“Lara, Maria, hear me!” I cried.  “It is no dream.  You have heard my voice at Paestum.  You know it again!  I feel it.  I love you; I have always loved you!”

“I have loved you, too,” she said, kneeling by my side and seizing my hand.  “I have loved you from the day when the sun burnt your kiss into my forehead—­loved you with the intuition of the blind!”

I then learnt that Maria—­my Lara—­had been cured of her blindness by a great specialist in Naples, the podesta’s brother, who, touched by her beauty and purity, had her educated, and adopted her as his own child.  On his death his sister took her to Venice, where she found a new home in the podesta’s palace.

* * * * *

APULEIUS

The Golden Ass

Apuleius was born about 125 A.D., at Madaura, in Africa.  After studying at Athens, he practised as an advocate at Rome, and then wandered about Northern Africa, lecturing on philosophy and rhetoric.  At Tripoli he was charged with having won by witchcraft the love of a rich widow who had left him her wealth.  But he was acquitted after delivering an interesting defence, included among his extant works.  He then settled in Carthage, where he died at an advanced age.  Poor Apuleius!  His good fame was darkened by the success of an amusing romance, “The Golden Ass,” which he wrote, by way of recreation, at Rome.  He related the story of the adventures which befell a young Greek nobleman who, by an extreme curiosity in regard to witchcraft, got changed into a donkey.  It was an age of wild superstition and foolish credulity; and his readers confused the author of “The Golden Ass” with the hero of it.  Apuleius was credited with a series of impossible exploits, which he had not even invented.  For his work is merely a Latin adaptation of a lost Greek romance by Lucius of Patras.  But Apuleius deserves our gratitude for preserving a unique specimen of the lighter literature of the ancient Greeks, together with the beautiful folk-tale of Cupid and Psyche.

I.—­Lucius Sets Out on His Wonderful Adventures

I set out from Corinth in a fever of excitement and expectation, riding my horse so hard that it fell lame; so I had to do the remainder of the journey on foot.  My heart was filled with joy and terror as I entered the town of Hypata.

“Here I am, at last,” I cried, “in Thessaly!  Thessaly, the land of magic and witchcraft, famous through the world for its marvels and enchantments!”

Carried away by my desire after strange and mystic knowledge, I gazed around with wonder and disquietude.  Nothing in this marvellous city, I thought to myself, is really what it seems to be.  The stones I stumbled over appeared to be living creatures petrified by magic.  I fancied that the trees in the gardens and the birds that sang in their branches were men that had been transformed by Thessalian witches.  The very statues seemed as if they were about to walk; every wall had ears; and I looked up into the blue, cloudless sky, expecting to hear oracles.