the battlements and dreamed, with her eyes far away, gazing at the vast kingdom, beyond which was nothingness. . . .
Oh, how she longed to go farther than the castle, to the meadows, the woods, the towns—to go to the shining lakes, the opal islands, the oceans of ether, and then to that far, far-off nothingness, that quivered so, like a pale, pale light! . . . . Would she ever be able to pass out of the gates?—Oh, how she longed to wander, to seek, to fly! . . . . To fly, oh! to fly, to fly as the sparrows, the doves, the eagles!
And she flapped her weak, little wings.
On her tender shoulders there were two wings, like those of a very large butterfly, transparent membranes, covered with crimson and soft, yellow dust, streaked with azure and pink, where they were joined to her back. And on each wing glowed two eyes, like those on a peacock’s tail, but more beautiful in colour and glistening like jewels, fine sapphires and emeralds on velvet, and the velvet eye set four times in the glittering texture of the wings.
Her wings she flapped, but with them she could not fly.
