CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT.

(Infuriated at this affront,) "What's the matter," demanded she; "do my kisses offend you? Is my breath fetid from fasting? Is there any evil smelling perspiration in my armpits? Or, if it's nothing of this kind, are you afraid of Giton?" Under her eyes, I flushed hotly and, if I had any virility left, I lost it then; my whole body seemed to be inert. "My queen," I cried, "do not mock me in my humiliation. I am bewitched!" (Circe's anger was far from being appeased by such a trivial excuse; turning her eyes contemptuously away from me, she looked at her maid,) "Tell me, Chrysis, and tell me truly, is there anything repulsive about me? Anything sluttish? Have I some natural blemish that disfigures my beauty? Don't deceive your mistress! I don't know what's the matter with us, but there must be something!" Then she snatched a mirror from the silent maid and after scrutinizing all the looks and smiles which pass between lovers, she shook out her wrinkled earth-stained robe and flounced off into the temple of Venus (nearby.) And here was I, like a convicted criminal who had seen some horrible nightmare, asking myself whether the pleasure out of which I had been cheated was a reality or only a dream.

As when, in the sleep-bringing night

Dreams sport with the wandering eyes,

And earth, spaded up, yields to light

Her gold that by day she denies,

The stealthy hand snatches the spoils;

The face with cold sweat is suffused

And Fear grips him tight in her toils

Lest robbers the secret have used

And shake out the gold from his breast.

But, when they depart from his brain,

These enchantments by which he's obsessed,

And Truth comes again with her train

Restoring perspective and pain,

The phantasm lives to the last,

The mind dwells with shades of the past.