One thing, however, puzzled him. Would the subject-matter he was
creating for the future poet be spoilt if he were to fall in love
with an Arab maiden, some little statuette carved in yellow ivory?
Or would it be enhanced? Would the future Virgil regard her as an
assuagement, a balm? Owen laughed at himself and his dream. But his
mood drifted into sadness; and he asked if Evelyn should be
punished. If so, what punishment would the poet devise for her? In
Theocritus somebody had been punished: a cruel one, who had refused
to relieve the burden of desire even with a kiss, had been killed by
a seemingly miraculous interposition of Love, who, angered at the
sight of the unhappy lover hanging from the neck by the lintel of
the doorpost, fell from his pedestal upon the beloved, while
he stood heart-set watching the bathers in the beautiful
bathing-places.
But Owen could not bring himself to wish for Evelyn's death by the
falling of a statue of Our Lady or St. Joseph; such a death would be
a contemptible one, and he could not wish that anything contemptible
should happen to her, however cruelly she had made him suffer. No,
he did not wish that any punishment should befall her; the fault was
not hers.
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