A Question

This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By Georg Ebers
Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
In the Art-Palace on green Isar's strand, Before one picture long I kept my seat, It held me spellbound by some magic band, Nor when my home I sought, could I forget.
A year elapsed, came winter's frost and snow, 'Twas rarely now we saw the bright sun shine, I plucked up courage and cried: Be it so! Then southward wandered with those I call mine.
Like birds of passage built we there a nest On a palm-shaded shore, all steeped in light, Life was a holiday, enjoyed with zest And grateful hearts, the while it winged its flight.
Oft on the sea's wide purplish-blue expanse, With ever new delight I fixed my eyes, Alma Tadema's picture, at each glance Recalled to mind, a thousand times would rise.
Once a day dawned, glad as a bride's fair face, Perfume, and light, and joy it did enfold, Then-without search, flitted from out of space Words for the tale that my friend's picture told.
Salt sea-water or oil, it's all the same to you! Haven't I put my lamp out long ago? Doesn't the fire on the hearth give light enough? Are your eyes so drowsy that they don't see the dawn shining in upon us more and more brightly? The olives are not yet pressed, and the old oil is getting toward the dregs. Besides, you know how much fruit those abominable thieves have stolen. But sparrows will carry grain into the barn before you'll try to save your master's property!
So Semestre, the ancient house-keeper of Lysander of Syracuse, scolded the two maids, Chloris and Dorippe, who, unheeding the smoking wicks of their lamps, were wearily turning the hand-mills.
Dorippe, the younger of the two, grasped her disordered black tresses, over which thousands of rebellious little hairs seemed to weave a veil of mist, drew from the mass of curls falling on her neck a bronze arrow, with which she extinguished the feeble light of both lamps, and, turning to the house-keeper, said: