One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances

ing walls in order to come to her, and, through the vague souvenirs of the night before, her dreams appeared fairly riddled with arrows bearing declarations of love. Starting nervo

y points of light, and thence came familiarly to the bed, flitting like a golden butterfly over her lovely shoulders

and the claws of gold. Charmion wrapped her in calasiris of linen whiter than milk, confined her hair in a net of woven silver threads, tied to her little feet cork tatbebs upon the soles of which were painted, in token of contempt, t

th. Cleopatra went to bath

owers, and the plants they contained seemed only their pistils; chimeras caressed into form by the chisels of the most skilful Greek sculptors, and less stern of aspect than the Egyptian sphinxes, with their grim mien and moody attitudes, softly extended their limbs upon the flower-strewn turf, like shapely white leverettes upon a drawing-room carpet. These were charming feminine figures, with finely chiselled nostrils, smooth brows, small mouths, delicately dimpled arms, breasts fair-rou

2] spurted from their breasts slender jets of perfumed water, which fell into the basin in silvery dew, pitting the clear watery mirror with wrinkle-creating drops. In addition to this task these Caryatides had likewise that of supporting upon their heads an entablature decorated with Nereids and Tritons in bas-relief, and

and cold vapors, perfume boxes, cosmetics, oils, pumice stone, gloves of woven horsehair, and all

ited by one faultless line with a straight nose, finely chiselled as a cameo, with rosy nostrils which the least emotion made palpitate like the nostrils of an amorous tigress; the lips of her small, rounded mouth, slightly separated from the nose, wore a disdainful curve; but an unbridled voluptuousness, an indescribable vital warmth, glowed in the brilliant crimson and humid lustre of the under lip. Her eyes were shaded by l

e a goddess about to leave her pedestal, whose eyes still linger on heaven. Her robe fell in two superb folds from the peaks of her bosom to her fee

o be crowned with reeds and lotos-flowers, like a water divinity. Charmion obeyed, and her liberated hair fell

lden clasp, glided down over her marble body, and fell in a

oun, wher

ses beautiful lips with kisses which it is unable to appreciate; the water which envelops an adorably beautiful body in one universal kiss, and is yet, notwithstanding,

of hair, lifted by the water, extended behind her like a royal mantle; even in the bath she was a queen. She swam to and fro, dived, and brought up handfuls of gold-dust with which she laughingly pelted some of her women. Again, she clung suspended

Act?on. She had seen gleaming through the neighboring foliage a b

ding the queen in her bath. Though brave even to temerity, the cry of Cleopatra passed through his heart, coldly piercing as the blade of a sword. A death-like sweat

s out of the question. He attempted none, and suffered himself to be captured. They prepared to kill him with that cruel and stupid impassibility character

es and stretch forth suppliant hands

ou entered these sacred precincts from which all men are excluded

of the Sun and goddess of Truth, punish me if I have ever entertained a tho

arent that Cleopatra immediately banished her suspicions, and looked upon the y

ted you to enter a place where you

oice; for his courage had returned, as in every desperat

ery foolhardy wretch!... I now recognize you. I long observed you wandering like a complaining Shade about the places where I dwell.... You were at the Procession of Isis, at the Panegyris of Hermon

ly, "do not rail. I am mad, it is true. I have deserved

m to be clement to-day. I

at I should do wit

happen. I will transform your dream into a reality. It pleases me, for once, to secure the accomplishment of a mad hope. I am willing to inundate you with glories and splendors and lightnings. I intend that your good fortune shall be dazzling in its brilliancy. You were at the bottom of the ladder. I am about to lift you to the summit, abruptly, suddenly, without a transition. I take you out of nothingness, I make you the equal of a god, and I plunge you back again into nothingness; that i

are, to trample under foot: therefore, the epithet li

h figures Herm? or Termini. Caryatides were,