Egypt -- History -- 30 B.C.-640 A.D. -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English; Hadrian, Emperor of Rome, 76-138 -- Fiction
Arsinoe liked talking, but in Selene's presence she was taciturn; there
were few things in which Selene took pleasure, while her sister delighted
in every thing which can charm youth. It was the steward's eldest
daughter who attended to the daily needs of the children, their food and
clothes; it was the second who superintended their games, and their
dolls. The eldest watched and taught them with anxious care, detecting
in every little fault the germ of some evil tendency in the future, while
the other enticed them into follies, it is true, but opened their minds
to joyous impressions, and attained more by kisses and kind words than
Selene could by fault-finding. The children would call Selene when they
wanted her, but would fly to Arsinoe as soon as they saw her. Their
hearts were hers, and Selene felt this bitterly; it seemed to her to be
unjust, for she saw clearly that her sister could reap, from mere
frivolous play in her idle hours, a sweeter reward than she could earn by
the anxiety, trouble and exhausting toil, in which she often spent her
nights.
But children are not unjust in this way. It is true that they keep an
account in their heart and not in their head. Those who give them the
warmth of affection they pay back most honestly.
On this particular night it was not, it is certain, with very sisterly
feelings that Selene looked at the sleeping Arsinoe, and the words on the
girl's lips as she had dropped asleep, had sounded very unkind; but,
nevertheless, they felt warmly towards each other, and any one who should
have attempted to say a word against the one in the presence of the other
would soon have found out how close a bond held together these two
hearts, dissimilar as they were. But no girl of nineteen can pass a
night altogether without sleeping, however sadly she may turn and turn
over and over again in her bed. So slumber overmastered Selene every now
and then for a quarter of an hour, and each time she dreamed of her
sister.
Once she saw Arsinoe dressed out like a queen, followed by beggar
children and pelted with bad words--then she saw her on the rotunda below
the balcony romping with Pollux, and in their bold sport they broke her
mother's bust. At last she dreamed that she herself was playing--as in
the days of her childhood--in the gate-keeper's garden with the sculptor.
They were making cakes of sand together, and Arsinoe jumped on the cakes
as soon as they were made, and trod them all into dust.
The pretty pale girl had for a long time ceased to know the refreshing,
dreamless, sound sleep of youth, for the sweetest slumbers are more apt
to seek out those who by day have some rest, than those who are worn out
by fatigue, and evening after evening Selene was one of these. Every
night she had dreams, but tonight they were almost exclusively sad in
character, and so terrifying that she woke herself repeatedly with her
own groaning, or disturbed Arsinoe's peaceful sleep by loud cries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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