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The Venus of Milo and the Winding Road
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (August 21, 1909) : 29
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      That poor Venus of Milo! She has no redress and her case is a very distressing. Inspection may throw an entirely new light on the question how the great beauty lost her arms. Picture her standing in the Louvre year after year unable to move or in any way express her boredom, and without as much as being able to shift to the other leg, just letting the men from the four corners of the globe approach, stand about growing momentarily more inflated, and each thinking to himself, “Ah, there is a woman who could have understood me!” She hears them ’way up in the salon carré gradually making their way toward her; no matter how slowly the shuffling caravans move, they are all bent toward her; no one leaves the building without standing open-mouthed before her; she knows it has to be, and she stands up like a soldier, bearing the adoration unflinchingly. They come and group themselves about, the women faintly irritated, the men soulful and soaring. The women are put out by the creature’s having gone so far; they are not in sympathy with such extremes of beauty; it only makes those who follow after uncomfortable. On consideration they condemn the raising of standards to such a height as a shade ill-bred , and turn their backs on Venus, viciously vain of their small waists. She does not in the least mind this, she rather enjoys her little parries with the women, and good-naturedly admires any minor points of beauty they may possess. They entertain her, the feminine, plain little dears, and it is only when she reflects on the men that she is sad — these men who adore her. That is the one quality they have in common: except for that they differ each from the other, but each informs her that she is the one woman who could have met him on equal ground. “Yes,” they say and their mustachios curl — “we would have made a grand pair, you and I.” And that good, patient Venus never says a word. She lets them suppose that she would have been enthralled by their bookkeeping or poster-making and would have proudly promenaded every Sunday afternoon with them except for an unfortunate stiffness in her legs. They go away content, knowing that they have found their true mate and gloomily upheld by the tragedy of her marble heart. It is not her fault, poor goddess, that she is so chill. They have not a doubt that things would be very different if she had her way and could express what she felt. Such a state of affairs is all very well for the men; they get a vast amount of satisfaction out of it; but what — and here let us give the sympathy that is due — what must it be for Venus? Proposals, declarations, one on top of the other, sometimes three and four at a time, coming in all directions, from the view-points the speakers prefer, and not so much as an “O Lud!” permitted her. No wonder her hair has turned white. The world feels for her keenly. Big, little, short, fat, scientists, plumbers, and singers, all sighing deeply, and she unable to make a single distinction between the lot of them. Never an hour when she can keep some and dismiss others! Big, little, short, fat, scientists, plumbers, and singers, all sighing deeply, and she unable to make a single distinction between the lot of them. Never an hour when she can keep some and dismiss others! Obliged to let them go on their way interpreting her silence as they choose! The strain must be enormous, and that brings us solicitously to the matter of her arms. A suspicion makes itself felt that perhaps, once upon a time, her temper gave way. Perhaps, ages ago — and the mention of ages is no discourtesy to a beauty so marvellously preserved — when she stood as she stands now on high for all the world to see, with her perfectly modelled arms intact, she looked down at the buzzing masculine humans who even then stood at her feet, and she could not stand the situation another minute. She clapped her hands furiously, she waved her arms about frantically, she made the most unseemly exhibition of impatience, calling out : “Go away from here. I won’t look at any of you, not for a moment. You clutter up my pedestal, and people can’t half see me. Have you never heard of Tannhäuser? Did the name of Venusberg never strike on your ear. Do you suppose I would have let any of you in if you had come? Get out of my sight, you trundle-bed trash! I’m Venus, I tell you, and I have ideas of my own.” Of course, after such goings-on radical measures were resorted to. Providence, Juno, Eve, and all the other ladies who look after such matters, came rushing to the spot in a flurry of concern. Venus was made to understand in very short time that she had been intrusted with the task of maintaining a standard of beauty in an increasingly careless world, If she mutinied, she must be punished. Her offence was serious, and — but let us hurry over harrowing details. She is as we see her, and it only remains to beg that she be not again driven to an outburst. Men must mind their manners where goddesses are concerned. It would be a pity to have her any more fragmentary than she is.

      A long road winding over a bridge. Two great watch-towers straddling a thoroughfare, which, refusing to stay within bounds, spreads into a network of tumbled streets lined with decorous white cottages ranged shoulder to shoulder, sunk in a perpetual courtesy to the buttressed church on the hill. A beamed house sheltering les religieuses, whose white coifs cluster over their barley-sugar industry. The rude beasts carved on the exterior open weather-beaten jaws of dismay at encroaching modernity. Down the street a sabotted old woman with ear-rings and handkerchief-bound head urges on a lumbering cow. She turns into the wider thoroughfare and stops an impatiently creeping motor. The occupants are forced to hear the brawl of the mountebank who, between rolls on his drum, cries the talents of his artists and recommends attendance at his evening performance. The turmoil quiets and traffic moves lazily on to the bridge. Below, a line of washerwomen with clattering tongues kneel on the bank, the clapping of their stones setting the key for shrill gossip. Below, a line of washerwomen with clattering tongues kneel on the bank, the clapping of their stones setting the key for shrill gossip. A mill divides the river, its deep drone adding to the thrifty quiet of the town. Up-stream are willows, serious French fishermen, and gardens coming to the water’s edge. The current swirls in oily circles, the rushes bend under it until at their upward spring they resemble the feelers of great submerged beetles reaching for the light. The water slips over lank grass and in the gardens’ hollyhocks bloom with old-fashioned precision, while bees make a methodical round of the flowers. A stone’s-throw away the children of the canal-men play alongside their moving homes. Poplars line the waterway, and about the lock there is a hubbub of passing barges. The women knit with an elbow against the tiller, and a foot pushing a creeping baby away from the gunwale. Along the tow-path their husbands crack whips at the legs of the tugging mules and a painted Parisian berates them because no fish bite at her line. A cur barks from the stern with the audacity of one who is moving on, and a flower-pot on the poorer boats takes the place of gay paint on the more prosperous craft. The road crosses the canal, the narrow bridge lined with chaffing, ragged boys. On it goes past the field where the gypsies are, their wagons making slums of a poppy-field, the ominous-eyed women hanging out bright calico garments, the naked babies legion, the horses tethered, the chickens looking decently embarrassed at the vagrancy thrust upon them. After a while the soldiers, like dots of red, move along it, and the road and they disappear together. Then the road whitens and spreads out free of the taint of the town. It shakes off the last cottage and starts up the hill. From a lane comes a detachment of soldiers. They flash in the sun and gallop up the hill after the road. It reaches the top first and is lost to view, except faintly, quite faintly, where it trails itself around another hill away off toward the horizon. After a while the soldiers, like dots of red, move along it, and the road and they disappear together.
 

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