The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5

ids silently withdrew one by one, like the figures painted on frescoes. When the last had gone, the favourite

lease? Your palace is splendid, your gardens vast and watered by transparent streams, your coffers of enamelled ware and sycamore wood are filled with necklaces, pectorals, neck-plates, anklets, finely wrought seal-rings. Your gowns, your calasiris, your head-dresses are greater in number than the days of th

answered

akes the rich as poor, in his gilded, brightly painted palace, in the midst of his heaps of grain, of perfumes and precious things, as the most wretched workman o

id with a look of im

lapis-lazuli, agates, and hematite, and he carries out the wished-for design. It is the same way with gowns, cars, perfumes, flowers, and musical instruments. From Phil? to

ty head and seemed annoyed at her

four months since the Pharaoh left on his expedition to Upper Ethiopia, and that the handsome o?ris (general), who never passed under the t

a faint, rosy flush spread over her cheeks, she bowed her head, an

he had guessed rig

h is awakening from its midday torpor? List! The wheels of the cars sound upon the stone slabs of the streets, and already the people are hurrying in compact bodies to the river bank, to cross it and reach the parade ground. Throw off your la

ut I do not love him

an; his slightly aquiline nose, his brilliant black eyes lengthened with antimony, his polished cheeks, smooth as Oriental alabaster, his well-shaped lips, his tall, handsome figure, his broad chest, his narrow hips, his strong arms on which, however, no muscle stood out in coarse relief, were all that were needed to seduce the most difficult to please; but Tahoser d

gems, put on her cheeks a green powder which immediately turned rose-colour as it touched the skin, polished her nails with a cosmetic, and adjusted the somewhat rumpled folds of her calasiris like a zealous maid

hand resting on Nofré's shoulder, and preceded by her servants, walked down to the water-gate through the arbour, the broad leaves of which, softening the rays of the

k as basalt gods, their arms bound round with broad ivory rings, their ears adorned with barbaric ornaments; bronzed Ethiopians, fierce-eyed, uneasy, and restless in the midst of this civilisation, like wild beasts in the glare of day; Asiatics with their pale-yellow complexion and their blue eyes, their beard curled in spirals, wearing a tiara fastened by a band, and draped in heavily embroidered, fringed robes; Pelasgi, dressed in wild beasts' skins fastened on the shoulder, showing their curiously tattooed legs and arms, wearing feathers in their hair, with two long love-locks hanging down. Through the multitude gravely marched shaven-headed priests with a panther's-skin twisted around their body in such a way that the head of the animal formed a sort of belt-buckle, byblos shoes on their feet, in th

th plumed headgear; ox chariots moving slowly along and bearing a whole family. Scarcely did the crowd, careless of being run over,

h raised poop and prow and richly painted and gilded cabin to the light papyrus skiff,-everything had been called into use. Even the boats used to ferry cattle and to carry freight, and the reed rafts kept up by skins, which

ing bridge to facilitate embarking and disembarking. The number of these was very great. The horses, terrified, neighed and stamped with their sounding hoofs; the oxen turned restlessly towards the shore their shining noses whence hung filaments of saliva, but grew calmer under the caresses of their drivers. The boatswains marked time for the rowers by striking together the palms of their hands; the pilots, perched on the poop or walking about on the raised cabins, shouted their orders, indicating the manoeuvres necessary to make way through the moving labyrinth of vessels. Som

d roof stood on the poop, and was matched at the other end by a sort of altar enriched with paintings. The rudder consisted of two huge sweeps, ending in heads of Hathor, that were fastened with long strips of stuff and worked upon hollow posts. On the mast

l that their vessel seemed endowed with life, so swiftly did it obey the rudder and avoid in the nick of time serious obstacles. Soon it had left behind the heavily laden boats with their cabins filled with passengers inside, and on the roof three or four rows of men, women, and children crouching in the attitude so dear to the Egyptian people. These individuals, so kneeling, might have been mistaken for the assistant judges of Osiris, h

alongside almost at the same moment. The oxen ascended the flying bridge, and

e oxen, and the other, fastened to the first, passed under their belly. Their high withers, their broad dewlaps, their clean limbs, their small hoofs, shining like agate, their tails with the tuft care

diagonal stay, which rose somewhat beyond the upper edge and to which the traveller clung with his hand when the road was rough or the speed of the oxen rapid. On the axle, placed at the back

m the little finger to the thumb, on the gilded moulding of the shell. These two lovely maidens, the one brilliant with enamels and precious stones, the other scarcely veiled in a transparent tunic of gauze, forme

he boats, landing their passengers on the brick quay wall, brought additional sight-seers to swell the multitude. The wheels of innumerable chariots, all driving towards the par

mbed on the arched arbours, and in the background stood out the gigantic pylons of the palace of Rameses Me?amoun, with its huge pylons, its enormous walls, its gilded and painted flagstaffs from which the colours blew out in the wind; and further to the north the two colossi sitting in post

tron boilers, for the work of death never ceased; in vain did life spread tumultuously around, the bandages were being prepared, the cases moulded, the coffin

uch nearer, the Libyan mountains showed against the clear sky their limest

ch, rising above the cornice, showed their flesh-coloured points against the uniform blue of the sky. Beyond and above the boundary wall rose the side fa?ade of the temple of Ammon. More to the right were the temples of Khons and Oph. A giant pylon, seen in profile and facing to the south, and two obelisks sixty cubits in height, marked the beginning of that marvellous avenue of two thousand sphinxes with lions' bodies and rams' heads, which reached from the Northern Palace to the Southern Palace. On the pedestals could be seen swelling the huge quarters of the first row of these monsters, that turned their backs to the Nile. Farther st

miration; however, as she passed a house almost buried amid luxuriant vegetation, she lost h

of the building, appeared to be watching the crowd, but his dark eyes, with

er cheeks turned pale under the light touch of rouge which Nofré had put on, and as if she