Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/148

 accepted of to wither on her dressing-table; or put it in fresh water, to preserve it for the solace of her eyes as long as possible. In like manner, it is difficult to discover whether this fair Princess spent the night asleep, with gay dreams dancing round her, or awake, a victim to the wasting cares of love. The latter is more probable, since early in the morning there arose great dole and lamentation in the Palace, as the Princess made her appearance with pale cheeks and languid eyes; so that her female council dreaded the approach of grievous sickness. The Court Physician was called in; the same bearded Hebrew who had floated off the Count’s fever in his sweat-bath; he was now to examine the pulse of a more delicate patient. According to the custom of the country, she was lying on a sofa, with a large screen in front of it, provided with a little opening, through which she stretched her beautifully turned arm, twice and three times wrapt with fine muslin, to protect it from the profane glance of a masculine eye. “God help me!” whispered the Doctor into the chief waiting-woman’s ear: “Things have a bad look with her Highness; the pulse is quivering like a mouse-tail.” At the same time, with practical policy, he shook his head dubitatingly, as cunning doctors are wont; ordered abundance of Kalaf and other cordials, and with a shrug of the shoulders predicted a dangerous fever.

Nevertheless, these alarming symptoms, which the medical gentleman considered as so many heralds announcing the approach of a malignant distemper, appeared to be nothing more than the consequences of a bad night’s-rest; for the patient having taken her siesta about noon, found herself, to the Israelite’s astonishment, out of danger in the evening; needed no more drugs, and by the orders of her Æsculapius was required merely to keep quiet for a day or two. This space she employed in maturely deliberating her intrigue, and devising ways and means for fulfilling the demands of the Mushirumi. She was diligently occupied, inventing, proving, choosing and rejecting. One hour fancy smoothed away the most impassable mountains; and the next, she saw nothing but clefts and abysses, from the brink of which she shuddered back, and over which the boldest imagination could not build a bridge. Yet on all these rocks of offence she grounded the firm resolution