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do with as I may electas yesterday it was the plaything of Demetrios. . . .
Why, no! I think I shall not kill you. I have at hand three very cunning
Cheylasthe men who carve and reshape children into such droll monsters. They
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cannot change your eyes, they tell me. That is a pity, but I can have one
plucked out. Then I shall watch my Cheylas as they widen your mouth from ear
to ear, take out the cartilage from your nose, wither your hair till it will
always be like rotted hay, and turn your skinwhich is like velvet nowthe
colour of baked mud. They will as deftly strip you of that beauty which has
robbed me as I pluck up this blade of grass. . . . Oh, they will make you
the most hideous of living things, they assure me. Otherwise, as they agree,
I shall kill them. This done, you may
Domnei: A Comedy of WomanWorship
25. How Women Talked Together
47
go freely to your lover. I fear, though, lest you may not love him as I
loved Demetrios.
And Melicent said nothing.
"For all we women know, my sister, our appointed curse. To love the man, and
to know the man loves just the lips and eyes Youth lends to usoho, for such a
little while! Yes, it is cruel. And therefore we are cruelalways in thought
and, when occasion offers, in the deed."
And Melicent said nothing. For of that mutual love she shared with Perion,
so high and splendid that it made of grief a music, and wrung a new
sustainment out of every cross, as men get cordials of bitter herbs, she knew
there was no comprehension here.
26. How Men Ordered Matters
ORESTES CAME into the garden with Ahasuerus and nine other attendants. The
master of Nacumera did not speak a syllable while his retainers seized
Callistion, gagged her, and tied her hands with cords. They silently removed
her. One among them bore on his shoulders the slim corpse of Diophantus,
which was interred the same afternoon (with every appropriate ceremony) in
company with that of his father. Orestes had the nicest sense of etiquette.
This series of swift deeds was performed with such a glib precipitancy that
it was as though the action had been rehearsed a score of times. The garden
was all drowsy peace now that Orestes spread his palms in a gesture of
deprecation. A little distance from him, Ahasuerus with his forefinger drew
upon the water's surface designs which appeared to amuse the Jew.
"She would have killed you, Melicent," Orestes said, "though all Olympos had
marshalled an interdiction.
That would have been irreligious. Moreover, by Hercules! I have not time to
choose sides between snarling women. He who hunts with cats will catch mice.
I aim more highly. And besides, by an incredible forced march, this Comte de
la Forêt and all his Free Companions are battering at the gates of Nacumera"
Hope blazed. "You know that were I harmed he would spare no one. Your troops
are all at Calonak. Oh, God is very good!" said Melicent.
"I do not asperse the deities of any nation. It is unlucky. None the less,
your desires outpace your reason.
Grant that I had not more than fifty men to defend the garrison, yet Nacumera
is impregnable except by starvation. We can sit snug a month. Meanwhile our
main force is at Calonak, undoubtedly. Yet my infatuated father had already
recalled these troops, in order that they might escort you into Messire de la
Forêt's camp. Now I shall use these knaves quite otherwise. They will arrive
within two days, and to the rear of Messire de la Forêt, who is encamped
before an impregnable fortress. To the front unscalable walls, and behind
him, at a moderate computation, three swords to his one. All this in a
valley from which Dædalos might possibly escape, but certainly no other man.
I count this Perion of the Forest as already dead."
It was a lumbering Orestes who proclaimed each step in his enchained
deductions by the descent of a blunt forefinger upon the palm of his left
hand. Demetrios had left a son but not an heir.
Yet the chain held. Melicent tested every link and found each obdurate. She
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foresaw it all. Perion would be surrounded and overpowered. "And these
troops come from Calonak because of me!"
"Things fall about with an odd patness, as you say. It should teach you not
to talk about divinities lightly.
Also, by this Jew's advice, I mean to further the gods' indisputable work.
You will appear upon the walls of
Domnei: A Comedy of WomanWorship
26. How Men Ordered Matters
48
Nacumera at dawn tomorrow, in such a garb as you wore in your native country
when the Comte de la Forêt first saw you. Ahasuerus estimates this Perion [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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