DOI Artikel:
Cross, Victoria: Theodora: a fragment
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0183
By Victoria Cross
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our hands. I knew it and so did she. Theodora herseif would
have been the first to admit it. But ncvertheless the words were
ethically true. True in the sense that underlay the society com-
pliment, for no beauty of the dead can compare with that of the
living. Such are we, that as we love all objects in their relation
to our own pleasure from them, so even in our admiration, the
greatest beauty, when absolutely useless to us, cannot move us as
a far lesser degree has power to do, from which it is possible to
hope, however vaguely, for some personal gratification. And to
this my words would come if translated. And I think Theodora
understood the translation rather than the conventional form of
them, for she did not take the trouble to deprecate the flattery.
I got up, and, to change the subject, said, u Let me wheel up
that little table of idols. Some of them are rather curious.”
I moved the tripod up to the arm of her chair.
Theodora closed the sketch-book and put it beside her, and
looked over the miniature bronze gods with interest. Then she
stretched out her arm to lift and move several of them, and her
soft fingers seemed to lie caressmgly—as they did on everything
they touched —on the heads and shoulders of the images. I
watched her, envying those senseless little blocks of brass.
“ This is the Hindu equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite,” I said,
lifting forward a small, unutterably hideous, squat female figure?
with the face of a monkey, and two closed wings of a dragon on
its shoulders.
“Oh, Venus,” said Theodora. “ We must certainly crown
her amongst them, though hardly, I think, in this particular case,
for her beauty ! ”
And she laughingly slipped offi a diamond half-hoop from her
middle finger, and slipped the ring on to the model’s head. It
fitted exactly round the repulsive brows of the deformed and
stunted
l79
our hands. I knew it and so did she. Theodora herseif would
have been the first to admit it. But ncvertheless the words were
ethically true. True in the sense that underlay the society com-
pliment, for no beauty of the dead can compare with that of the
living. Such are we, that as we love all objects in their relation
to our own pleasure from them, so even in our admiration, the
greatest beauty, when absolutely useless to us, cannot move us as
a far lesser degree has power to do, from which it is possible to
hope, however vaguely, for some personal gratification. And to
this my words would come if translated. And I think Theodora
understood the translation rather than the conventional form of
them, for she did not take the trouble to deprecate the flattery.
I got up, and, to change the subject, said, u Let me wheel up
that little table of idols. Some of them are rather curious.”
I moved the tripod up to the arm of her chair.
Theodora closed the sketch-book and put it beside her, and
looked over the miniature bronze gods with interest. Then she
stretched out her arm to lift and move several of them, and her
soft fingers seemed to lie caressmgly—as they did on everything
they touched —on the heads and shoulders of the images. I
watched her, envying those senseless little blocks of brass.
“ This is the Hindu equivalent of the Greek Aphrodite,” I said,
lifting forward a small, unutterably hideous, squat female figure?
with the face of a monkey, and two closed wings of a dragon on
its shoulders.
“Oh, Venus,” said Theodora. “ We must certainly crown
her amongst them, though hardly, I think, in this particular case,
for her beauty ! ”
And she laughingly slipped offi a diamond half-hoop from her
middle finger, and slipped the ring on to the model’s head. It
fitted exactly round the repulsive brows of the deformed and
stunted