Page:Mashi and Other Stories.djvu/227

Rh purity and peace; a calm beauty like that of the silent places of the dead shimmering in the wan light of the eleventh moon. Would not the mere possibility of remarriage destroy its divine beauty?"

Now this sort of sentimentality always makes me furious. In time of famine, if a well-fed man speaks scornfully of food, and advises a starving man at point of death to glut his hunger on the fragrance of flowers and the song of birds, what are we to think of him? I said with some heat: “Look here, Nabin, to the artist a ruin may be a beautiful object; but houses are built not only for the contemplation of artists, but that people may live therein; so they have to be kept in repair in spite of artistic susceptibilities. It is all very well for you to idealize widowhood from your safe distance, but you should remember that within widowhood there is a sensitive human heart, throbbing with pain and desire."

I had an impression that the conversion of Nabin would be a difficult matter, so perhaps I was more impassioned that I need have been. I was somewhat surprised to find at the conclusion of my little speech that Nabin after a single thoughtful sigh com-