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Roxanna sped from the garden, her hands as white as cream and her cheeks flushed with feeling. She had resisted The Stable Boy. She had seen through his clothes, seen through the glistening musculature, seen through the radiant curls, seen through to the very center, to the black void that gaped and groaned in place of a red beating heart. She knew that she had passed a spiritual test, but she also knew that she was not completely unshaken. Even with the righteousness of the Lord coursing through her blood, with all her health and strength, her legs still quivered slightly as she ran.

Slowly, as though led by a will stronger than her own, Roxanna found herself drawn away from the Florentine villa into the trees and toward the river. It was late afternoon, and the summer air had begun to turn to the evening’s coolness. The sun’s slanting rays caused the leaves and the white bark of the birches to shine. The Stable’s Boy’s spade, plunging horribly—endlessly!—into the fertile earth, was now inaudible. Roxanna, praying softly to herself, came over the top of a small hill and saw the river.

No, not the river, although it was there. What she saw was a pale lump of flesh perched horribly astride a thick branch which reached over the river. She had seen the man before, she knew the blotchy complexion of his torso. It was Frederick. He was naked, weeping, singing, and frenetically stripping bark from the branch in little strips. They fell into the stream and floated gently away, heedless of Frederick’s wracking sobs.

Roxanna barely managed to keep silent, so great was the urge to cry out in horror and pity. She threw herself back over the edge of the hill, and, burying her face in the folds of her dress, wept for some minutes.

A feeling began to rise from her stomach. He was responsible for this, she knew. The Stable Boy, in all his malicious depravity, had been arranging her master’s downfall. Roxanna had seen The Stable Boy up close, and who else could have reduced Frederick—an artist! and a Christian!—to such a state. She peeked over the edge of the hill. Frederick was still on the branch, his limbs reaching weakly for the water.

Roxanna knew what Frederick needed. He needed something—no! someone—to turn him back toward the good, to the kind and loving bosom of the Lord, that warm home for which all the Lord’s creatures strive, whether consciously or no.

Her task, in all its fullness and challenge, presented itself to her. It was exactly that which doctrine forbade of her, but what doctrine had been prepared in anticipation of The Stable Boy’s time on Earth? What prophet could have imagined such a mixing of beauty and brutality?

Roxanna would give herself to Frederick. He was versifying aloud and completely without sense—”Young men will do’t if they come to’t. By Cock, they are to blame!”—there was no time. It would have to be now. Her thoughts dissolved as she rose from the ground. She heard song wafting through the trees and did not know whether to attribute the music to passing monks or her own fevered head. She would turn back–No! It would be now ... but how could she even–when all at once Frederick threw himself from the branch and hit the water with a slap.

“Frederick! My mountain flower!” Roxanna shrieked. She ran down the hill and dove in after him.

Roxanna could still hear the melancholy last notes of “hey nonny, hey nonny,” lingering in the mist when the cold water closed around her. She had seen Frederick’s pale tear-stained face sink beneath the billowing waves and went in search of him. She realized, too late, as the bottom disappeared from beneath her feet, that she did not know how to swim. But, as she looked up to the bright glimmer of the setting sun, she continued to walk on as though her feet were buoyed up by the water.

The river, it must be admitted, was somewhat shallow. Nonetheless, Frederick seemed to be managing to drown.

So as the sun sparkled with full force upon the surface of the water, Roxanna dove down and her hands found Frederick of their own volition and she pulled him up.

His face was even waxier and paler than it usually was, but she had been in time. He coughed weakly, a spout of water dribbling down his flaccid chin, and looked at her, with a new wonder in his eyes.

“You raised me up,” he said, feebly.

“Yes,” she said. The water streamed from her golden hair like diamonds. Her white clothes were now transparent and clinging transparently to her buxom form.

“The Stable Boy! He—he—” Frederick could not go on.

Roxanna delicately reached out her hand and lifted Frederick’s chin.

“Let me help you,” she whispered.

Frederick looked at her woefully. “No one can help me,” he groaned. “Even you, my angelic child.”

With a single gesture, Roxanna pulled open the front of her dress, baring her prodigious bosom to the air. Frederick gulped. The housemaid reached out and brought Frederick’s hands to rest above her heart. “I know I am not worthy,” she told him, her bosom heaving with emotion. Frederick’s eyes turned glassy; he looked a little seasick. “But it’s not too late,” she said. “Believe me.”

The rest of her dress slid off her soaking body and floated away downriver in a swirl of virgin white.

Frederick’s pasty lips parted and she saw the realization, the new pride and dignity spring to the eyes that had hitherto been so empty. With a sob he flung himself wholeheartedly against her.

“You raise me up,” wept Frederick. “You raise me up!”

He certainly was raised up, Roxanna realized, her eyes going wide. She had no idea what to do next.

The bright glow on the river seemed to expand into a white light around them. The mist enveloped them, warm and caressing and intimate, yet ethereal. Frederick was sobbing and trembling against her, muttering snatches of poetry. Roxanna closed her eyes, searching for inspiration. She felt as if they were in the eye of a heavenly hurricane, against which they were helpless and powerless and pliant.

Gently, she sunk to her knees in the burbling water, drawing Frederick down with her. “Let me wash you clean,” she told him. She started rubbing his hairless chest worshipfully. Frederick allowed the housemaid to take him into her arms. She held him, stroking his body as if he were an enormous child. Frederick whimpered and cooed.

“Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth,” he moaned at last and Roxanna bent down and pressed her lips innocently against those of her employer.

“You are saved,” she murmured. “He cannot touch you any more.”

She felt Frederick’s tongue swim into her mouth like a fish, and for the first time she felt a slow uncoiling of pleasure in the untouched recesses of her being.

Frederick pulled back at last and looked at her with wonder.

“Honey and milk are under thy tongue!” he gasped. “And your breasts are like—like—sweet honeydew, those two most perfect melons!”

Roxanna blushed and cast down her gaze modestly. She had no idea what he was talking about. But as she gazed up at him through her eyelashes, the rays of the sun streaming behind her so Frederick blinked at the radiance. Wordlessly, she reached out her arms.

“O, my America!” Frederick gasped, his voice soft with longing. “My New-Found-Land!”

Roxanna guided him toward her. Frederick hesitated. She was so pure, so good. But Roxanna’s hands were insistent. “Frederick,” she whispered. “I am your temple.”

Her rosebud lips opened in a wordless gasp as she drew him against her. Frederick shuddered with the ecstasy of liberation. As their bodies intertwined in clumsy euphoria, they fell backward and splashed into the river. A hosanna of bubbles rose around them.

On and on the angelic voices sang, on and on the mist and water around them churned. Their bodies moved languorously together in the water, and all around the sun sparkled and there was the smell of honeysuckle. As they drifted downstream, past banks of wild roses whose branches reached out of the water, showers of rose petals fell about them and settled crown-like in Roxanna’s golden hair. In the gentle arms of the housemaid, Frederick experienced release after release. “I am free!” he kept crying out, with each shuddering jouissance. Roxanna cried out with him in unison, and the sound of their two voices was like the sound of wild birds winging out over the open sea.