Tina glanced over at the brunette, thinking wistfully to herself, “Bette gave up a lot, her life’s passion for art, to, ultimately, keep faith with all those people, whose family treasures had long ago been snatched from them.  Now those families were enjoying the restorative properties of art, itself, maybe, in a metaphorical sense, because of Bette.  She helped ensure that their family heritage, their art be returned, restored to them.”

She reached over to hold Bette’s hand, entwining her fingers in the brunette’s.  I put her through a lot, my Bette. Everyone has. She’s been through a lot these past two years.  Tears sprang to her eyes.  I am never going to let that kind of hurt touch her again.  Even if it kills me.

Bette continued to reflect on the water fountain show surrounding Apollo in the large pool in front of them, “That sculpture depicts him so powerfully because he has to be shown defeating the forces of evil, and is ascending from the depths of the ocean, arriving here to enlighten the Earth, representing the rising Sun.”

She paused.  Then turned to Tina, voice tinged with a bit of irony, “So in Versailles, all the statues of Apollo, the sun god, represent Louis XIV, the sun king.”

“And all this,” she waved an arm, forming a graceful arc from left to right, “all this magnificence is an ode, in some way, to the sun, and the power of beauty.   Remember how, when we were standing out in front of Apollo,” she turned to Tina, “And also when we were in the estate of Marie-Antoinette over there?  In both areas you whispered to me, “I wonder how it felt like to be queen, looking to the north in front of me, to the east, to my right, to the west, to my left, and then back to my south, to that magnificent chateau; all this splendor at my fingertips, even as it seems to go on and on, ‘til it joins with the horizon?  And meets the rising sun?”

Bette turned to look in front of her again, at Apollo. “There are times when human achievement just takes your breath away, huh T?  When art, life, beauty, just….exists on a certain plane.  And all of that depicted purposefully without strain, existing seemingly without effort.  For us.  For those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand.  So that, centuries after the Sun King, thousands of years after Apollo, we get a sense of it, the depth and breadth of it, of beauty, of love, of art.  So that, on days like today, with the sun out, the water fountains flowing, string music floating all around us, flowers blooming, cool air blowing, millennia later… we are somehow, privileged to…take it, breathe it all in.”  She shut her eyes, and inhaled.