n my gardens, and who raise their heads over the edge of my
roof when I am taking the air after dinner. Seated in a shell, and drawn
by dolphins, I go up and down the grottoes, listening to the water
flowing from the stalactites. I journey to the diamond country, where my
friends the magicians allow me to choose the most beautiful; then I
ascend to earth once more, and return home."

She gives a piercing whistle, and a large bird, descending from the sky,
alights on the top of her head-dress, from which he scatters the blue
powder. His plumage, of orange colour, seems composed of metallic
scales. His dainty head, adorned with a silver tuft, exhibits a human
visage. He has four wings, a vulture's claws, and an immense peacock's
tail, which he displays in a ring behind him. He seizes in his beak the
Queen's parasol, staggers a little before he finds his equilibrium, then
erects all his feathers, and remains motionless.

"Thanks, fair Simorg-anka! You who have brought me to the place where
the lover is concealed! Thanks! thanks! messenger of my heart! He flies
like desire. He travels all over the world. In the evening he returns;
he lies down at the foot of my couch; he tells me what he has seen, the
seas he has flown over, with their fishes and their ships, the great
empty deserts which he has looked down upon from his airy height in the
skies, all the harvests bending in the fields, and the plants that shoot
up on the walls of abandoned cities."

She twists her arms with a languishing air.

"Oh! if you were willing! if you were only willing! ... I have a pavilion
on a promontory, in the midst of an isthmus between two oceans. It is
wainscotted with plates of glass, floored with tortoise-shells, and is
open to the four winds of Heaven. From above, I watch the return of my
fleets and the people who ascend the hill with loads on their shoulders.
We should sleep on down softer than clouds; we should drink cool
draughts out of the rinds of fruit, and we gaze at the sun through a
canopy of emeralds. Come!"

Antony recoils. She draws close to him, and, in a tone of irritation:

"How so? Rich, coquettish, and in love?--is not that enough for you, eh?
But must she be lascivious, gross, with a hoarse voice, a head of hair
like fire, and rebounding flesh? Do you prefer a body cold as a
serpent's skin, or, perchance, great black eyes more sombre than
mysterious caverns? Look at these eyes of mine, then!"

Antony gazes at them