It was our passion for words and our ardent desire to write that drew me and Michael together, and the same that drove us apart. Michael wanted to be a great playwright, like the former master Moliere. He had high ambitions and scorned what I wrote as frivolous and feminine. 'All these disguises and duels and abductions,' he said contemptuously, one day a year or so after our affair began, slapping down the pile of paper covered with my spr..
Dortchen was called the wild one because one day, when she was seven years old, she had got lost in the forest. She had wandered off to a far-distant glade where a willow tree trailed its branches in a pool of water. Dortchen crept within the shadowy tent of its branches and found a green palace. She wove herself a crown of willow tendrils and collected pebbles and flowers to be her jewels. At last, worn out, she lay down on a velvet bed of..
A small grove of linden trees grew on the far side of the lake, below the palace. Dortchen made her way there carefully, not wanting to be seen so close to the King's residence. The trees were in full blossom, bees reeling drunkenly from the pale-yellow flowers that hung down in clusters below the heart-shaped leaves. Dortchen harvested what she could reach, breathing the sweet scent deeply, then picked handfuls of the wild roses that grew ..
Farfallina, bella e bianca, vola vola, mai si stanca, gira qua, e gira la- poi si resta sopra un fiore, e poi si resta sopra un fiore... Butterfly, beautiful and white, fly and fly, never get tired, turn here and turn there- she rests upon a flower... and she rests upon a flower.
Belle laide, Athenais calls me,' I replied with a little shrug. The expression was usually used to describe a woman who was arresting despite the plainness of her looks.
I wanted to rest my eyes on green meadows. I wanted to sit on green grass under the shade of a green tree. I wanted to eat cool green salads. I longed for arugula tossed with olive oil and parmesan, for asparagus tips dripping with melted butter, for a salad of sweet and bitter green leaves. Most of all, I longed for fish and parsley soup.
I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have no time to be a wet-nurse for a bantling.' To my surprise, he did not flush or draw away in embarrassment. He grinned and winked at me, as if to say I could suckle him any time, and to my horror I felt myself grow red.
I did not really listen, fixing my eyes on the nearest tapestry, which showed a white unicorn sitting with its front hooves in the lap of a fair-haired maiden in a gorgeous medieval gown. The embroidered grass was studded with flowers, and the two overarching trees were hung with pomegranates. Small beasts- rabbits and squirrels and badgers- watched from the shelter of the forest, not noticing the hunters creeping closer with their dogs and..
Her papa called her 'chiacchere' because he said she chattered away all day, just like a magpie. He had all sorts of funny names for her: 'fiorellina', my little flower; 'abelie', which meant honeysuckle; and 'topolina', my sweet little mouse. Margherita's mother only called her 'piccolina', my little one, or 'mia cara Margherita,' my darling daisy.
The Coven of Witches, however, believed only in the natural forces of the world. Everyone was free to seek their own path to wisdom and to worship in whatever way they pleased. If they prayed, it was to Ea, who encompassed both light and darkness, life and death, the creative and the destructive. Ea was neither good nor evil, male nor female. Ea was both and neither.
Footmen stood stiffly with trays laden with foaming goblets and plates filled with tiny delicacies, such as sauteed scallops, salt cod and caviar on potato pancakes, basil palmiers, and roasted brie with gooseberries.
Words. I had always loved them. I collected them, like I had collected pretty stones as a child. I liked to roll words over my tongue like a lump of molten honeycomb, savoring the sweetness, the crackle, the crunch. Cerulean, azure, blue. Shadowy, sombre, secret. Voluptuous, sensuous, amorous. Kiss, hiss, abyss. Some words sounded dangerous. Pagan. Tiger. Some words seemed to shine. Crystal. Glissade. Some words changed their meaning as I g..