The monk Francis said: "Ah," and then he brought out the words: "Father in God, I too have seen her--and twice. When I thought of the Young Lovell."
Then the Bishop groaned lamentably; three times and very swiftly he walked from end to end of the cell, holding his hands above his head. Then he ran upon a shelf and with a furious haste pulled out a large book bound in white skin. He threw it open upon his bed and bade the monk come look at a picture.
This picture was all in fair blues and reds and greens, going across the two pages of the book.
"I had this book in Rome," the Bishop said, "of a Greek called Josephus. Look upon this picture."
The picture showed a mountain with trees upon it. And round the mountain went a colonnade of marble pillars. In between the central columns, where it was higher, sat a grey-bearded and frowning man. Naked he was to the waist and he was upon a throne of gold. At his left hand was an eagle; in his right the forked lightning of a thunderbolt. Beside him stood a proud woman in purple with a diadem of gold. In the next temple was a helmed woman that leaned upon a great spear; next her, a man all furious, that held up a great round shield and a pointed sword. Over against him reclined a great man with a lion's hide who leant upon a club; beyond him a man all white with the sun in his hair and beyond that a youth with wings upon his feet, upon his cap and upon a rod, twined with snakes that he held. All these were in the temple, and many more, such as a woman in a chariot drawn by oxen, and an old crowned man rising from the blue waves of the sea.
Then the Bishop laid his trembling imperious fingers upon a place higher up the mountain, above the temple.
"Look upon this," he said. There, amongst olive trees, the monk perceived a pink, naked woman. In one hand she held a mirror into which, lasciviously, she smiled. Her other hand held out behind her a wealth of shining hair like gold. Above her, clouds upon the blue sky turned over and let down a rain of pink roseleaves.
"I do not know who these be," the monk Francis said. "I was never in Rome."
"Not so," the monk answered, "she had dark hair divided down the middle and parted lips. She was like the cousin that I slew and so she smiled."