he resumed his walk, looking to the
right and left and carefully inspecting everything. Tahoser, who had
humbly accompanied him to the door, and had crouched on the threshold,
her elbow on her knee and her chin on the palm of her hand, followed him
with her glance until he disappeared under the leafy arches. She kept on
looking long after he had passed out by the gate into the fields.

A servant, in accordance with an order which Poeri had given when he
went out, brought on a tray a goose-leg, onions baked in the ashes,
wheaten bread and figs, and a jar of water closed with myrtle flowers.

"The master sends you this. Eat, maiden, and regain your strength."

Tahoser was not very hungry, but her part required that she should
exhibit some appetite; the poor must necessarily devour the food which
pity throws them. So she ate, and drank a long draught of the cool
water. The servant having gone, she resumed her contemplative attitude.
Innumerable contradictory thoughts filled her mind: sometimes with
maidenly shame she repented the step she had taken; at others, carried
away by her passion, she exulted in her own audacity. Then she said to
herself: "Here I am, it is true, under Poeri's roof; I shall see him
freely every day; I shall silently drink in his beauty, which is more
that of a god than of a man; I shall hear his lovely voice, which is
like the music of the soul. But will he, who never paid any attention to
me when I passed by his home dressed in my most brilliant garments,
adorned with my richest gems, perfumed with scents and flowers, mounted
on my painted and gilded car surmounted by a sunshade, and surrounded
like a queen with a retinue of servants,--will he pay more attention to
the poor suppliant maiden whom he has received through pity and who is
dressed in mean stuff? Will my wretchedness accomplish what my wealth
could not do? It may be, after all, that I am ugly, and that Nofre
flatters me when she maintains that from the unknown sources of the Nile
to the place where it casts itself into the sea there is no lovelier
maid than her mistress. Yet no,--I am beautiful; the blazing eyes of men
have told me so a thousand times, and especially have the annoyed airs
and the disdainful pouts of the women who passed by me confirmed it.
Will Poeri, who has inspired me with such mad passion, never love me? He
would have received just as kindly an old, wrinkled woman with withered
breasts, clothed in hideous rags, and