King Candaules | Page 8

created fleeting rosy

clouds upon them like those which a drop of crimson essence would
form in a cup of milk, and when uncoloured by any emotion they took
a silvery sheen, a warm light, like an alabaster vessel illumined by a
lamp within. That lamp was her charming soul, which exposed to view
the transparency of her flesh.
A bee would have been deceived by her mouth, whose form was so
perfect, whose corners were so purely dimpled, whose crimson was so
rich and warm that the gods would have descended from their
Olympian dwellings in order to touch it with lips humid with
immortality, but that the jealousy of the goddesses restrained their
impetuosity. Happy the wind which passed through that purple and
pearl, which dilated those pretty nostrils, so finely cut and shaded with
rosy tints like the mother-of-pearl of the shells thrown by the sea on the
shore of Cyprus at the feet of Venus Anadyomene! But are there not a
multitude of favours thus granted to things which cannot understand
them? What lover would not wish to be the tunic of his well-beloved or
the water of her bath?
Such was Nyssia, if we dare make use of the expression after so vague
a description of her face. If our foggy Northern idioms had the warm
liberty, the burning enthusiasm of the Sir Hasirim, we might, perhaps,
by comparisons--awakening in the mind of the reader memories of
flowers and perfumes, of music and sunlight, evoking, by the magic of
words, all the graceful and charming images that the universe can
contain--have been able to give some idea of Nyssia's features; but it is
permitted to Solomon alone to compare the nose of a beautiful woman
to the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. And yet
what is there in the world of more importance than the nose of a
beautiful woman? Had Helen, the white Tyndarid, been flat-nosed,
would the Trojan War have taken place? And if the profile of
Semiramis had not been perfectly regular, would she have bewitched
the old monarch of Nineveh and encircled her brow with the mitre of
pearls, the symbol of supreme power?
Although Candaules had brought to his palace the most beautiful slaves
from the people of the Sorse, of Askalon, of Sogdiana, of the Sacse, of

Rhapta, the most celebrated courtesans from Ephesus, from Pergamus,
from Smyrna, and from Cyprus, he was completely fascinated by the
charms of Nyssia. Up to that time he had not even suspected the
existence of such perfection.
Privileged as a husband to enjoy fully the contemplation of this beauty,
he found himself dazzled, giddy, like one who leans over the edge of an
abyss, or fixes his eyes upon the sun; he felt himself seized, as it were,
with the dilirium of possession, like a priest drunk with the god who
fills and moves him. All other thoughts disappeared from his soul, and
the universe seemed to him only as a vague mist in the midst of which
beamed the shining phantom of Nyssia. His happiness transformed
itself into ecstasy, and his love into madness. At times his very felicity
terrified him. To be only a wretched king, only a remote descendant of
a hero who had become a god by mighty labours, only a common man
formed of flesh and bone, and without having in aught rendered himself
worthy of it--without having even, like his ancestor, strangled some
hydra, or torn some lion asunder--to enjoy a happiness whereof Zeus of
the ambrosial hair would scarce be worthy, though lord of all Olympus!
He felt, as it were, a shame to thus hoard up for himself alone so rich a
treasure, to steal this marvel from the world, to be the dragon with
scales and claws who guarded the living type of the ideal of lovers,
sculptors, and poets. All they had ever dreamed of in their hope, their
melancholy, and their despair, he possessed--he, Candaules, poor tyrant
of Sardes, who had only a few wretched coffers filled with pearls, a few
cisterns filled with gold pieces, and thirty or forty thousand slaves,
purchased or taken in war.
Candaules's felicity was too great for him, and the strength which he
would doubtless have found at his command in time of misfortune was
wanting to him in time of happiness. His joy overflowed from his soul
like water from a vase placed upon the fire, and in the exasperation of
his enthusiasm for Nyssia he had reached the point of desiring that she
were less timid and less modest, for it cost him no little effort to retain
in his own breast the secret of such wondrous beauty.
'Ah,' he would murmur to himself during the deep reveries which

absorbed him at all hours