Egypt -- History -- 30 B.C.-640 A.D. -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English; Hadrian, Emperor of Rome, 76-138 -- Fiction
Paulina’s house had but few windows opening upon the street and these
belonged to the strangers’ rooms, and yet his arrival had been observed.
A window at the side of the house, all grown round with creepers, framed
in a sweet girlish head which looked down from it inquisitively on the
bustle in the street. Pontius did not notice it, but Arsinoe--for it was
her pretty face that looked out--at once recognized the architect whom
she had seen at Lochias and of whom Pollux had spoken as his friend and
patron.
She had now, for a week, been living with the rich widow; she wanted
for nothing, and yet her soul longed with all its might to be out in the
city, and to inquire for Pollux and his parents, of whom she had heard
nothing since the day of her father’s death. Her lover was no doubt
seeking her with anxiety and sorrow; but how was he to find her?
Three days after her arrival she had discovered the little window from
which she had a view of the street. There was plenty to be seen, for
it led to the Hippodrome and was never empty of foot-passengers and
chariots that were proceeding thither or to Necropolis. No doubt it was
a pleasure to her to watch the fine horses and garlanded youths and men
who passed by Paulina’s house; but it was not merely to amuse herself
that she went to the bowery little opening; no, she hoped, on the
contrary, that she might once see her Pollux, his father, his mother,
his bother Teuker or some one else they knew pass by her new home. Then
she might perhaps succeed in calling them, in asking what had become
of her friends, and in begging them to let her lover know where to seek
her.
Her adoptive mother had twice found her at the window and had forbidden
her, not unkindly but very positively, to look out into the street.
Arsinoe had followed her unresistingly into the interior of the house,
but as soon as she knew that Paulina was out or engaged, she slipped
back to the window again and looked out for him, who must at every hour
of the day be thinking of her. And she was not happy amid her new and
wealthy surroundings. At first she had found it very pleasant to stretch
her limbs on Paulina’s soft cushions, not to stir a finger to help
herself, to eat the best of food and to have neither to attend to the
children nor to labor in the horrible papyrus-factory; but by the third
day she pined for liberty--and still more for the children, for Selene
and Pollux. Once she went out driving with Paulina in a covered carriage
for the first time in her life. As the horses started she had enjoyed
the rapid movement and had leaned out at one side to see the houses and
men flying past her; but Paulina had regarded this as not correct--as
she did so many other things that she herself thought right and
permissible--had desired her to draw in her head, and had told her
that a well-conducted girl must sit with her eyes in her lap when out
driving.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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