Egypt -- History -- 332-30 B.C. -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English
Now and then the figure of the Roman rose before her mind's eye, and
every time that this occurred she colored to her very forehead. But
to-day she thought of this disturber of her peace differently from
yesterday; for yesterday she had felt herself overwhelmed by him with
shame, while to-day it appeared to her as though she had triumphed over
him at the procession, since she had steadily avoided his glance, and
when he had dared to approach her she had resolutely turned her back upon
him. This was well, for how could the proud foreigner expose himself
again to such humiliation.
"Away, away--for ever away!" she murmured to herself, and her eyes and
brow, which had been lighted up by a transient smile, once more assumed
the expression of repellent sternness which, the day before, had so
startled and angered the Roman. Soon however the severity of her
features relaxed, as she saw in fancy the young man's beseeching look,
and remembered the praise given him by the recluse, and as--in the middle
of this train of thought--her eyes closed again, slumber once more
falling upon her spirit for a few minutes, she saw in her dream Publius
himself, who approached her with a firm step, took her in his arms like a
child, held her wrists to stop her struggling hands, gathered her up
with rough force, and then flung her into a canoe lying at anchor by the
bank of the Nile.
She fought with all her might against this attack and seizure, screamed
aloud with fury, and woke at the sound of her own voice. Then she got
up, dried her eyes that were wet with tears, and, after laying a freshly
wetted cloth on the child's throat, she went out of doors in obedience to
the physician's advice.
The sun was already at the meridian, and its direct rays were fiercely
reflected from the slabs of yellow sandstone that paved the forecourt.
On one side only of the wide, unroofed space, one of the colonnades that
surrounded it threw a narrow shade, hardly a span wide; and she would not
go there, for under it stood several beds on which lay pilgrims who, here
in the very dwelling of the divinity, hoped to be visited with dreams
which might give them an insight into futurity.
Klea's head was uncovered, and, fearing the heat of noon, she was about
to return into the door-keeper's house, when she saw a young white-robed
scribe, employed in the special service of Asclepiodorus, who came across
the court beckoning eagerly to her. She went towards him, but before he
had reached her he shouted out an enquiry whether her sister Irene was in
the gate-keeper's lodge; the high-priest desired to speak with her, and
she was nowhere to be found. Klea told him that a grand lady from the
queen's court had already enquired for her, and that the last time she
had seen her had been before daybreak, when she was going to fill the
jars for the altar of the god at the Well of the Sun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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