How I remember cleaning that strange picture! I had been deep in duty for my sick neighbour - His besides my own — over several Sundays, Often, too, in the week; so with parish pressures,
Baptisms, burials, doctorings, conjugal counsel - All the whatnots asked of a rural parson - Faith, I was well-nigh broken, should have been fully Saving for one small secret relaxation,
One that in mounting manhood had grown my hobby. This was to delve at whiles for easel-lumber, Stowed in the backmost slums of a soon-reached city, Merely on chance to uncloak some worthy canvas,
Panel, or plaque, blacked blind by uncouth adventure, Yet under all concealing a precious art-feat. Such I had found not yet. My latest capture Came from the rooms of a trader in ancient house-gear
Who had no scent of beauty or soul for brushcraft. Only a tittle cost it — murked with grime-films, Gatherings of slow years, thick-varnished over, Never a feature manifest of man's painting.
So, one Saturday, time ticking hard on midnight Ere an hour subserved, I set me upon it. Long with coiled-up sleeves I cleaned and yet cleaned, Till a first fresh spot, a high light, looked forth,
Then another, like fair flesh, and another; Then a curve, a nostril, and next a finger, Tapering, shapely, significantly pointing slantwise. “Flemish?” I said. “Nay, Spanish... But, nay, Italian!”
- Then meseemed it the guise of the ranker Venus, Named of some Astarte, of some Cotytto. Down I knelt before it and kissed the panel, Drunk with the lure of love's inhibited dreamings.
Till the dawn I rubbed, when there gazed up at me A hag, that had slowly emerged from under my hands there, Pointing the slanted finger towards a bosom Eaten away of a rot from the lusts of a lifetime...
- I could have ended myself in heart-shook horror. Stunned I sat till roused by a clear-voiced bell-chime, Fresh and sweet as the dew-fleece under my luthern. It was the matin service calling to me
From the adjacent steeple.
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