The great Babylonian god, Marduk, revisiting the earth in the guise of a
young man, fell in love with a girl in the silk Department of the
Universal Stores. Her name was Lena.
‘O moon-faced one! O white flower of the world! I adore thee,’ Marduk
whispered. ‘Thou hast the look of Sarpanitum, the leopard-eyed goddess,
in days of old when the stars were young and kind!’
‘Well, well,’ cried Lena, ‘what will you do to please me?’
‘I will rebuild Babylon in an hour for thee,’ shouted the god, and away
he sped to the great, silent plain, where he laboured mightily. In a
short space of time he returned and wafted her away to the scene of his
labouring.
‘Look, look,’ he cried, and waved his hand. And there was Babylon, the
mighty city of splendour and dream, shimmering and glittering, the
wonder of the world. There were the great gates, the towering palaces,
the hanging gardens, as of old.
‘Well?’ and Marduk turned to her eagerly when she had gazed her fill,
and wiped his forehead, for even he sweated from his vast labours.
Lena looked at him: ‘Yes, it’s very nice,’ she said.