"Would you like the buckler of Dgian-ben-Dgian, the builder of the
Pyramids? Here it is! It is composed of seven dragons' skins placed one
above another, joined by diamond screws, and tanned in the bile of a
parricide. It represents, on one side, all the wars which have taken
place since the invention of arms, and, on the other, all the wars that
will take place till the end of the world. Above, the thunderbolt
rebounds like a ball of cork. I am going to put it on your arm, and you
will carry it to the chase.

"But if you knew what I have in my little case! Try to open it! Nobody
has succeeded in doing that. Embrace me, and I will tell you."

She takes Saint Antony by the two cheeks. He repels her with
outstretched arms.

"It was one night when King Solomon had lost his head. At length, we had
concluded a bargain. He arose, and, going out with the stride of a
wolf ..."

She dances a pirouette.

"Ah! ah! handsome hermit! you shall not know it! you shall not know it!"

She shakes her parasol, and all the little bells begin to ring.

"I have many other things besides--there, now! I have treasures shut up
in galleries, where they are lost as in a wood. I have summer palaces of
lattice-reeds, and winter palaces of black marble. In the midst of
great lakes, like seas, I have islands round as pieces of silver all
covered with mother-of-pearl, whose shores make music with the beating
of the liquid waves that roll over the sand. The slaves of my kitchen
catch birds in my aviaries, and angle for fish in my ponds. I have
engravers continually sitting to stamp my likeness on hard stones,
panting workers in bronze who cast my statues, and perfumers who mix the
juice of plants with vinegar and beat up pastes. I have dressmakers who
cut out stuffs for me, goldsmiths who make jewels for me, women whose
duty it is to select head-dresses for me, and attentive house-painters
pouring over my panellings boiling resin, which they cool with fans. I
have attendants for my harem, eunuchs enough to make an army. And then I
have armies, subjects! I have in my vestibule a guard of dwarfs,
carrying on their backs ivory trumpets."

Antony sighs.

"I have teams of gazelles, quadrigae of elephants, hundreds of camels,
and mares with such long manes that their feet get entangled with them
when they are galloping, and flocks with such huge horns that the woods
are torn down in front of them when they are pasturing. I have giraffes
who walk i