# Read the first page of Galatea by Madeline Miller

Read the opening of Galatea by Madeline Miller free, no signup. A sculptor's statue, brought to life as his wife, yearns for freedom.

- Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/galatea-madeline-miller
- Genre: Literary fiction
- Year: 2013
- ISBN: 9788413628400
- Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781408848142&s=read-page
- Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780063280519
- Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9788413628400

## The opening

It was almost sweet the way they worried about me.

'You're so pale,' the nurse said. 'You must keep quiet until your colour returns.'

'I'm always this colour,' I said. 'Because I used to be made of stone.'

The woman smiled vaguely, pulling up the blanket. My husband had warned her that I was fanciful, that my illness made me say things that would sound strange to her.

'Just lie back and I'll bring you something to eat,' she said. She had a mole on the side of her lip and I liked to watch it while she talked. Some moles are beautiful and distinctive, like dappling on a horse. But some have hairs in them, and look pulpy like worms and hers was this kind.

‘Lie back,’ she repeated, because I hadn’t.

‘You know what I think would be good for my colour? A walk,’ I said.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Not until you’re better. Feel how chilled your hands are?’

‘That’s the stone,’ I said, ‘like I told you. It can’t get warm without sun. Haven’t you ever touched a statue?’

‘You’re chilled,’ she repeated. ‘Just lie back, and be good.’ She was rushing a little by then, because I had mentioned the stone twice, and this was gossip for the other nurses, and a breathless reason to speak to the doctor. They were fucking, that’s why she was so eager. I could hear them sometimes through the wall. I don’t say this in a nasty way, for I don’t begrudge her a good fuck, if it was good, which I don’t know. But I say this so that you understand what I was up against: that I was worth more to her sick than I was well.

The door closed, and the room swelled around me like a bruise. When she was here, I could pretend it felt small because of her, but when she left the four wood walls seemed to press towards me, like lungs that had breathed in.

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