Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales by Richard Garnett
page 22 of 312 (07%)


IV


The heaven to which Prometheus and Elenko had ascended was situated in a
sequestered valley of Laconia. A single winding path led into the glen,
which was inhabited only by a few hunters and shepherds, who still observed
the rites of the ancient faith; and sometimes, deeming but to show kindness
to a mortal, refreshed or sheltered a forlorn and hungry Deity. Saving at
the entrance the vale was walled round by steep cliffs, for the most part
waving with trees, but here and there revealing the naked crag. It was
traversed by a silvery stream, in its windings enclosing Prometheus's and
Elenko's cottage, almost as in an island. The cot, buried in laurel and
myrtle, had a garden where fig and mulberry, grape and almond, ripened in
their season. A few goats browsed on the long grass, and yielded their milk
to the household. Bread and wine, and flesh when needed, were easily
procured from the neighbours. Beyond necessary furniture, the cottage
contained little but precious scrolls, obtained by Elenko from Athens and
the newly founded city of Constantine. In these, under her guidance,
Prometheus read of matters that never, while he dwelt on Olympus, entered
the imagination of any God.

It is a chief happiness of lovers that each possesses treasures wholly
their own, which they may yet make fully the possession of the other. These
treasures are of divers kinds, beauty, affection, memory, hope. But never
were such treasures of knowledge shared between lovers as between
Prometheus and Elenko. Each possessed immeasurable stores, hitherto
inaccessible to the other. How trifling seemed the mythical lore which
Elenko had gleaned as the minister of Phoebus to that now imparted by
DigitalOcean Referral Badge