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Might it be, perhaps, that sepia drawing above the 'Tantalus' on the oak sideboard at the far end of a woman's face gazing out into the room? Mysteriously unlike everything else, except the flowers, and this kitten that was pushing its furry little head against his hand. Odd how a single thing sometimes took possession of a room, however remote in spirit!
Juliette, that from that time onwards I have to endure the qualms of the damned, for the heir to Great Britain's throne always contrives to be thirsty when I am satiated, which is Tantalus' torture magnified a thousandfold, or to be satiated when my parched palate most requires solace; in either case I am a most pitiable man."
This treatment, at length, so frightened the boy, that I believe he would sooner have perished with thirst, than attempted again to fill the skin; he, therefore, contented himself with begging water from the Negro slaves that attended the camp; and I followed his example; but with very indifferent success; for though I let no opportunity slip, and was very urgent in my solicitations, both to the Moors and the Negroes, I was but ill supplied, and frequently passed the night in the situation of Tantalus.
He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a certain mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all realizations, without which preface they would give cause for alarm. The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
But who beneath the sun who has warm blood in his veins can preserve his composure when juicy grapes are held before his thirsting lips to be withdrawn, as from Tantalus, ere he can taste them?
Mocked by the odor of the viands and sauces, he turned to flee, tearing himself away from this torture of Tantalus, but as he drew back he bumped against a tall man clad only in a dark sagum and sandals with straps crossed to the knees.
My goal is undoubtedly the right one, but so soon as I seem to be nearing it, my weakness snatches it from me, as the wind swept back the fruit-laden boughs which Tantalus, parched with thirst, tried to grasp. I fled from the world to this mountain, and the world has pursued me and has flung its snares round my feet.
No shop window show should be so diabolically set forth as to arouse such sensations in the breast of the beholder. It is a work of art, that window; a breeder of anarchism, a destroyer of contentment, a second feast of Tantalus.
I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and interposed on his behalf: "Come, give him a little more rice!" But Simon replied: "Oh! no, my dear fellow, if he were to eat too much, it would harm him, at his age." I held my tongue, and thought over those words. Oh, ethics! Oh, logic! Oh, wisdom! At his age!
Tantalus forgot his hunger and thirst. Ixion's wheel stood still, the Danaids set aside their leaky urns and Sisyphus sat on his stone to listen. Never yet had such sweet strains been heard in the world of gloom. Then, for the first time, tears moistened the cheeks of the Furies, and even the king and queen of the dead were moved to pity.
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