Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/156

148 Princess that her fine enterprise was verging towards shipwreck; wherefore she adopted a heroical expedient, undoubtedly of far more certain effect than our animal magnetism, with all its renowned virtues: she unveiled her face. There stood she, in the full radiance of beauty, like the Sun when he first raised his head from Chaos to hurl his rays over the gloomy Earth. Soft blushes overspread her cheeks, and higher purple glowed upon her lips; two beautifully-curved arches, on which love was sporting like the many-coloured Iris on the rainbow, shaded her spirit-speaking eyes; and two golden tresses kissed each other on her lily breast. The Count was astonished and speechless; the Princess addressed him, and said:

“See, Bostangi, whether this form pleases thy eyes, and whether it deserves the sacrifice which I require of thee.”

“It is the form of an Angel,” answered he, with looks of the highest rapture, “and deserves to shine, encircled with a glory, in the courts of the Christian Heaven, compared with which, the delights of the Prophet’s Paradise are empty shadows.”

These words, spoken with warmth and visible conviction, found free entrance into the open heart of the Princess: especially the glory, it appeared to her, must be a sort of head-dress that would sit not ill upon the face. Her quick fancy fastened on this idea, which she asked to have explained; and the Count with all eagerness embraced this opportunity of painting the Christian Heaven to her as charming as he possibly could; he chose the loveliest images his mind would suggest; and spoke with as much confidence as if he had descended directly from the place on a mission to the Princess. Now, as it has pleased the Prophet to endow the fair sex with very scanty expectations in the other world, our apostolic preacher failed the less in his intentions; though it cannot be asserted that he was preëminently qualified for the missionary duty. But whether it were that Heaven itself favoured the work of conversion, or that the foreign tastes of the Princess extended to the spiritual conceptions of the Western nations, or that the person of this Preacher to the Heathen mixed in the effect, certain it is she was all ear, and would have listened to her pedagogue with pleasure for many hours longer, had not the approach of night cut short their lesson. For the present, she hastily dropped her veil, and retired to the Seraglio.