The Stranger at the Wedding by A. E. Gauntlett

Author:A. E. Gauntlett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2024-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

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Once upon a time, or so the story goes, a handsome sculptor named Pygmalion, the finest sculptor in all of Cyprus, despairing of the manner in which love was given so freely and taken so insincerely, turned his back on women for good, vowing, as he did, never to take a bride so long as there was strength in his hands to forge his art. For art is all, he reasoned. It is the thing through which we understand that which we cannot. Sculptures were the only beauty he knew and would ever need to know.

So one day, in his workshop, faced with a block of marble, Pygmalion set to work on carving a woman of unrivalled beauty. For many months, he locked himself away, chiselling here and hammering there, his arms heavy from the labour; and when he was done, as Eos threw open the gates of dawn, he stepped back and wept just to look upon his work – for there, having emerged from the milk-white stone, was the most perfect woman he’d ever seen. Full thighs, delicate lips, hair down to the small of her back and a heart-shaped face that demanded only love. She was not like the other women that Pygmalion had known; she was chaste, she was pure, she was virginal, and through her form and her poise, she managed, effortlessly it seemed, to communicate to him, to anyone who should chance to look upon her, an eternal ideal. She was the woman Pygmalion had believed he would never find. In a fit of madness, in the grip of a swarm of desire, he named the statue Galatea.

Each day he caressed Galatea’s face, dressed her in the finest silks and placed his warm, soft lips to the cold, hard, unyielding stone. He had fallen in love.

Soon came the festival of Aphrodite, at which offerings were made, incense burned and music played in the great goddess’ honour. Pygmalion too was in attendance and made a point of visiting Aphrodite’s temple to atone for the many years in which he had not observed her splendour. At the temple, he fell deep in prayer.

‘You gods,’ he said, ‘you who are capable of all things, I ask for only one: that you grant me a wife, a woman that I can love and who can love me, unconditionally.’

Aphrodite heard Pygmalion’s pleas, and taken with his plight, paid a visit to the young sculptor’s studio set high upon the hill. Upon entering, she saw the object of his desire, understood his need and was amazed to see that the sculpture had been cast in her own image. Charmed and not a little flattered, she set about granting Pygmalion’s wish.

Once the festival of Aphrodite had come to an end, the sculptor returned home and, as was his habit, planted a kiss upon Galatea’s milky lips. But this time, as he did so, as the warmth of his lips met the stone, he felt a warmth radiate back at him. The stone had softened, had grown eyes to see, had found legs to walk and a mouth to speak.

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