Orestes

They walked to the gate. The guards stepped aside as if they expected them. The old doorman opened the big door, always keeping his reverent head lowered as if welcoming them. In a while the deep groan of a man was heard and then the startled wailing of a woman; then quietness. Only far away in the plain the shots of hunters and the innumerable chirps of invisible sparrows, finches, starlings, black birds. The swallows flew persistently around the north side of the palace. The guards took off their helmets and wiped the insides with their sleeves. Then, a big cow stood in the middle of the Lions Gate looking at the eyes of the morning sky with her huge, black, motionless eyes.

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