Galatea - Madeline Miller.epub Access

I was no longer a masterpiece on a pedestal. I was a mother, a human, and finally, completely free.

"You made the statue," I told him, prying his fingers away with a strength that shocked him. "But the gods made the woman. And the woman belongs to no one."

Then the gods listened. They put warm, rushing blood into my stone veins. They gave me a pulse. Galatea - Madeline Miller.epub

Before I had lungs to breathe, I had the shape he gave me. He called it perfection. He told me that my cold, white marble hips were the standard by which all living women should be judged. He had prayed to the gods for a wife who would never talk back, never age, and never turn her eyes away from him.

"I am alive," I repeated, my voice growing stronger, louder, and steadier. "And I am leaving." I was no longer a masterpiece on a pedestal

I looked down at his hand on my skin. I did not flinch. I did not cry.

In the beginning, I was exactly what he wanted. I stood where he placed me. I wore the heavy silk robes that scratched my brand-new skin. I smiled when he told me to smile, and I kept my eyes fixed on his face. He called me his greatest creation. He did not call me his wife; he called me his masterpiece. "But the gods made the woman

I picked up Paphos from her cradle. She was light and warm in my arms. I didn't take the silk dresses or the gold jewelry he had bought to decorate me. I didn't need them.