Page:Biagi - The Centaurians.djvu/251

 Distorted in his mind, Love was a grotesque, fantastic bauble, a fabulous folly; yet he claimed Love was not altogether unknown to him; it filled a good space in the history of his ancestors and during childhood, when the nights were long and wintry, he had been greatly diverted with charming, impossible tales of tenderness. He frankly told me my undertaking was most difficult—Love could not be resurrected; the Dead were dead forever.

My tuition was undoubtedly excellent, and possibly I possessed the approved modern methods, but he knew the women of Centauri, and they would tire of the study ere they mastered the rudiments. Only once did he exhibit any warmth or enthusiasm, and were I not positive he was incapable of passion. I would have declared him enamoured with the Priestess of the Sun. Her name accidentally mentioned inspired ecstasy. She was divine, and he worshipped her. But between love and worship there is a universe of difference. His wife presented the inevitable, she was his affinity, his mate, his fate. He was not indifferent, but she was not divine. They led a smooth, even, contented life together, and I am willing to wager he never cursed his idiocy for wedding, nor did she wonder daily what had become of her reason at the critical period. But in this strange, unnatural world, the old Italian adage is worn threadbare—"A woman is beautiful till she crosses the threshold of her husband's home, then she's good all the rest of her days" (translation ruinous).

The artistic, but practical, fisherman had before