Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road and the Count of Monte Cristo by

Alexandra Dumas.

Today, Chapter 51, Pyramus and Thisbee.

Now, all of you may know who Pyram and this be were but I didn't so for my

own sake I'm going to share it with you Pyramus and this be are the tragic lovers from

Babylonian mythology whose story is best known from Ovid's metamorphosis

forbidden to marry by their disapproving families the neighboring teenagers communicate

through a crack in their shared

wall. They plan to elope and meet under a mulberry tree. Thisby arrives first and flees in fear of a

lioness, dropping her blood-stained cloak. Pyramus, finding the cloak, believes Thysby is dead

and kills himself. I would attach my favorite moral to that.

It's a two-word moral. I share it off, and it's called Never Assume. Anyway, our story, Chapter 51, Pyramus,

and Thisby. About two-thirds of the way along the Falberg, St.aint-Hon-Aray, in the rear of one of the most

imposing mansions in this rich neighborhood, where the various houses buy with each other for

elegance of design and magnificence of construction, extended a large garden, where the wide-spreading

chestnut trees raised their heads high above the walls in a solid rampart,

and with the coming of every spring scattered a shower of delicate pink and white blossoms

into the large stone vases that stood upon the two square plasters of a curiously wrought iron gate

that dated from the time of Louis XI. This noble entrance, however, in spite of its striking appearance

and the graceful effect of the geraniums planted in the two vases, as they waved their variegated

leaves in the wind and charmed the eye with their scarlet bloom, had fallen into utter disuse.

The proprietors of the mansion had many years before thought it best to confine themselves to the possession of the house itself, with its thickly planted courtyard, opening into the Fobarge Saint-Hen-a-Rae, and for the garden shut in by this gate, which formerly communicated with a fine kitchen garden of about an acre.

...