"When I was a child, I used to amuse myself by building hermitages with pebbles. My mother sitting beside me would watch me so attentively!
"Will she not have cursed me for having abandoned her?—will she not have plucked out her white hair by handfuls in the despair of her grief? And her corpse remains lying on the floor of the hut, under the roof of reeds, between the crumbling walls. Through an orifice a hyena, snuffing, thrusts his head, advances his mouth ... horror! horror!"
(Sobbing):
"No: Ammonaria will not have abandoned her! Where is she now,—Ammonaria?
"Perhaps at the further end of a bathroom, she removes her garments one after the other: first the mantle, then the girdle, then the first tunic, the second lighter tunic, all her necklaces,—and the vapour of cinnamon envelops her naked limbs. At last she lies down upon the tepid mosaic. Her long hair spreading below the curve of her hips, seems like a sable fleece; and the oppressiveness of the heated air causes her to pant; her waist arched, her breasts standing out ... What! my flesh rebels again! Even in the midst of grief am I tortured by concupiscence. To be subjected thus unto two tortures at once is beyond endurance! I can no longer bear myself!"
(He leans over, and gazes into the abyss.)
"The man who should fall would be killed. Nothing easier: it were only necessary to roll over upon my left side:—only one movement—one!"
(Then suddenly appears—An Aged Woman. Anthony starts to his feet in affright. It seems to him that he beholds his mother arisen.
But this woman is far older, and prodigiously thin.
A shroud, knotted about her head, hangs down, together with her white hair, so as to cover her legs, slender as crutches. The brilliancy of her ivory-coloured teeth make her earthy skin darker still. The orbits of her eyes are full of shadow; and far back within them two flames vacillate, like the lamps of sepulchres.