We travelled many days, across
plains and mountains, and saw Rome, where the Pope lives in a golden
palace, and many other cities, till we came to the great Emperor's
court. There for two years or more we lived in pomp and merriment,
for it was a wonderful court, full of mimes, magicians, philosophers
and poets; and the Empress's ladies spent their days in mirth and
music, dressed in light silken garments, walking in gardens of
roses, and bathing in a great cool marble tank, while the Emperor's
eunuchs guarded the approach to the gardens. Oh, those baths in the
marble tank, my Father! I used to lie awake through the whole hot
southern night, and think of that plunge at sunrise under the last
stars. For we were in a burning country, and I pined for the tall
green woods and the cold stream of my father's valley; and when I
had cooled my limbs in the tank I lay all day in the scant cypress
shade and dreamed of my next bath.
My mother pined for the coolness till she died; then the Empress put
me in a convent and I was forgotten.
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