XXV
Had
you forgotten that there are those who deliberately set out upon a quest for
beauty? It does seem so impractical. Yet there you are, three women gather
together like drops of dew on a single leaf, gathered together in Mrs.
Arbollini’s garden filled with the colors and fragrances of nature, so gentle,
so full of refreshing life. Three women in a garden, each a creator, giver, and
servant, gathered together at the center of the world. And there, near the
garden’s edge in the misty morning light, sits the ghost of Pierre-August
Renoir, his legs crippled by time. He drinks from the ocean tinted air and is
refreshed. He no longer paints, and even regrets a little that this moment will
soon dissolve into the flowing eternity that he feels sweeping about him like a
winter wind, or perhaps a summer breeze. It is difficult to tell. No matter. He
thinks. “Again I have stolen the moment before it past unnoticed.” But eternity
does not resent the theft. I think she is even a little grateful.
