Page:The Thousand And One Days - 1892 - Volume 1.djvu/24

 What can cause the repugnance she has for marriage? Speak. Is it not you who have inspired it in her?'

'No, my lord,' replied the nurse, 'I am not at all an enemy of men, and this repugnance is the effect of a dream.'

'Of a dream!' replied the king, very surprised. 'Ah! what are you saying? No, no,' he added a moment after, 'I cannot believe what you tell me. What dream could have made such a strong impression on my daughter?'

Sutlumemé related it, and after telling him all the circumstances, 'Such, my lord,' she continued, 'such is the dream which has struck the imagination of the princess. She judges of men by that stag, and persuaded that they are all ungrateful and perfidious, she rejects all who are presented to her.'

This speech increased the astonishment of the king, who could not conceive that this dream would have placed the princess in the disposition she was in.

'Well, my dear Sutlumemé,' he said to the nurse, 'what shall we do to destroy the mistrust with which the mind of my daughter is filled against men?'