Woman and Puppet, Etc.

“I shall enter pure,” Demetrios said. With the end of her hair dipped in the holy water the young guardian of the gate moistened first his eyes, then his lips and then his finge...

I remained an entire month at Athens, occupied with my own personal affairs; and these did not allow me time to return to the house of the great painter. Athens was truly in mou...

He walked very rapidly in the hope of overtaking Chrysis on the road leading to the city, fearing if he lingered that he might become cowardly and irresolute once again.

That which I am going to relate to you took place in the year in which Plato died. I was then in Halicarnassus engaged upon my part of the labour that was to produce at last the...

The temple of Aphrodite-Astarte stood outside the gates of the city in an immense domain full of flowers and shadows, where the waters of the Nile flowed through seven aqueducts...

In the green gardens of white Ephesus we were two young learners, or apprentices, with the aged Bryaxis, the sculptor. He was sitting upon a seat made of stone as pallid as his...

An old white-bearded priest, enveloped from head to foot in stiff unbleached stuff walked in front of this procession of youth and guided towards the stone altar the line of dev...

On the morning of the morrow André Stévenol had a radiant awakening. The light flooded his room, which had four windows. There also came to him the murmurs of the town. There we...

It was simply a scruple which had prevented him asking her for it: Chrysis had very clearly desired a crime and not the ancient ornament from a young woman’s hair. That was the...

The market for the sale of the Olynthians now stretched before us. As far as one could see, and forming in a straight line six large parallel ways, platforms of planks were erec...

When Byblis found herself alone upon the little bed of green leaves upon which she had slept by her brother’s side every night, she had in vain tried to sleep; but that evening...

For four or five years I lived in a flat that was in a street near the little Park Monceau. I was there only for certain days in the week. The flat was not the finest in Paris,...

Demetrios repeated these words as he walked and a vague belief in them oppressed him with sadness. He had never believed in oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or from the...

In Spain the Carnival does not finish, as in France, at eight o’clock on the morning of Ash Wednesday. Over the wonderful gaiety of Seville the memory that “_dust we are_,” etc....

Lêda hoped that the following night the Swan would come back to her, and she waited for it in the reeds by the river-side near the blue egg which was born of their miraculous un...

In the grotto from which the river emerged in a mysterious way the nymph Cyanée gave birth to twins; one was a son who was named Caunos, and the other a girl to whom the name of...

She went back to bed. Naucrates remained for a moment at the door as if he feared to be indiscreet. The two girls, who were musicians, opened their sleepy eyes but could not ren...

Three years ago I had not the grey hairs that you now see, and was thirty-seven years of age, though I felt but twenty-two. I do not know precisely when my youth passed from me,...

For a night and day Byblis traversed the mountain. She made anxious inquiries of all the deities of the woods, of the trees, of the glades and the thickets. She recounted her so...

One evening, as she was hardly awake and thought of continuing her dream, because a long streak of yellow daylight still flowed behind the darkness of the forest, her attention...

In those days there were no tombs by the roadside and no temples upon the hills. Men themselves scarce existed; there was not much talk of them. The earth was given up to the jo...

She admitted this with such a directness, such an air, that I quite flushed and felt ill at ease. Whatever was passing in that childish-looking head, behind that face so provoki...

Her carriage had turned the corner of the street. André went in pursuit, anxious not to lose a second chance that might be the last. He arrived as the horses went through the ga...

To my utter amazement she followed her last words by slipping off her jewels and robes. She had the grandeur of a goddess from throat to feet. She curved into a long, deep, easy...

The following summer I found her again. In August, I was alone in my house, a house that a feminine presence had filled for years. One afternoon, bored to death, I visited the G...

I returned upon horseback to my own place going through Attica. During my five years of absence creditors had sold the few poor goods I possessed, and I put up very simply at a...

Little by little, I think, she was more softened towards me. It even seemed sometimes that she had not really intended me the harm that had in fact been done. But the tavern lif...

Autumn and winter passed. Memory was pitiless to me, and I felt shattered. The months were empty. Oh, how I loved her, God of Heaven! I thought sometimes that she was trying me,...

It was too much to bear. I left for Madrid, and tried to get fond of an Italian dancer. I returned to Seville, then went to Granada, Cordova, Jérez. I sought for Concha Perez. A...

Again she tamed me with her words, and the scene ended as so many had ended--in her triumph. We returned to Seville, where I took a house for her. In that house she pretended th...

Two interminable days and nights followed. I was happy and yet suffering. A kind of troubled joy seemed to dominate every other feeling. The hour of the assignation came, and I...