What lover
would not wish to be the tunic of his well-beloved or the water of her
bath?

Such was Nyssia, if we dare make use of the expression after so vague
a description of her face. If our foggy Northern idioms had the warm
liberty, the burning enthusiasm of the Sir Hasirim, we might, perhaps,
by comparisons--awakening in the mind of the reader memories of flowers
and perfumes, of music and sunlight, evoking, by the magic of words,
all the graceful and charming images that the universe can contain--have
been able to give some idea of Nyssia's features; but it is permitted to
Solomon alone to compare the nose of a beautiful woman to the tower
of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. And yet what is there in the
world of more importance than the nose of a beautiful woman? Had Helen,
the white Tyndarid, been flat-nosed, would the Trojan War have taken
place? And if the profile of Semiramis had not been perfectly regular,
would she have bewitched the old monarch of Nineveh and encircled her
brow with the mitre of pearls, the symbol of supreme power?

Although Candaules had brought to his palace the most beautiful slaves
from the people of the Sorse, of Askalon, of Sogdiana, of the Sacse, of
Rhapta, the most celebrated courtesans from Ephesus, from Pergamus, from
Smyrna, and from Cyprus, he was completely fascinated by the charms of
Nyssia. Up to that time he had not even suspected the existence of such
perfection.

Privileged as a husband to enjoy fully the contemplation of this beauty,
he found himself dazzled, giddy, like one who leans over the edge of
an abyss, or fixes his eyes upon the sun; he felt himself seized, as it
were, with the dilirium of possession, like a priest drunk with the god
who fills and moves him. All other thoughts disappeared from his soul,
and the universe seemed to him only as a vague mist in the midst of
which beamed the shining phantom of Nyssia. His happiness transformed
itself into ecstasy, and his love into madness. At times his very
felicity terrified him. To be only a wretched king, only a remote
descendant of a hero who had become a god by mighty labours, only
a common man formed of flesh and bone, and without having in aught
rendered himself worthy of it--without having even, like his ancestor,
strangled some hydra, or torn some lion asunder--to enjoy a happiness
whereof Zeus of the ambrosial hair would scarce be worthy, though
lord of all Olympus! He felt, as it were, a shame to