Galatea - Madeline Miller.epub -

But Pygmalion forgot one crucial thing about living breathing creatures.

That night, looking at the moonlight reflecting off the cold marble floor of our bedroom, I made my decision. I was no longer a block of stone to be admired and controlled.

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. Galatea - Madeline Miller.epub

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.

I looked down at his hand on my skin. I did not flinch. I did not cry. But Pygmalion forgot one crucial thing about living

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

I walked out of the heavy wooden doors of his estate and stepped onto the dirt path. For the first time in my life, the ground beneath my feet felt real. The air smelled of salt and wild herbs. Before I had lungs to breathe, I had the shape he gave me

He froze. The hammer in his hand—the same hammer he used to chip away at new blocks of stone in his studio—dropped to the floor with a loud, heavy thud. He looked at me with genuine terror in his eyes. He loved the goddess-given flesh, but he was absolutely terrified of the mind that lived inside it. "What did you say?" he hissed.