Allegories; Fantasy fiction; Historical fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
Jurgen waited non-committally. Nothing happened. Then Jurgen saw
that at this unengaging monarch's feet were three chests. The lids
had been ripped from two of them, and these were filled with silver
coins. Upon the middle chest, immediately before the king, sat a
woman, with her face resting against the knees of the glaring,
withered, motionless, old rascal.
"And this is a young woman. Obviously! Observe the glint of that
thick coil of hair! the rich curve of the neck! Oh, clearly, a
tidbit fit to fight for, against any moderate odds!"
So ran the thoughts of Jurgen. Bold as a dragon now, he stepped
forward and lifted the girl's head.
Her eyes were closed. She was, even so, the most beautiful creature
Jurgen had ever imagined.
"She does not breathe. And yet, unless memory fails me, this is
certainly a living woman in my arms. Evidently this is a sleep
induced by necromancy. Well, it is not for nothing I have read so
many fairy tales. There are orthodoxies to be observed in the
awakening of every enchanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may
be, poor dear! is nowhere in this neighborhood, because I hear
nobody talking. So I may consider myself at liberty to do the
traditional thing by this princess. Indeed, it is the only fair
thing for me to do, and justice demands it."
In consequence, Jurgen kissed the girl. Her lips parted and
softened, and they assumed a not unpleasant sort of submissive
ardor. Her eyes, enormous when seen thus closely, had languorously
opened, had viewed him without wonder, and then the lids had fallen,
about half-way, just as, Jurgen remembered, the eyelids of a woman
ought to do when she is being kissed properly. She clung a little,
and now she shivered a little, but not with cold: Jurgen perfectly
remembered that ecstatic shudder convulsing a woman's body:
everything, in fine, was quite as it should be. So Jurgen put an end
to the kiss, which, as you may surmise, was a tolerably lengthy
affair.
His heart was pounding as though determined to burst from his body,
and he could feel the blood tingling at his finger-tips. He wondered
what in the world had come over him, who was too old for such
emotions.
Yet, truly, this was the loveliest girl that Jurgen had ever
imagined. Fair was she to look on, with her shining gray eyes and
small smiling lips, a fairer person might no man boast of having
seen. And she regarded Jurgen graciously, with her cheeks flushed by
that red flickering overhead, and she was very lovely to observe.
She was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck
was a collar of red gold. When she spoke her voice was music.
"I knew that you would come," the girl said, happily.
"I am very glad that I came," observed Jurgen.
"But time presses."
"Time sets an admirable example, my dear Princess--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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