Egypt -- History -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English
A mingled torment of pain and rage shot through him as he again saw the
tall shadow cross the window. For the first time in his life he felt the
pangs of jealousy, which he had so often laughed at in his friends; but
was it not absurd to allow it to torture him; was he not sure, since that
morning's meeting, quite sure of Paula? And Philippus! Even if he,
Orion, must retire into the background before a higher judge, in the eyes
of a woman he surely had the advantage!--But in spite of all this it
troubled him to know that the physician was with Paula at such an hour;
he angrily pulled his horse's head round, and it was a pleasure to him to
feel the fiery creature, unused as it was to such rough treatment, turn
restive at it now. By the time he had gone a hundred steps from those
windows with their cursed glare, the horse was displaying all the temper
and vice that had been taken out of him as a foal. Orion had to fight a
pitched battle with his steed, and it was a relief to him to exercise his
power with curb and knee. In vain did the creature dance round and
round; in vain did he rear and plunge; the steady rider was his master;
and it was not till he had brought him to quietness and submission that
Orion drew breath and looked about him while he patted the horse's smooth
neck.
Close at hand, behind a low hedge, spread the thick, dark groves of
Susannah's garden and between them the back of the house was visible,
being more brilliantly lighted than even Paula's rooms. Three of the
windows showed lights; two were rather dim, however, the result probably
of one lamp only.
All this could not matter to him; nevertheless he remained gazing at the
roof of the colonnade which went round the house below the upper floor;
for, on the terrace it formed, leaning against a window-frame, stood a
small figure with her head thrust so far forth to listen that the light
shone through the curls that framed it. Katharina was trying to overhear
a dialogue between the Patriarch Benjamin--whose bearded and apostolic
head Orion could clearly recognize--and the priest John, an insignificant
looking little man, of whom, however, the deceased Mukaukas had testified
that he was far superior to old Plotinus the Bishop in intellect and
energy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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