translated into my language would be comprised in the single word,
"donkey."

"If I may ask," I finally began, "how did you arrive at these--these
conclusions?"

"Quite simply, my father was an intelligent man. From my cradle onward
I was surrounded by replicas of ancient art; at ten years of age I
read _Gil Blas_, at twelve _La Pucelle_. Where others had
Hop-o'-my-thumb, Bluebeard, Cinderella, as childhood friends, mine
were Venus and Apollo, Hercules and Lackoon. My husband's personality
was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness
which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow.
On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the
many months when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said
jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?' I blushed
with shame. 'Don't deceive me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would
seem ugly to me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably
several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you
need toys.'

"I suppose, I hardly need tell you that during his life time I had
no lover; but it was through him that I have become what I am, a
woman of Greece."

"A goddess," I interrupted.

"Which one," she smiled.

"Venus."