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twg_000012929900 | say of the efficacy of our police system if we were to hear that the Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard lived in nightly terror of the pickpockets who frequented that quarter, and came to Parliament with a petition to accord him some greater security against their depredations? Would not the natural reply be an exclamation of astonishment that he who | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929901 | could summon to his aid every alphabetical blue-coat that ever handled a truncheon, should deem any increased security necessary to his peace? And so, would I ask, of what avail these crowds of cardinals--these regiments of monsignori--these battalions of bishops, Arch and simple?--of what use all the incense and these chanted litanies, these eternal processions, and these saintly shin-bones borne | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929902 | in costly array--if one poor mortal, supposed to live on visiting terms with the Evil One, can strike such terror into the whole army led on by Infallibility? If I had been possessed of any peculiar dread of coming unexpectedly on the Devil--as the old ladies of New York used to feel long ago about suddenly meeting with the British | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929903 | army--I should certainly have comforted myself by the thought that I could always go and sit down on the steps of the Vatican. It would immediately have occurred to me, that as Holyrood offers its sanctuary against the sheriff, the Quirinal would be the sure retreat against Old Nick; and I have even pictured to myself the rage of his | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929904 | disappointed malice as he saw me sheltering safely beneath a protection he dared not invade. And now I am told to relinquish all the blessed enjoyment of this immunity; that the Pope and the Cardinals and Antonelli himself are not a whit better off than the rest of us; that if Mr Home gets into Rome, there is nothing to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929905 | prevent his having the Devil at his tea-parties. What an ignoble confession is this! Who will step forward any longer and contend that this costly system is to be maintained, and all these saintly intercessors to be kept on the most expensive of all pension-lists, if a poor creature like Home can overthrow it all? Can any one conceive such | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929906 | a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet and purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing before Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents to cross the Tiber? Why--I speak, of course, in the ignorance of a laic--but, I ask, why not fumigate him and cleanse him? When I saw him last, the process | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929907 | would not have been so supererogatory. Why not exorcise and defy him? Why not say, Come, and bring your friend if you dare; you shall see how we will treat you. Only try it It is what we have been asking for nigh two thousand years. Let the great culprit step forward and plead to his indictment. I can fancy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929908 | the Pope saying this--I can picture to myself the proud attitude of the Pontiff declaring, I have had enough of these small devilries, like Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel--I am sick of Mazzini and his petty followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at once; if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929909 | a compromise. This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that he should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and actually feared the debating powers of Mr Potter of the Strikes. GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. Nothing | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929910 | shows what a practical people we are more than our establishment of insurances against railroad accidents. The spirit of commercial enterprise, by which a man charters himself for a railroad voyage with an insured cargo of his bones, ligaments, cartilage, and adipose tissue, abundantly proves that we are natures own traders and shopkeepers. Any ordinary people less imbued with Liverpool | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929911 | and Manchester notions would have bestirred themselves how to prevent, or at least lessen, the number of those casualties. They would have set to work to see what provisions could be adopted to give greater security to travel. We, on the contrary are too business-like to waste time on this inquiry. We are convinced that, let us build ships ever | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929912 | so strong, there will still be shipwrecks. So we feel assured that a certain number of railway accidents, as they are called, will continue to occur--be as broad gauge as you will! We accept the situation, therefore, as the French say, and insure; that is to say, we book a bet at very long odds--say, three to a thousand--that we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929913 | shall be rolled up, cut in two, flattened into a thin sheeting, and ground into an impalpable powder, between Croydon and Brighton. If we arrive safe, the assurance office pockets a few shillings; if we win our wager, our executor receives a thousand pounds. It is about the grimmest kind of gambling ever man heard of; and yet we see | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929914 | folk of the most unquestionable propriety--dignitaries of the Church, judges, civil and uncivil servants of the Crown, and scores of others, whom nothing would tempt into the Cursaal at Ems or Baden, as coolly as possible playing this terrific game, and backing themselves heavily for a dorsal paralysis, a depressed fracture of the cranium, or at least a compound dislocation | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929915 | of the hip-joint. Now, if the Protestant Church entertained what the Romanists call cases of conscience, I should like greatly to ask, Is this right? Is it justifiable to make a contingent profit out of your cerebral vertebrae or your popliteal space? We have long been derided and scoffed at for making connubialism marketable, and putting a price on a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929916 | wifes infidelity, but it strikes me this is something worse; for what, after all, is a rib--a false rib, too--compared with the whole bony skeleton? Allah is Allah, said the Turkish admiral to Lady Hester Stanhope, but I have got two anchors astern, showing that, with all his fatalism, he did not despise what are technically called human means. So | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929917 | the reverend Archdeacon, going down for his sea-baths, might say, Im not quite sure theyll carry me safely, but it shall not be all misfortune--Ill take out some of it in money. The system, however, has its difficulties; for though it is a round game, the stakes are apportioned with reference to the rank and condition of the winner--as, for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929918 | instance, the Solicitor-Generals collarbone is worth a shoemakers whole body, and a Judges patella is of more value than a dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This is a tremendous pull against the company, who not only give long, but actually incalculable odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can be crumpled up for two hundred | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929919 | pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in the coupe cannot be even concussed under a thousand; while if the noble Duke in the express carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may be positively astounding. This I certainly call hard--very hard. When you book a bet at Newmarket you never have to consider the rank of your opponent, save as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929920 | regards his solvency. He may be a peer--he is very probably a publican--it is perfectly immaterial to you; but not so here. The company is positively staking against the incommensurable. They have no means of knowing whether that large broad-shouldered man yonder is or is not a royal duke; and when the telegraph announces a collision, it may chance that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929921 | the news has declared what will send every shareholder into bankruptcy, or only graze them without hurting anybody. We all know how a number of what are technically termed serious people went to Exeter Hall to listen to the music of the Traviata, what no possible temptation would have induced them to hear within the walls of a theatre. I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929922 | will not question the propriety of a matter only to be settled by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the words--for the airs were sung--were the same, the hearers were not improbably in the enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though they had gone for it to the Queens Theatre. Now, may not these railway insurances | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929923 | be something of the same kind? May it not be a means by which deans and canons and other broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little gambling without going in for Blind Hooky or Roulette? Regard for decorum would prevent their sojourning at Homburg or Wiesbaden. They could not, of course, be seen punting at the play-table at Ems; but here | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929924 | is a legitimate game which all may join in, and where, certainly, the anxiety that is said to impart the chief ecstasy to the gamesters passion rises to the very highest It is heads and tails for a smashing stake, and ought to interest the most sluggish of mortals. What a useful addition, then, would it be for ones Bradshaw | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929925 | to have a tabular view of the odds on the different lines, so that a speculative individual, desiring to provide for his family, might know where to address himself with best chance of an accident! One can imagine an assurance company puffing its unparalleled advantages and unrivalled opportunity, when four excursion trains were to start at five minutes intervals, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929926 | the prospect of a smash was little short of a certainty. Great attraction! the late rains have injured the chief portion of the line, so that a disaster is confidently looked for every hour. Make your game, gentlemen--make your game; nothing received after the bell rings. THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. Anything more absurd than the late debate in the House | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929927 | on the best means of suppressing intemperance it is very hard to imagine. First of all, in the van, came the grievance to be redressed; and we had a statistical statement of all the gallons of strong drink consumed--all the moneys diverted from the legitimate uses of the family--all the debauchees who rolled drunk through our streets, and all the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929928 | offences directly originating in this degrading vice. Now, what conceivable order of mind could prompt a man to engage in such a laborious research? Who either doubts the enormity of drunkenness or its frequency? It is a theme that we hear of incessantly. The pulpit rings with it, the press proclaims it, the judges declare it in all their charges, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929929 | and a special class of lecturers have converted it into a profession. None denied the existence of the disease; what we craved was the cure. Some discrepancy of opinion prevailed as to whether the vice was on the increase or the decrease. Statistics were given, and, of course, statistics supported each assertion. This, however, was a mere skirmish--the grand battle | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929930 | was, How was drunkenness to be put down? Mr Lawsons plan was: If four-fifths of the ratepayers of any district were agreed that no spirituous liquors should be sold there, that such should become a law, and no licence for their sale should be issued. The mover of this proposal, curiously enough, called this bringing public opinion to bear on | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929931 | the question. What muddle of intelligence could imagine this to be an exercise of public opinion I cannot imagine. Such, however, is the plan. Drunkenness is to be repressed by making it impossible. Did it never occur to the honourable gentleman, that all legislative enactments whatever work not by enforcing what is good, but by punishing what is evil? No | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929932 | law that ever was made would render people honest and true to their engagements; but we arrive at a result not very dissimilar by making dishonesty penal. The Decalogue declares: Thou shalt not commit a murder. Human law pronounces what will come of it if you do. It is, doubtless, very imperfect legislation, but there is no help for it. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929933 | We accept such cases, however, as the best defences we can find for our social condition, never for a moment presuming to think that we are rendering a vice impossible by attaching to it a penalty. Mr Lawson, however, says, There shall be no drunkenness, because there shall be no liquor. Why not extend the principle--for it is a great | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929934 | discovery--and declare that, wherever four-fifths of the ratepayers of a town or borough are of opinion that ingratitude is a great offence to morals and a stain to human nature, in that district where they reside there shall be no benefits conferred, nor any act of kindly aid or assistance rendered by one man to his neighbour? I have no | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929935 | doubt that, by such legislation, you would put down ingratitude. We use acts in the moral world pretty much as in the physical; and it is entirely by the impossibility of committing the offence that this gentleman proposes to prevent its occurrence. But, in the name of common sense, why do we inveigh against monasteries and nunneries?--why are we so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929936 | severe on a system that substitutes restraint for reason, and instead of correction supplies coercion? Surely this plan is based on exactly the same principle. Would it, I ask, cure a man of lying--I mean the vice, not the practice--to place him in a community where no party was permitted to talk? The example of the higher classes was somewhat | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929937 | ostentatiously paraded in the debate, and members vied with each other in declaring how often they dined out without meeting a drunkard in the company. This is very gratifying and reassurring; but I am not aware that anybody ascribed the happy change to the paucity of the decanters, and the difficulty of getting the bottle; or whether it was that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929938 | four-fifths of the party had declared an embargo on the sherry, and realised the old proverb by elevating necessity to the rank of virtue. Let me ask, who ever imagined that the best way to render a soldier brave in battle was to take care that he never saw an enemy, and only frequented the society of Quakers? And yet | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929939 | this is precisely what Mr Lawson suggests. If his system be true, what becomes of all moral discipline and all self-restraint? It is not through my own convictions that I am sober; it is through no sense of the degradation that pertains to drunkenness, and the loss of social estimation that follows it, that I am temperate. It is because | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929940 | four-fifths of the ratepayers declare that I shall have no drink nearer than the next parish; and this reminds of another weak point in the plan. The Americans, who understand something of the evils of drink, on the principle that made Doctor Panloss a good man, because he knew what wickedness was, lately passed a law in Congress forbidding the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929941 | use of fermented liquors on board all the ships of war. It was one of those sweeping pieces of legislation that men enact when driven to do something, they know not exactly what, by the enormity of some great abuse. Now, I have taken considerable pains to inquire how the plan operates, and what success has waited on it. From | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929942 | every officer that I have questioned I have received the same exact testimony: so long as the ships are at sea the men only grumble at the privation; but once they touch port, and boats crews are permitted to go ashore, drunkenness breaks out with tenfold violence. For a while all real discipline is at an end; parties are despatched | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929943 | to bring back defaulters, who themselves get reeling drunk; petty officers are insulted, and scenes of violence enacted that give the unhappy locality where they have landed the aspect of a town taken by assault and given up to pillage. I am not now describing altogether from hearsay; I have witnessed something of what I speak. As drunkenness, when the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929944 | ship was at sea, was the rarest of all events, and the good conduct of the men when on shore was the great object to be obtained, this system may be, so far as the navy is concerned, pronounced a decided failure. Whatever may be said about the policy of sowing a mans wild oats, nobody, so far as I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929945 | know, ever hinted that the crop should be perennial. Legislation can no more make men temperate than it can make them cleanly or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to this well-intentioned | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929946 | gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How is it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the great essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle man now could no more be found than the Plesiosaurus. He belongs to a past | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929947 | totally and essentially irrevocable. And by what has this happy change been effected? Surely not by withdrawing temptation. Not only have we an infinitely wider choice in fluids than our forefathers, but they are served and ministered with appliances far more tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the higher tone of society the revolution is owing. Men saw that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929948 | drunkenness was disgraceful: it rendered society disorderly and riotous; it interfered with all real conversational pleasure; it led to unmannerly excesses, and to quarrels. A higher cultivation repudiated all these things; and even they who, so to say, liked their wine too well, were slow to disparage themselves by an indulgence which good taste declared to be ungentlemanlike. Is it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929949 | completely impossible to introduce some such sentiment as this into other orders of society? We see it certainly in some foreign countries--why not in our own? Radical orators are incessantly telling us of the mental powers and the intellectual cultivation of the working-classes, and I am well-disposed to believe there is much truth in what they say. Why not then | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929950 | adapt, to men so highly civilised, some of those sentiments that sway the classes more favoured of fortune? The French artisan would deem it a disgrace to be drunk--so the Italian; even the German would only go as far as a sort of beery bemuddlement that made him a more ideal representative of the Vaterland: why must the Englishman, of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929951 | necessity, be the inferior in civilisation to these? I am not willing to believe the task of such a reformation hopeless, though I am perfectly convinced that no greater folly could be committed than to attempt it by an Act of Parliament. When legislation has led men to be agreeable in society, unassuming in manners, and gentle in deportment, it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929952 | may make them temperate in their liquor, but not before. The thing cannot be done in committee, nor by a vote of the House. It is only to be accomplished by the filtering process, by which the good habits of a nation drop down and permeate the strata beneath; so that, in course of time, the whole mass, leavened by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929953 | the same ingredients, becomes one as completely in sentiment as in interest. Four-fifths of the ratepayers will not effect this. After all, Mr Lawson is only a second-hand discoverer. His bill was a mere plagiarism from beginning to end. The whole text of his argument was said and sung by poor Curran, full fifty odd years ago:-- My children, be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929954 | Produced by David Widger BALTHASAR And Other Works By Anatole France Translated by Mrs. John Lane Edited by Frederic Chapman London: John Lane: MCMIX CONTENTS; Balthasar The Curs Mignonette M. Pigeonneau The Daughter Of Lilith Laeta Acilia The Red Egg Balthasar TO THE VICOMTE EUGNE MELCHIOR DE VOGUE Magos regos fere habuit Oriens."{*} --Tertullian. I. In those days Balthasar, whom | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929955 | the Greeks called Saracin, reigned in Ethiopia. He was black, but comely of countenance. He had a simple soul and a generous heart The third year of his reign, which was the twenty-second of his age, he left his dominions on a visit to Balkis, Queen of Sheba. The mage Sembobitis and the eunuch Menkera accompanied him. He had in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929956 | his train seventy-five camels bearing cinnamon, myrrh, gold dust, and elephants tusks. As they rode, Sembobitis instructed him in the influences of the planets,{*} as well as in the virtues of precious stones, and Menkera sang to him canticles from the sacred mysteries. He paid but little heed to them, but amused himself instead watching the jackals with their ears | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929957 | pricked up, sitting erect on the edge of the desert. * The East commonly held kings versed in magic. At last, after a march of twelve days, Balthasar became conscious of the fragrance of roses, and very soon they saw the gardens that surround the city of Sheba. On their way they passed young girls dancing under pomegranate trees in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929958 | full bloom. The dance, said Sembobitis the mage, is a prayer. One could sell these women for a great price, said Menkera the eunuch. As they entered the city they were amazed at the extent of the sheds and warehouses and workshops that lay before them, and also at the immense quantities of merchandise with which these were piled. For | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929959 | a long time they walked through streets thronged with chariots, street porters, donkeys and donkey-drivers, until all at once the marble walls, the purple awnings and the gold cupolas of the palace of Balkis, lay spread out before them. The Queen of Sheba received them in a courtyard cooled by jets of perfumed water which fell with a tinkling cadence | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929960 | like a shower of pearls. Smiling, she stood before them in a jewelled robe. At sight of her Balthasar was greatly troubled. She seemed to him lovelier than a dream and more beautiful than desire. My lord, and Sembobitis spoke under his breath, remember to conclude a good commercial treaty with the queen. Have a care, my lord, Menkera added. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929961 | It is said she employs magic with which to gain the love of men. Then, having prostrated themselves, the mage and the eunuch retired. Balthasar, left alone with Balkis, tried to speak; he opened his mouth but he could not utter a word. He said to himself, The queen will be angered at my silence. But the queen still smiled | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929962 | and looked not at all angry. She was the first to speak with a voice sweeter than the sweetest music. Be welcome, and sit down at my side. And with a slender finger like a ray of white light she pointed to the purple cushions on the ground. Balthasar sat down, gave a great sigh, and grasping a cushion in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929963 | each hand he cried hastily: Madam, I would these two cushions were two giants, your enemies; I would wring their necks. And as he spoke he clutched the cushions with such violence in his hands that the delicate stuff cracked and out flew a cloud of snow-white down. One of the tiny feathers swayed a moment in the air and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929964 | then alighted on the bosom of the queen. My lord Balthasar, Balkis said, blushing; why do you wish to kill giants? Because I love you, said Balthasar. Tell me, Balkis asked, is the water good in the wells of your capital? Yes, Balthasar replied in some surprise. I am also curious to know, Balkis continued, how a dry conserve of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929965 | fruit is made in Ethiopia? The king did not know what to answer. Now please tell me, please, she urged. Whereupon with a mighty effort of memory he tried to describe how Ethiopian cooks preserve quinces in honey. But she did not listen. And suddenly, she interrupted him. My lord, it is said that you love your neighbour, Queen Candace. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929966 | Is she more beautiful than I am? Do not deceive me. More beautiful than you, madam, Balthasar cried as he fell at the feet of Balkis, how could that possibly be! Well, then, her eyes? her mouth, her colour? her throat? the queen continued. With his arms outstretched towards her, Balthasar cried: Give me but the little feather that has | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929967 | fallen on your neck and in return you shall have half my kingdom as well as the wise Sembobitis and Menkera the eunuch. But she rose and fled with a ripple of dear laughter. When the mage and the eunuch returned they found their master plunged deep in thought which was not his custom. My lord! asked Sembobitis, have you | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929968 | concluded a good commercial treaty? That day Balthasar supped with the Queen of Sheba and drank the wine of the palm-tree. It is true, then, said Balkis as they supped together, that Queen Guidace is not so beautiful as I? Queen Candace is black, replied Balthasar. Balkis looked expressively at Balthasar. One may be black and yet not ill-looking, she | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929969 | said. Balkis! cried the king. He said no more, but seized her in his arms, and the head of the queen sank back under the pressure of his lips. But he saw that she was weeping. Thereupon he spoke to her in the low, caressing tones that nurses use to their nurslings. He called her his little blossom and his | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929970 | little star. Why do you weep? he asked. And what must one do to dry your tears? If you have a desire tell me and it shall be fulfilled. She ceased weeping, but she was sunk deep in thought He implored her a long time to tell him her desire. And at last she spoke. I wish to know fear. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929971 | And as Balthasar did not seem to understand, she explained to him that for a long time past she had greatly longed to face some unknown danger, but she could not, for the men and gods of Sheba watched over her. And yet, she added with a sigh, during the night I long to feel the delicious chill of terror | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929972 | penetrate my flesh. To have my hair stand up on my head with horror. O! it would be such joy to be afraid! She twined her arms about the neck of the dusky king, and said with the voice of a pleading child: Night has come. Let us go through the town in disguise. Are you willing? He agreed. She | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929973 | ran to the window at once and looked though the lattice into the square below. A beggar is lying against the palace wall. Give him your garments and ask him in exchange for his camel-hair turban and the coarse cloth girt about his loins. Be quick and I will dress myself. And she ran out of the banqueting-hall joyfully clapping | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929974 | her hands one against the other. Balthasar took off his linen tunic embroidered with gold and girded himself with the skirt of the beggar. It gave him the look of a real slave. The queen soon reappeared dressed in the blue seamless garment of the women who work in the fields. Come! she said. And she dragged Balthasar along the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929975 | narrow corridors towards a little door which opened on the fields. II. The night was dark, and in the darkness of the night Balkis looked very small. She led Balthasar to one of the taverns where wastrels and street porters foregathered along with prostitutes. The two sat down at a table and saw through the foul air by the light | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929976 | of a fetid lamp, unclean human brutes attack each other with fists and knives for a woman or a cup of fermented liquor, while others with clenched fists snored under the tables. The tavern-keeper, lying on a pile of sacking, watched the drunken brawlers with a prudent eye. Balkis, having seen some salt fish hanging from the rafters of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929977 | ceiling, said to her companion: I much wish to eat one of these fish with pounded onions. Balthasar gave the order. When she had eaten he discovered that he had forgotten to bring money. It gave him no concern, for he thought that he could slip out with her without paying the reckoning. But the tavern-keeper barred their way, calling | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929978 | them a vile slave and a worthless she-ass. Balthasar struck him to the ground with a blow of his fist. Whereupon some of the drinkers drew their knives and flung themselves on the two strangers. But the black man, seizing an enormous pestle used to pound Egyptian onions, knocked down two of his assailants and forced the others back. And | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929979 | all the while he was conscious of the warmth of Balkis body as she cowered close against him; it was this which made him invincible. The tavern-keepers friends, not daring to approach again, flung at him from the end of the pot-house jars of oil, pewter vessels, burning lamps, and even the huge bronze cauldron in which a whole sheep | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929980 | was stewing. This cauldron fell with a horrible crash on Balthasars head and split his skull. For a moment he stood as if dazed, and then summoning all his strength he flung the cauldron back with such force that its weight was increased tenfold. The shock of the hurtling metal was mingled with indescribable roars and death rattles. Profiting by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929981 | the terror of the survivors, and fearing that Balkis might be injured, he seized her in his arms and fled with her through the silence and darkness of the lonely byways. The stillness of night enveloped the earth, and the fugitives heard the clamour of the women and the carousers, who pursued them at haphazard, die away in the darkness. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929982 | Soon they heard nothing more than the sound of dripping blood as it fell from the brow of Balthasar on the breast of Balkis. I love you, the queen murmured. And by the light of the moon as it emerged from behind a cloud the king saw the white and liquid radiance of her half-closed eyes. They descended the dry | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929983 | bed of a stream, and suddenly Balthasars foot slipped on the moss and they fell together locked in each others embrace. They seemed to sink forever into a delicious void, and the world of the living ceased to exist for them. They were still plunged in the enchanting forgetfulness of time, space and separate existence, when at daybreak the gazelles | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929984 | came to drink out of the hollows among the stones. At that moment a passing band of brigands discovered the two lovers lying on the moss. They are poor, they said, but we shall sell them for a great price, for they are so young and beautiful. Upon which they surrounded them, and having bound them they tied them to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929985 | the tail of an ass and proceeded on their way. The black man so bound threatened the brigands with death. But Balkis, who shivered in the cool, fresh air of the morning, only smiled, as if at something unseen. They tramped through frightful solitudes until the heat of mid-day made itself felt. The sun was already high when the brigands | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929986 | unbound their prisoners, and, letting them sit in the shade of a rock, threw them some mouldy bread which Balthasar disdained to touch but which Balkis ate greedily. She laughed. And when the brigand chief asked why she laughed, she replied: I laugh at the thought that I shall have you all hanged. Indeed! cried the chief, a curious assertion | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929987 | in the mouth of a scullery wench like you, my love! Doubtless you will hang us all by aid of that blackamoor gallant of yours? At this insult Balthasar flew into a fearful rage, and he flung himself on the brigand and clutched his neck with such violence that he nearly strangled him. But the other drew his knife and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929988 | plunged it into his body to the very hilt. The poor king rolled to earth, and as he turned on Balkis a dying glance his sight faded. III At this moment was heard an uproar of men, horses and weapons, and Balkis recognised her trusty Abner who had come at the head of her guards to rescue his queen, of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929989 | whose mysterious disappearance he had heard during the night. Three times he prostrated himself at the feet of Balkis, and ordered the litter to advance which had been prepared to receive her. In the meantime the guards bound the hands of the brigands. The queen turned towards the chief and said gently: You cannot accuse me of having made you | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929990 | an idle promise, my friend, when I said you would be hanged. The mage Sembobitis and Menkera the eunuch, who stood beside Abner, gave utterance to terrible cries when they saw their king lying motionless on the ground with a knife in his stomach. They raised him with great care. Sembobitis, who was highly versed in the science of medicine, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929991 | saw that he still breathed. He applied a temporary bandage while Menkera wiped the foam from the kings lips. Then they bound him to a horse and led him gently to the palace of the queen. For fifteen days Balthasar lay in the agonies of delirium. He raved without ceasing of the steaming cauldron and the moss in the ravine, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929992 | and he incessantly cried aloud for Balkis. At last, on the sixteenth day, he opened his eyes and saw at his bedside Sembobitis and Menkera, but he did not see the queen. Where is she? What is she doing? My lord, replied Menkera, she is closeted with the King of Comagena. They are doubtless agreeing to an exchange of merchandise, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929993 | added the sage Sembobitis. But be not so disturbed, my lord, or you will redouble your fever. I must see her, cried Balthasar. And he flew towards the apartments of the queen, and neither the sage nor the eunuch could restrain him. On nearing the bedchamber he beheld the King of Comagena come forth covered with gold and glittering like | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929994 | the sun. Balkis, smiling and with eyes closed, lay on a purple couch. My Balkis, my Balkis! cried Balthasar. She did not even turn her head but seemed to prolong a dream. Balthasar approached and took her hand which she rudely snatched away. What do you want? she said. Do you ask? the black king answered, and burst into tears. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929995 | She turned on him her hard, calm eyes. Then he realised that she had forgotten everything, and he reminded her of the night of the stream. In truth, my lord, said she, I do not know to what you refer. The wine of the palm does not agree with you. You must have dreamed. What, cried the unhappy king, wringing | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929996 | his hands, your kisses, and the knife which has left its mark on me, are these dreams? She rose; the jewels on her robe made a sound as of hail and flashed forth lightnings. My lord, she said, it is the hour my council assembles. I have not the leisure to interpret the dreams of your suffering brain. Take some | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929997 | repose. Farewell. Balthasar felt himself sinking, but with a supreme effort not to betray his weakness to this wicked woman, he ran to his room where he fell in a swoon and his wound re-opened. IV For three weeks he remained unconscious and as one dead, but having on the twenty-second day recovered his senses, he seized the hand of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929998 | Sembobitis, who, with Menkera, watched over him, and cried, weeping: O, my friends, how happy you are, one to be old and the other the same as old. But no! there is no happiness on earth, everything is bad, for love is an evil and Balkis is wicked. Wisdom confers happiness, replied Sembobitis. I will try it, said Balthasar. But | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000012929999 | let us depart at once for Ethiopia. And as he had lost all he loved he resolved to consecrate himself to wisdom and to become a mage. If this decision gave him no especial pleasure it at least restored to him something of tranquillity. Every evening, seated on the terrace of his palace in company with the sage Sembobitis and | 60 | gutenberg |
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