Charmides stopped and would go no farther. For here, in a little room
all alone, stood his Hermes with the baby Dionysus. The boy cried out
softly with joy and crept toward the lovely thing. He gently touched the
golden sandal. He gazed into the kind blue eyes and smiled. The marble
was delicately tinted and glowed like warm skin. A frail wreath of
golden leaves lay on the curling hair. Charmides looked up at the tiny
baby and laughed at its coaxing arms.

"Are you smiling at him?" he whispered to Hermes. "Or are you dreaming
of Olympos? Are you carrying him to the nymphs on Mount Nysa?" And then
more softly still he said, "Do not forget Creon, blessed god."

When his father came back he found him still gazing into the quiet face
and smiling tenderly with love of the beautiful thing. As Menon led him
away, he waved a loving farewell to the god.

The most wonderful time was after the sacrifice to Zeus before the great
temple with its deep porches and its marble watchers in the gable.
The altar was a huge pile of ashes. For hundreds of years Greeks had
sacrificed here. The holy ashes had piled up and piled up until they
stood as a hill more than twenty feet high. The people waited around the
foot of it, watching. The priests walked up its side. Men led up the
sleek cattle to be slain for the feast of the gods. And on the very top
a fire leaped toward heaven. Far up in the sky Charmides could half
see the beautiful gods leaning down and smiling upon their worshiping
people.

Then he turned and walked with the crowd under the temple porch and into
the great, dim room. He trembled and grasped his father's hand in awe.
For there in the soft light towered great Zeus. In embroidered robes of