（外文电子版资料）The.Disinterment.of.Venus.docVIP

The Disinterment of Venus Clark Ashton Smith Prior to certain highly deplorable and scandalous events in the year 1550, the vegetable garden of Perigon was situated on the southeast side of the abbey. After these events, it was removed to the northwest side, where it has remained ever since; and the former garden-site was given to weeds and briars which, by strict order of the successive abbots, no one has ever tried to eradicate or curb. The happenings which compelled this removal of the Benedictines turnip and carrot patches became a popular tale in Averoigne. It is hard to say how much or how little of the legend is apocryphal. One April morning, three monks were spading lustily in the garden. Their names were Paul, Pierre and Hughes. The first was a man of ripe years, hale and robust; the second was in his early prime; the third was little more than a boy, and had but recently taken his final vows. Being moved with an especial ardour, in which the vernal stirring of youthful sap may have played its part, Hughes proceeded to dig the loamy soil even more diligently than his comrades. The ground was almost free of stones, owing to the careful tillage of many generations of monks; but anon, through the muscular zeal with which it was wielded, the spade of Hughes encountered a hard and well-buried object of indeterminate size. Hughes felt that this obstruction, which in all likelihood was a small boulder, should be removed for the honour of the monastery and the glory of God. Bending busily, he shovelled away the moist, blackish loam in an effort to uncover it. The task was more arduous than he had expected; and the supposed boulder began to reveal an amazing length and a quite singular formation as he bared it by degrees. Leaving their own toil, Pierre and Paul came to his assistance. Soon, through the zealous endeavours of the three, the nature of the buried object became all too manifest. In the large pit they had now dug, the monks beheld the grimy head and