A Draught of the Blue, Together with an Essence of the Dusk - Paperback

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VIII QUINTESSENCE And then, with a cry, Alichumbita sprang back, and stood in dismay, on the very brink of the river, looking from the King to his followers and back again. And the King watched her with ecstasy, and he said to himself: Now could I almost forgive my attendants for this exasperating interruption. For she looks like a stag whose retreat has been cut off by the hunters, standing at bay, with every graceful limb quivering and poised on the very verge of instant action, striking terror as it were into even the hearts of her pursuers by her magnificent defiance, and cowing them by the startled pride of her haughty and yet timid eyes, and holding them as it were spellbound by the beautiful agitation incarnate in her form, and reaching its supreme expression in the deep heave of her glorious bosom. AndI can see that my followers are divided in their minds: for all their respect for me cannot prevent them from transferring their allegiance to her, and doing homage to the true deity manifest in her lovely shape. Ha! beauty is the real ruler of the three worlds, and all others are usurpers and pretenders and emptiness and show. For if I were unknown to them, my followers would pay me no regard at all: whereas they have all become slaves to my mistress, as I did myself, by a single glance at her goddess mien. And then, as his attendants dismounted from their horses, and stood before him in attitudes of respect, the King called to his chief huntsman. And he said to him: Tell this lady who they are that stand before her. Then that huntsman said with deference: Lady, we are a very few of the devoted followers of King Rudralaka: and having hunted for him all day long, we pray now to be forgiven, if we have succeeded at last in finding him only to be troublesome by our int...