United States or Cabo Verde ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After sixteen years of unwilling marriage Eudocia at last escaped, and through great perils reached Jerusalem, where she died and was buried beside her grandmother, that other Eudocia, the beautiful Athenais whom St. Pulcheria gave to her brother for bride, and whose romantic exaltation to the throne of the East ended in banishment at Jerusalem.
On his arrival, he found the Père Longuemare in the garret reading his breviary. Holding Athenaïs by the hand, he drew the other's attention to her: "Father," he said, "here is a girl from the Rue Fromenteau who has been shouting: 'Vive le roi! The revolutionary police are on her track. She has nowhere to lay head. Will you allow the girl to pass the night here?"
Show a little respect for my grey hairs, of which there are far too many." "They're most becoming," said Athenais Reneaux demurely. "But tell me about Liane, if it isn't a secret." "Oh! that was so long ago and such a trifling thing, one wonders at remembering it at all.... I happened, one night, to be where I had no right to be. That was rather a habit of mine, I'm afraid.
"Brotteaux, who, at this period of his despicable life, was living in concubinage with a prostitute he had picked up in the mud of the Rue Fromenteau, the girl Athenaïs, easily suborned her to his purposes and made use of her to foment the counterrevolution by impudent and unpatriotic cries and indecent and traitorous speeches.
The girl's face wore a startled expression, her gaze was direct to the woman at Lanyard's side; then it shifted enquiringly to him. With a look Lanyard warned her to compose herself, then lifted an eyebrow and glanced meaningly toward the doors. The least of nods answered him before Le Brun swung Athenais toward the middle of the floor and other couples intervened. Liane Delorme stirred abruptly.
They had put the Père Longuemare between her and the girl Athenaïs, who had recovered her look of youthful freshness at the Madelonnettes. On the platform the gendarmes massed a number of other prisoners unknown to any of our friends, and who, as likely as not, knew nothing of each other, yet accomplices one and all, lawyers, journalists, ci-devant nobles, citizens, and citizens' wives.
I make no secret of it to you, Athenais; a thousand times you plunged the sword and dagger into my heart, when, profiting by my confidence in you, by my sense of entire security, you permitted your own inclination to substitute itself for mine, and a young man seething with desires to be attracted by your charms.
The beauty of Athenais lost nothing with the passing seasons, but grew more perfect, even under the inexplicable shade of dissatisfaction that sometimes veiled it as a translucent cloud that passes before the full moon. "Fair as the wife of Hermas" was a proverb in Antioch; and soon men began to add to it, "Beautiful as the son of Hermas"; for the child developed swiftly in that favouring clime.
A hand touched him; a soft arm was laid over his shoulders. It was Athenais, kneeling beside him and speaking very low: "Hermas it is almost over the child! His voice grows weaker hour by hour. He moans and calls for some one to help him; then he laughs. It breaks my heart. He has just fallen asleep. The moon is rising now. Unless a change comes he cannot last till sunrise.
The heart of Hermas was like a lump of ice in his bosom. He rose slowly to his feet, lifting Athenais with him. "It is in vain," he said; "there is nothing for us to do. Long ago I knew something. I think it would have helped us. But I have forgotten it. It is all gone. But I would give all that I have, if I could bring it back again now, at this hour, in this time of our bitter trouble."
Word Of The Day