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 they entered
Noah's Ark.
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