Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/152

138 from the upper regions of the air, into the oppressive atmosphere of the earth, to do homage to your beauty.” At these words the attendant entered the chamber to give a report of her commission, but she was immediately sent away with an excuse, since her presence appeared superfluous at this secret audience.

The lovely Urraca was naturally uncommonly flattered by such a supernatural lover; she put in action all the graces of the most practised coquetry, in order to dazzle the lord of the fairies by the variegated splendour of her charms, and to assure herself of so mighty a conquest. From the modest embarrassment which she at first affected, she changed to the warmest demonstrations of growing passion. The confiding tenderness of the lovers grew with every moment: the Princess only complained that her lover was invisible. “Know, lovely Princess,” said the king of the fairies, “that it is quite in my power to corporealize myself, and to present myself before your eyes in the figure of man; but such a condescension is below my dignity!” The lovely Urraca did not, meanwhile, cease to crave this sacrifice so pressingly, that he could not withstand the desire of the lady. He agreed, apparently unwillingly,—and the fancy of the Princess presented to her the image of the handsomest man, whom she, with anxious expectation waited to behold. But what a contrast between the actual and the ideal! nothing appeared but a common everyday face—one of the ordinary men, whose physiognomy revealed neither the glance of genius, nor a feeling mind. The pretended fairy prince, in his Arcadian shepherd’s costume, had quite the appearance of a Flemish peasant in one of Ostade’s taverns. The Princess concealed her astonishment at this bizarre appearance, as well as she could, and consoled herself immediately with the idea, that the proud spirit of air had been willing to impose a little penitence on her senses, for her pertinacity in desiring him to assume a visible shape, and that, on another appearance, he would make himself as handsome as Adonis.

Perhaps he would have been happier without the gift of invisibility than with it. He followed the lady, incognito like her shadow, and could not thus fail to make discoveries not altogether pleasing to a lover. He found that the complaisant Princess granted her favours to others with equal liberality; and this fatal collision with his previous companions in arms, who were as well received as himself, created in his heart a torturing jealousy. He thought on some means of driving away his rivals, and, by chance, he found an opportunity of displaying his resentment against the blockhead Amarin. At a banquet at which the king and the whole court were feasted, there was placed on the table a covered dish, for which King Garsias reserved his excellent appetite; for although the table-napkin had produced it, it passed current under the firman of the Princess Urraca; and the head-cook loudly asserted, that the culinary skill of her highness, this time,