The Maze of the Enchanter by Clark Ashton Smith

but her perfection was touched with inenarrable evil. The lines of the mature figure were fraught with a maddening luxuriousness; the eyelids were drooped in a pretended coyness of false virtue; the lips of the full, Circean face were half pouting, half smiling with ambiguous allure. It was the masterpiece of an unknown, decadent sculptor; not the noble, maternal Venus of heroic times, but the sly and cruelly voluptuous Cotytto, the Cytherean of dark orgies, ready for her descent into the Hollow Hill.
    Staring at the fully revealed image, the good monks became forcibly aware of certain unhallowed emotions which they would never have been willing to avow. A sensuous enchantment, an amorous thralldom, seemed to flow from the flesh-pale marble and to weave itself like invisible hair about the hearts of the Brothers. They felt the prompting of forbidden thoughts and reveries, of rebel desires which they had supposedly put away with the assuming of their monkhood.
    With a sudden, mutual feeling of shame, that caused them to avoid each other’s eyes, they began to debate what should be done with the Venus, which, in a monastery garden, was somewhat misplaced, and would become a source of embarrassment. Since their combined efforts would barely have sufficed to elevate the heavy image from the pit, they sent Hughues, as the youngest, to report their find to the abbot and await his decision regarding its disposal. In the meanwhile, Paul and Pierre resumed their garden labors, stealing covert glances at the fair head of the goddess, which was all that they could see in the deep hole at a little distance.

    II
    T he discovery of the Venus was destined to become a cause of much excitement, perturbation, and even dissension amid the quiet Brotherhood at Périgon. Augustin, the abbot, came out in person to inspect the find, accompanied by many monks who were not engaged at that hour in some special task.
    Even the saintly abbot, in spite of his reverend age and rigorous temper, was somewhat discomfited by the peculiar witchery which seemed to emanate from the marble. Sternly he repressed his agitation and gave no sign, other than a deepening of the natural austerity of his demeanor. Curtly he ordered the bringing of ropes, and directed the raising of the Venus from her loamy bed to a standing position on the garden ground beside the hole. In this task, Paul, Pierre and Hughues were assisted by two others.
    After making sure that their lovely burden had been set firmly on her pedestal, the five brothers showed a singular inclination to tarry about the Venus. Many others now pressed forward to examine the figure closely; and several were even prompted to touch it, till rebuked for this unseemly action by their superior, who, if he felt a similar impulse, would not sacrifice his holy dignity by yielding to it.
    Certain of the elder and more severe Benedictines urged the immediate destruction of the image, which, they argued, was a heathen abomination that defiled the abbey garden by its presence, and therefore should not be countenanced. Others, moved by the evil beauty of the Venus in a manner impossible for them to admit, pleaded furtively and shamefacedly for her preservation. Still others, the most practical, pointed out that the Venus, being a rare and beautiful example of Roman sculpture, might well be sold at a goodly price to some rich and impious art-lover.
    Augustin, though he felt that the Venus should be indubitably destroyed as an impure pagan idol, was filled with a queer and unaccountable hesitation which led him to defer the necessary orders for her demolishment. It was as if the subtly wanton loveliness of the marble were pleading for clemency like a living form, with a voice half-human, half-divine. Averting his eyes from the white bosom, he spoke harshly, bidding the Brothers to return to their labors and devotions, and saying that the Venus could remain in the garden till arrangements were made for her ultimate