more of the topaz-colored wine in her cup, and Lucian saw
it glitter as it rose to the brim and mirrored the gleam of the lamps.
The tale went on, recounting a hundred strange devices. The woman told
how she had tempted the boy by idleness and ease, giving him long hours
of sleep, and allowing him to recline all day on soft cushions, that
swelled about him, enclosing his body. She tried the experiment of
curious odors: causing him to smell always about him the oil of roses,
and burning in his presence rare gums from the East. He was allured by
soft dresses, being clothed in silks that caressed the skin with the
sense of a fondling touch. Three times a day they spread before him a
delicious banquet, full of savor and odor and color; three times a day
they endeavored to intoxicate him with delicate wine.

"And so," the lady continued, "I spared nothing to catch him in the
glistening nets of love; taking only sour and contemptuous glances in
return. And at last in an incredible shape I won the victory, and then,
having gained a green crown, fighting in agony against his green and
crude immaturity, I devoted him to the theatre, where he amused the
people by the splendor of his death."

On another evening he heard the history of the man who dwelt alone,
refusing all allurements, and was at last discovered to be the lover of a
black statue. And there were tales of strange cruelties, of men taken by
mountain robbers, and curiously maimed and disfigured, so that when they
escaped and returned to the town, they were thought to be monsters and
killed at their own doors. Lucian left no dark or secret nook of life
unvisited; he sat down, as he said, at the banquet, resolved to taste all
the savors, and to leave no flagon unvisited.

His relations grew seriously alarmed about him at this period. While he
heard with some inner ear the suave and eloquent phrases of singular
tales, and watched the lamp-light in amber and purple wine, his father
saw a lean pale boy, with black eyes that burnt in hollows, and sad and
sunken cheeks.

"You ought to try and eat more, Lucian," said the parson; "and why don't
you have some beer?"

He was looking feebly at the roast mutton and sipping a little water; but
he would not have eaten or drunk with more relish if the choicest meat
and drink had been before him.

His bones seemed, as Miss Deacon said, to be growing through his skin; he
had all the appearance of an ascetic whose body has been red