Summary:
Because a Greek goddess appears, you’d think the
result would be humdrum. It isn’t. A man finds her on the street corner, takes
her home and recognizes her as a goddess, feeling her transcendence in
her touch. He treats with delicacy and brings color to her cheeks with
liquor—liquor he won’t touch since she touched it.
Commentary with Spoilers:
St. Clair holds off on the revelation of which goddess she
is until the ending. This is something of a cheat if he’s known all along, but
maybe she thought it might cheapen the theme had the reader known in advance
that the mystery goddess is Aphrodite. His love for [worship of?] her leads to
him spend all he has and sell his blood to keep her in expensive brandy he
cannot afford. She rewards him with the gift of love, promising that women fall
for him. He goes out and returns with amorous tales of his supposed conquests
to please her of her power, but she still wanes, less and less substantial. She
feigns the creation of flowers below his window and [he thinks?] he sees a
single pink flower. He claims to see a whole street of them. She disappears.
Is
this story about gods? or about love? Possibly both. He despairs at her
disappearance, worried who will take care of him, when plainly he was taking
care of her. But in a psychological sense she had been taking care of him
although the irony of his feeling remains palpable—simultaneously both true and
untrue. My one complaint would be--if she is disappearing due to lack of believers--how did she live this long? If her meeting this gentleman makes him a strong adherent (and she's gone this long without adherents), why would she disappear now?
Not a classic in terms of speculation, but a thought-provoking keeper
to file among her best. Contrast this to her most famous tale, “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” (my first, briefer response to the story) which is the inverse: speculatively rich but not
nearly so thought provoking.
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