Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/19

 opens his eyes and stares.

Alas! he is only blinded by the white dazzling dust, by the glaring reverberation of the splendent wall opposite. He frowns, he blinks, and hastens to close his eye-lids tightly.

Now all the wanton joys of his over-heated brain have vanished, and nothing is left, save the glare of a conflagration, intermingled with a shower of whirling sparks, crossed and recrossed by a number of fiery microbes all wriggling and chasing one another.

After a few moments he tries to evoke the image of the bewitching Bayadère and bid her display once more those charms which inflame, and at the same time refresh the senses, just as the sight of sparkling waters gives a pleasurable foretaste of freshness to the parched palate of the sore-footed traveller, increasing in him, withal, the keenness of his thirst. The artful virgin resists his lures, and turns a deaf ear to all his incantations. Another vision, albeit, dow appears before him.

A few days before, a buxom country maid, together with her stalwart lover, had come to