And in a
moment she grew sick with fear, for a change came into the tree, and the
tremulousness of life was in it; the rough bark was changed into brutish
flesh and the twisted branches into human arms. It became a monstrous,
goat-legged thing, more vast than the creatures of nightmare. She saw the
horns and the long beard, the great hairy legs with their hoofs, and the
man's rapacious hands. The face was horrible with lust and cruelty, and
yet it was divine. It was Pan, playing on his pipes, and the lecherous
eyes caressed her with a hideous tenderness. But even while she looked,
as the mist of early day, rising, discloses a fair country, the animal
part of that ghoulish creature seemed to fall away, and she saw a lovely
youth, titanic but sublime, leaning against a massive rock. He was more
beautiful than the Adam of Michelangelo who wakes into life at the call
of the Almighty; and, like him freshly created, he had the adorable
languor of one who feels still in his limbs the soft rain on the loose
brown earth. Naked and full of majesty he lay, the outcast son of the
morning; and she dared not look upon his face, for she knew it was
impossible to bear the undying pain that darkened it with ruthless
shadows.
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