The house was greatly to be admired, so large it might have been mistaken for a temple of worship. Not even the windows in the upstairs disturbed that impression.
The front was ample, and its white columns gleamed with marble and even a touch of gold -- perhaps good brass, but in the bright morning sun, it was as good as gold. Perhaps it was meant to recall the Parthenon, which thought came to me as a beautiful young woman came to a gilded window, upstairs.
Her dress was of the finest cotton, as perfectly white as the house itself. Against the shining canvas of this dress there were stunning jewels, flashing red and gold upon the pendant, green and gold around her perfectly pink-pearl neck, and upon her hands. There were even, in her golden hair, jewels of blue and white -- doubtless, sapphires and diamonds. She might perhaps have been mistaken for the goddess Iris, arisen with the sun, but for her face.
Her beautiful face wore an expression of sorrow that nothing that she possessed, not upon her lovely figure, and not upon the vast lands her new husband owned, could ever soothe. Her jeweled hand pressed against the window suddenly, much as a prisoner puts his hand wistfully upon the bars of his cell.
I fled the scene before she saw me, knowing there was nothing I could do.
There are things that can be admired, and yet not envied.
Photo Credit: Maxime Amoudruz on Unsplash