Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/146

 without carrying a morsel to his lips. By this the trusty Dapifer perceived that all was not right with the Count; wherefore he vanished speedily from the room, and uncorked a flask of Chian wine; which Grecian care-dispeller did not fail in its effect. The Count became communicative, and disclosed to his faithful Squire the adventure in the garden. Their speculations on it were protracted to a late hour, without affording any tenable hypothesis for the displeasure of the Princess; and as with all their pondering nothing could be discovered, master and servant betook them to repose. The latter found it without difficulty; the former sought it in vain, and watched throughout the painful night, till the dawn recalled him to his employments.

At the hour when Melechsala used to visit him, the Count kept an eager eye on the entrance, but the door of the Seraglio did not open. He waited the second day; then the third: the door of the Seraglio was as if walled up within. Had not the Count of Gleichen been a sheer idiot in flower-language, he would readily have found the key to this surprising behaviour of the Princess. By presenting the flower to her, he had, in fact, without knowing a syllable of the matter, made a formal declaration of love, and that in no Platonic sense. For when an Arab lover, by some trusty hand, privily transmits a Mushirumi flower to his mistress, he gives her credit for penetration enough to discover the only rhyme which exists in the Arabian language for the word. This rhyme is Ydskerumi, which, delicately rendered, means reward of love. To this invention it must be conceded, that there cannot be a more compendious method of proceeding in the business than this of the Mushirumi, which might well deserve the imitation of our Western lovers. The whole insipid scribbling of Billets-doux, which often cost their authors so much toil and brain-beating, often when they come into the wrong hand are pitilessly mangled by hard-hearted jesters, often by the fair receivers themselves mistreated or falsely interpreted, might by this means be dispensed with. It need not be objected that the Mushirumi, or Muscadine-hyacinth, flowers but rarely and for a short time in our climates; because an imitation of it might be made by our Parisian or native gumflower