But in a moment Gerald said, “Still, there is something vaguely familiar, a something which chills me—”
And Gerald said also: “Or, rather, in their so gentle undulations as she walks unhurriedly away from us, in their so amiable convulsions,—in their heavings, their twitchings, their ripplings and their twinklings,—rather, do the bewitching and multitudinous movements of those silvery spheres resemble, to my half dazzled eyes, the unarithmeticable smiling of the sunlit sea, to which, as you will remember, Horvendile, old AEschylos has so finely referred. I feel that I could compose a not discreditable sonnet to that most beautiful of backsides. There is nothing more poetical than is the backside of a naked woman who is walking away from you. Its movements awaken the yearnings of all elegiac verse.... And I do not doubt, sir, that the front of this feathery-legged lady is fully as enchanting as the rear. Yes, I imagine that the facade too has its own peculiar attractions: and I admit, in a word, that I am tempted to confront her—”
Horvendile glanced toward the woman who alone remained within reach. “That is Evadne, who in the days of her sea-faring was called Leucosia. And it is plain enough that she waits for temptation to inflame and to uplift you into raptures somewhat more practical than all this talking.”
“She waits,” said Gerald, “in vain. At this distance she is a rather beautiful idea: nearer, she would be only another woman with her clothes off. Moreover, sir, I am a self-respecting member of the Protestant Episcopal church: and besides that, as I now perceive, it is of Evelyn Townsend’s figure that this woman’s half-seen figure reminds me. That resemblance makes for every sedentary virtue. I have learned only too well what comes of permitting any female person to trust you and to give you all. Then, too, I am called to duties of more honor and responsibility in my appointed kingdom. And for the rest, I prefer to disappoint these ladies by failing in ardor at such a distance as will not provoke my blushes. No, Horvendile: no, I am still haunted by that patriotic phrase E pluribus unum; and I shall not just now presume to render a man’s homage to Koleos Koleros, among quite so many flute-players. Moreover, you assert that a princess is waiting for me, to whom I prefer to present the member of another royal house in the full possession of all faculties. So I do not elect, just now, to share in these—if you will permit the criticism,—somewhat un-American methods of religious exercise. I ask, instead, that you conduct me to the impatient princess about whom you keep talking so obstinately that, I perceive, there is no least hope of my stopping you.” It was in this way that Gerald began his journey by putting an affront upon Koleos Koleros.
PART THREE THE BOOK OF DOONHAM
7. Evasherah of the First Water-Gap
“Though a woman’s tongue be but three inches long, it can kill a six-foot man.”
A GOOD-MORNING to you, ma’am,” Gerald had begun. His horse was tethered to a palm-tree, and Horvendile was gone, so that there now was only the Princess to be considered. “And in what way can I be of any service?”
Yet his voice shook, as he stood there beside the alabaster couch.... For Gerald was enraptured. The Princess Evasherah was, in the dawn of this superb May morning, so surpassingly lovely that she excelled all the other women his gaze had ever beheld. Her face was the proper shape, it was appropriately colored everywhere, and it was surmounted with an adequate quantity of hair. Nor was it possible to find any defect in her features. The colors of this beautiful young girl’s two eyes were nicely matched, and her nose stood just equidistant between them. Beneath this was her mouth, and she had also a pair of ears. In fine, the girl was young, she exhibited no deformity anywhere, and the enamored glance of the young man could perceive in her no fault. She reminded him, though, of someone that he had known....
Such were the ardent reflections which had passed through Gerald’s mind in the while that he said decorously, “A good-morning, ma’am: and in what way can I be of any service?”
But the Princess, in her impetuous royal fashion, had wasted no time upon the formal preliminaries which were more or less customary in Lichfield. And while Gerald’s patriotic republican rearing had been explicit enough as to the goings-on in monarchical families, he was whole-heartedly astounded by the animation and candor which here confronted him. There was no possible doubting that the Princess Evasherah was prepared to trust him and to give him all.
“But, oh, indeed, ma’am,” Gerald said, “you quite misunderstand me!”
For he had it now. This woman was uncommonly like Evelyn Townsend.
Gerald sighed. All ardor had departed from him. And with a few well-chosen words he placed their relationship upon a more decorous basis.
Now the Princess Evasherah, that most lovely Lady of the Water-Gap, was lying down even when Gerald first came to her, just after sunrise. She was lying upon a couch of alabaster, which had four legs made of elephants’ tusks. Upon this couch was a mattress covered with green satin and embroidered with red gold; upon the mattress was the Princess Evasherah in a brief shirt of apricot colored silk; and, over all, was a saffron canopy adorned with fig-leaves worked in pearls and emeralds.
This couch was furthermore shaded by three palm-trees, and it stood near to the bank of the river called Doonham. And by the sparkling ripples of that river’s deep waters—as the Princess Evasherah explained, some while after she and Gerald had reached a friendly and clean-minded understanding, with no un-American nonsense about it,—was hidden the residence of the Princess, where presently they would have breakfast.
“But,” Gerald said, a little dejectedly, “I have just now no appetite of any kind.”
“That will not matter,” said the Princess: and for no reason at all she laughed.
“—And to live under the water, ma’am, appears a virtually unprecedented form of royal eccentricity—”
“Ah, but I must tell you, lord of the age, and most obdurate averter from the desirer of union with him, that very long ago, because of a girlish infatuation for a young man whose name I have forgotten, I suffered a fiery downfalling from the Home of the Heavenly Ones, into the waters of this river. For I had offended my Father (whose name be exalted!) by stealing six drops of quite another kind of water, of the water from the Churning of the Ocean—”
“Eh?” Gerald said, “but do you mean the divine Amrita?”
“Garden of my joys, and summit of sagacity,” the Princess remarked, “you are learned. You have knowledge of heavenly matters, you have traversed the Nine Spaces. And I perceive that you who travel overburdened with unresponsiveness upon this road of the gods are yet another god in disguise.”