The Sisters | Page 4

path leads through the breach in the wall;
the pebbles are thickly strewn with brown dust, and the footway leads
past quantities of blocks of stone and portions of columns destined for
the construction of a new building which seems only to have been
intermitted the night before, for mallets and levers lie on and near the
various materials. This path leads directly to the little brick houses, and
ends at a small closed wooden door so roughly joined and so ill-hung
that between it and the threshold, which is only raised a few inches
above the ground, a fine gray cat contrives to squeeze herself through
by putting down her head and rubbing through the dust. As soon as she
finds herself once more erect on her four legs she proceeds to clean and

smooth her ruffled fur, putting up her back, and glancing with gleaming
eyes at the house she has just left, behind which at this moment the sun
is rising; blinded by its bright rays she turns away and goes on with
cautious and silent tread into the court of the temple.
The hovel out of which pussy has crept is small and barely furnished; it
would be perfectly dark too, but that the holes in the roof and the rift in
the door admit light into this most squalid room. There is nothing
standing against its rough gray walls but a wooden chest, near this a
few earthen bowls stand on the ground with a wooden cup and a
gracefully wrought jug of pure and shining gold, which looks strangely
out of place among such humble accessories. Quite in the background
lie two mats of woven bast, each covered with a sheepskin. These are
the beds of the two girls who inhabit the room, one of whom is now
sitting on a low stool made of palm-branches, and she yawns as she
begins to arrange her long and shining brown hair. She is not
particularly skilful and even less patient over this not very easy task,
and presently, when a fresh tangle checks the horn comb with which
she is dressing it, she tosses the comb on to the couch. She has not
pulled it through her hair with any haste nor with much force, but she
shuts her eyes so tightly and sets her white teeth so firmly in her red
dewy lip that it might be supposed that she had hurt herself very much.
A shuffling step is now audible outside the door; she opens wide her
tawny-hazel eyes, that have a look of gazing on the world in surprise, a
smile parts her lips and her whole aspect is as completely changed as
that of a butterfly which escapes from the shade into the sunshine
where the bright beams are reflected in the metallic lustre of its wings.
A hasty hand knocks at the ill-hung door, so roughly that it trembles on
its hinges, and the instant after a wooden trencher is shoved in through
the wide chink by which the cat made her escape; on it are a thin round
cake of bread and a shallow earthen saucer containing a little olive-oil;
there is no more than might perhaps be contained in half an ordinary
egg- shell, but it looks fresh and sweet, and shines in clear, golden
purity. The girl goes to the door, pulls in the platter, and, as she
measures the allowance with a glance, exclaims half in lament and half

in reproach:
"So little! and is that for both of us?"
As she speaks her expressive features have changed again and her
flashing eyes are directed towards the door with a glance of as much
dismay as though the sun and stars had been suddenly extinguished;
and yet her only grief is the smallness of the loaf, which certainly is
hardly large enough to stay the hunger of one young creature--and two
must share it; what is a mere nothing in one man's life, to another may
be of great consequence and of terrible significance.
The reproachful complaint is heard by the messenger outside the door,
for the old woman who shoved in the trencher over the threshold
answers quickly but not crossly.
"Nothing more to-day, Irene."
"It is disgraceful," cries the girl, her eyes filling with tears, "every day
the loaf grows smaller, and if we were sparrows we should not have
enough to satisfy us. You know what is due to us and I will never cease
to complain and petition. Serapion shall draw up a fresh address for us,
and when the king knows how shamefully we are treated--"
"Aye! when he knows," interrupted the old woman. But the cry of the
poor is tossed about by many winds before it reaches the king's ear. I