“My friend, all men have striven to do that; and I have evaded each one of them at the last, and innumerable are the ways of my elusion. There is no man but has loved me, no man that has forgotten me, and none but has attempted to express that which he saw and understood when I was visible.” “Do I not know? There is no beauty in the world save those stray hints of you, Ettarre. Canvas and stone and verse speak brokenly of you sometimes; all music yearns toward you, Ettarre, all sunsets whisper of you, and it is because they waken memories of you that the eyes of all children so obscurely trouble and delight us. Ettarre, your unattainable beauty tears my heart. There is nothing, nothing in me that does not cry out for love of you. And it is the cream of a vile jest that I am forbidden ever to win quite to you, ever to touch you, ever to see you even save in my dreams!” “Already this dream draws toward an end, my poor Horvendile.” And he saw that the great doors—which led to death—were unclosing: and beyond them he saw confusedly a mob of red-capped men, of malignant frenzied women, of wide-eyed little children, and the staid officials, chatting pleasantly among themselves, who came to fetch that day’s tale of those condemned to the guillotine. But more vividly Kennaston saw Ettarre and how tenderly she smiled, in thin wintry sunlight, as she touched Kennaston upon the breast, so that the dream might end and he might escape the guillotine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VI Of One Enigma that Threatened to Prove Allegorical THEN again Kennaston stood alone before a tall window, made up of many lozenge-shaped panes of clear glass set in lead framework. He had put aside one of the two great curtains—of a very fine stuff like gauze, stitched over with transparent glittering beetle-wings, and embroidered with tiny seed pearls—which hung before this window. Snow covered the expanse of house-tops without, and the sky without was glorious with chill stars. That white city belonged to him, he knew, with a host of other cities. He was the strongest of kings. People dreaded him, he knew; and he wondered why any one should esteem a frail weakling such as he to be formidable. The hand of this great king—his own hand, that held aside the curtain before him—was shriveled and colorless as lambs’ wools. It was like a horrible bird-claw. (“_But then I have the advantage of remembering the twentieth century,” he thought, fleetingly, “and all my contemporaries are superstitious ignorant folk. It is strange, but in this dream I appear to be an old man. That never happened before._”) A remote music resounded in his ears, and cloying perfumes were about him....