（外文电子版资料）The.Enchantress.of.Sylaire.docVIP

The Enchantress of Sylaire Clark Ashton Smith Why, you big ninny! I could never marry you, declared the demoiselle Dorothée, only daughter of the Sieur des Flèches. Her lips pouted at Anselme like two ripe berries. Her voice was honey -- but honey filled with bee-stings. You are not so ill-looking. And your manners are fair. But I wish I had a mirror that could show you to yourself for the fool that you really are. Why? queried Anselme, hurt and puzzled. Because you are just an addle-headed dreamer, pouring over books like a monk. You care for nothing but silly old romances and legends. People say that you even write verses. It is lucky that you are at least the second son of the Comte du Framboisier -- for you will never be anything more than that. But you loved me a little yesterday, said Anselme, bitterly. A woman finds nothing good in the man she has ceased to love. Dolt! Donkey! cried Dorothée, tossing her blonde ringlets in pettish arrogance. If you were not all that I have said, you would never remind me of yesterday. Go, idiot -- and do not return. Anselme, the hermit, had slept little, tossing distractedly on his hard, narrow pallet. His blood, it seemed, had been fevered by the sultriness of the summer night. Then, too, the natural heat of youth had contributed to his unease. He had not wanted to think of women -- a certain woman in particular. But, after thirteen months of solitude, in the heart of the wild woodland of Averoigne, he was still far from forgetting. Crueller even than her taunts was the remembered beauty of Dorothée des Flèches: the full-ripened mouth, the round arms and slender waist, the breast and hips that had not yet acquired their amplest curves. Dreams had thronged the few short intervals of slumber, bringing other visitants, fair but nameless, about his couch. He rose at sundawn, weary but restless. Perhaps he would find refreshment by bathing, as he had often done, in a pool fed from the river Isoile and hidden among alder