Something about Eve: A comedy of fig-leavesCabell, James Branch
Science
Something about Eve: A comedy of fig-leaves
Cabell, James Branch
Fantasy fiction; Historical fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
“In short,” said the Princess, “you are Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and
Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly
Ones, thus masked in human flesh and in human forgetfulness and in
peculiarly unhuman coldness. Yet very soon the power of the Amrita will
have bestowed unfailing vigorousness upon your thinking, and presently
the hounds of recollection will have run down the hare of your
inestimable glory.”
“That is well said, ma’am. It is spoken with a fine sense of style. And
I conjecture that, although the better stylists usually omit this
ingredient, it has some meaning also.... Yes, you do allude to my having
red hair, but the hare of my inestimable glory, which you likewise
mention, is not capillary, but zoölogical,—in addition to being also
metaphorical.... You state, in brief, in a figurative Oriental way, that
by and by I shall recollect something which I have forgotten.... But
just what is it, ma’am, that you so confidently expect me to recollect?”
“My lord, and acme of my contentment, you will recall, for one matter,
the love that was between us in this world’s infancy, when you did not
avert from me the inspiring glances of fond affection. For you, the
bright-tressed, the resplendent, are unmistakably the Well-beloved of
Heavenly Ones. I perfectly remember you, by your high nose, by your
jutting chin, and by the eminence of yet another feature whose noble
proportions also very deeply delighted me during my visit to your
Dirghic paradise, and which I perceive to remain unabatedly heroic.”
Gerald, gently, but with decision, took hold of her hand. It seemed to
him quite time.
Then the fair Lady of the Water-Gap, she who would have been so adorable
if only she had not reminded Gerald more and more of Evelyn Townsend,
began to talk about matters which Gerald as yet really did not remember.
She spoke of Gerald’s golden and high-builded home, in which, it seemed,
this Princess had trusted him and had given him all: and she spoke also
of the unresting love for mankind which had led Gerald to quit that
exalted home, among the untroubled lotus-ponds of Vaikuntha, upon nine
earlier occasions, and of his nine fine exploits in the way of
redemption.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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