Carmen Sylva And Sketches From the Orient

t a queen of the Orient; speaking many languages and transforming each into perfect music; ever fascinating, possessing the gift of creating around her ? sometimes merely by the aid of a genial smile ? a kind of beneficent charm, of the most reassuring and consoling nature. Thus do I call back to mind the queen with her flowing veil (no longer dare I speak of the fairy, now that I have defined her more openly). She is speaking to me as she sits before her easel, whilst archaic drawings, which seem the natural offspring of her fingers, succeed one another on the parchment of the missal. By the side of Her Majesty sit two or three young ladies, her maids of honour, ? dark-complexioned girls wearing strange-coloured gold-spangled Oriental costumes; they are engaged either in reading,or in embroidering on silk large, old-fashioned flowers. They raise their eyes from time to time, whenever the conversation appears to interest them more particularly. The place Her Majesty generally appoints for me is in front of herself, near a large single-paned window, which offers the illusion of opening out upon the surrounding forest. With true artistic feeling, the king had allowed the forest to approach within twenty paces of the walls; the result being that the windows of the royal apartments look upon nothing but gigantic firs and undergrowth, ? or wide-spreading verdant stretches, the sylvan peaks of the Carpathians rising tier upon tier in the limpid atmosphere. And the forest, ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.