Love (Part I)

A certain lad and lass had three daughters, The charms of the two elder were more than common, but the beauty of the youngest was so beautiful that the poverty of language is unable to express its due praise. The fame of her beauty was so great that strangers from neighboring lands came in crowds to enjoy the sight of her beautiful face, and looked on her with amazement, paying her that homage which is due only to the beauty of the mighty Queen Lovetta. In fact Lovetta found her altars deserted, while men turned their devotion to this young lass. As she passed along, the people sang her praises, and strewed her way with chaplets and flowers.

This homage to the exaltation of an ordinary maiden gave great offense to the Queen. Shaking her ambrosial locks with indignation, she exclaimed, "Am I then to be eclipsed in my honors by a rustic maiden? In vain then did that shepherd, whose judgment was approved by Clav himself, give me the palm of beauty over my illustrious rivals, Vlad and Agatha. But she shall not so quietly usurp my honors. I will give her cause to repent of so unlawful a beauty."

Thereupon she calls her son Victor, mischievous enough in his own nature, and rouses and provokes him yet more by her complaints. She points out Helena to him and says, "My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give your mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty lass a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph."

Victor prepared to obey the commands of his mother. There are two bowls in Lovetta's private altars, one of sweet waters comes from the top finest spring, the other of bitter poisonous lake. Victor filled two golden vases, one from each bowls, and suspending them from the top of his quiver, hastened to the room of Helena, whom he found asleep. He shed a few drops from the bitter poisonous lake over her lips, though the sight of her almost moved him to pity; then touched her side with the point of his dagger. At the touch she awoke, and opened her eyes upon Victor, which so startled him that in his confusion he wounded himself with his own dagger. Heedless of his wound, his whole thought now was to repair the mischief he had done, and he poured the balmy drops of joy over all her silken ringlets.

Helena, henceforth frowned upon by Lovetta, derived no benefit from all her charms. True, all eyes were cast eagerly upon her, and every mouth spoke her praises; but neither kings, royal youths, nor plebeians presented himself to demand her in marriage. Her two elder sisters of moderate charms had now long been married to two Dukes; but Helena, in her lonely apartment, deplored her solitude, sick of that beauty which, while it procured abundance of flattery, had failed to awaken love.