair
and made of fire. But she loved another more than I, and for his sake
threw herself from a rock into the sea. As she fell, the rose we had
made together fell from her bosom, and was torn to pieces by the sea.
Fishermen gathered here and there a petal floating on the waters,--but
what were they?--and the world has never known how wonderful was that
rose of our love which she took with her into the depths of the sea."
"You are faithful, Silencieux; you love her still."
"Yes, I love her still."
"And with whom did love come next, Silencieux?"
"Oh, I loved many those years, for the loss of a great love sends us
vainly from hand to hand of many lesser loves, to ease a little the
great ache; and at that time the world seemed full of my lovers. I have
forgotten none of them. They pass before me, a fair frieze of
unforgotten faces; but most I loved a Roman poet, because, perhaps, he
loved so well the memory of her I had loved, and knew so skilfully to
make bloom again among his own red roses those petals of passionate
ivory which the fishermen of Lesbos had recovered from the sea.
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