ew words in the ear
of one of his courtiers; the tapestry curtains parted and a young
girl appeared.

Her large black eyes shone like two soft lights. A charming smile
parted her lips. Her curls were caught in the jewels of her
half-opened bodice, and the grace of her youthful body could be
divined under the transparency of her tunic.

She was small and quite plump, but her waist was slender.

Julian was absolutely dazzled, all the more since he had always
led a chaste life.

So he married the Emperor's daughter, and received at the same
time a castle she had inherited from her mother; and when the
rejoicings were over, he departed with his bride, after many
courtesies had been exchanged on both sides.

The castle was of Moorish design, in white marble, erected on a
promontory and surrounded by orange-trees.

Terraces of flowers extended to the shell-strewn shores of a
beautiful bay. Behind the castle spread a fan-shaped forest. The
sky was always blue, and the trees were swayed in turn by the
ocean-breeze and by the winds that blew from the mountains that
closed the horizon.

Light entered the apartments through the incrustations of the
walls. High, reed-like columns supported the ceiling of the
cupolas, decorated in imitation of stalactites.

Fountains played in the spacious halls; the courts were inlaid
with mosaic; there were festooned partitions and a great profusion
of architectural fancies; and everywhere reigned a silence so deep
that the swish of a sash or the echo of a sigh could be distinctly
heard.

Julian now had renounced war. Surrounded by a peaceful people, he
remained idle, receiving every day a throng of subjects who came
and knelt before him and kissed his hand in Oriental fashion.

Clad in sumptuous garments, he would gaze out of the window and
think of his past exploits; and wish that he might again run in
the desert in pursuit of ostriches and gazelles, hide among the
bamboos to watch for leopards, ride through forests filled with
rhinoceroses, climb the most inaccessible peaks in order to have a
better aim at the eagles, and fight the polar bears on the
icebergs of the northern sea.

Sometimes, in his dreams, he fancied himself like Adam in the
midst of Paradise, surrounded by all the beasts; by merely
extending his arm, he was able to kill them; or else they filed
past him, in pairs, by order of size, from the lions and the
elephants to the ermines and the ducks, as on the day th