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Here came a beautifully dressed woman in a roomy litter, over which waved a canopy entirely of white ostrich-plumes, which the evening breeze swayed like a thicket of fern-leaves. This throne was borne by ten black and ten white slave-girls, and before it two fair children rode on tame ostriches.
And yet poor little Zoe, and the fair-haired Lysippa, and the black-haired daughter of Demetrius, and even I, poor wretch, should be handsomer, far handsomer than she, if we could dress ourselves with fine clothes and jewels for which kings would sell their kingdoms; if we could play Aphrodite as she does, and ride off in a shell borne aloft on emerald-green glass to look as if it were floating on the waves; if dolphins set with pearls and turquoises served us for a footstool, and white ostrich-plumes floated over our heads, like the silvery clouds that float over Athens in the sky of a fine spring day.
The slopes and intervales were very green where they were not yellow, and there were terraces of grape, glittering cliffs, and a sky of troubled blue, wadded with little gold-edged clouds. Yes, it was paradise, but it was not monarchy. It was to that he aspired. As he mused, a rancid-faced woman decked with paint and ostrich-plumes snarled in his ear: “What have you heard of Iohanan?”
On the curbing, fakirs are selling shining red Christmas berries and violets and great bursting carnations, and chrysanthemums like yellow ostrich-plumes. Through all this splendor you keep close to Professor Diemann, for you know he is going to the hotel where the team is, and that stalwart lineman you are thinking of most to-day is up there with them.
A rose-colored hat, with towering pea-green ostrich-plumes, looks absurd on his bull-head; and though it is time of peace, the wretch is armed with a multiplicity of daggers, knives, yataghans, dirks, sabres, and scimitars, which testify his truculent and bloody disposition. 'Tis the terrible Rowski de Donnerblitz, Margrave of Eulenschreckenstein.
There were the beautiful silken fabrics of Lyons; the shimmering white satin, besprinkled with bouquets that rivalled nature; there were heavy, shining velvets, heightened by embroidery of gold and silver; laces, from Alencon and Valenciennes, whose web was as delicate as though elfin fingers, had spun the threads; muslins, from India, so fine that they could only he woven in water; crapes, from China, with the softness of satin and the sheen of velvet; there were graceful ostrich-plumes from Africa, and flowers from Paris, so wondrous in their beauty that nothing was wanting to their perfection save perfume.
Here came a beautifully dressed woman in a roomy litter, over which waved a canopy entirely of white ostrich-plumes, which the evening breeze swayed like a thicket of fern-leaves. This throne was borne by ten black and ten white slave-girls, and before it two fair children rode on tame ostriches.
The five directors, to the delight of the Parisian people, wore costly silk and velvet garments embroidered with gold, and on their hats, trimmed also with gold lace, waved large ostrich-plumes. Luxury celebrated its return to Paris, after having had to secrete itself, so long from the blood-stained hands of the sans-culottes, in the most obscure corners of the deserted palaces of St. Germain.
And yet poor little Zoe, and the fair-haired Lysippa, and the black-haired daughter of Demetrius, and even I, poor wretch, should be handsomer, far handsomer than she, if we could dress ourselves with fine clothes and jewels for which kings would sell their kingdoms; if we could play Aphrodite as she does, and ride off in a shell borne aloft on emerald-green glass to look as if it were floating on the waves; if dolphins set with pearls and turquoises served us for a footstool, and white ostrich-plumes floated over our heads, like the silvery clouds that float over Athens in the sky of a fine spring day.
The hearse was drawn by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in gold the Canterville coat-of-arms. By the side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with lighted torches, and the whole procession was wonderfully impressive.
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