high up in the air, she opened her eyes and kept smiling; she got accustomed to the rarefied air. The third time he soared away with her; she saw, far below, the royal castle, small as a toy, towers, ramparts; and then she realised for the first time that she had left the castle.
She thought of the king.
“Take me back!” she said to the horse commandingly.
He obeyed her. He took her back. But as soon as he was gone, she longed again for him and the lofty air. And she had but one thought, the Chimera. She no longer cared for the flowers which she had planted between the walls, and the flowers withered. She no longer cared for the swans, and the swans, neglected, followed her in vain, in the green moats; she forgot to crumble bread for them. And she looked at the clouds and she gazed at the wind, thinking only of him, the light-gold horse with the silver wings, because he came on the wind, on the clouds, which thundered when he struck with his hoofs.
On the day that he did not come, her fair Chimera, she sat pale and lonely, gazing from the battlements, her eyes far away, her arms
