United States or Croatia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
My mother, have you not a caress for your Felipe now that he has yielded to your favorite even the girl whom you regretfully thrust into his arms? What I have done is pleasing to our womankind, to the dead, and to the King; it is the will of God. Make no difficulty then, Fernand; obey, and be silent. P. S. Tell Urraca to be sure and call me nothing but M. Henarez.
When Henarez returned, two days after the reproof he had given me, I remarked by way of showing my gratitude: "I have no doubt that you left Spain in consequence of political events. If my father is sent there, as seems to be expected, we shall be in a position to help you, and might be able to obtain your pardon, in case you are under sentence."
How the eyes of these brigands who but yesterday had dreaded my authority sparkled with savage joy and pride when they found they were protecting against the King of Spain's vendetta the Duc de Soria, their master and a Henarez the first who had come to visit them since the time when the island belonged to the Moors.
Four little months, and those two doves, whose wings erst bore them so high, have fluttered down upon the flat stretches of real life! Sunday. Yesterday, at the Italian Opera, I could feel some one was looking at me; my eyes were drawn, as by a magnet, to two wells of fire, gleaming like carbuncles in a dim corner of the orchestra. Henarez never moved his eyes from me.
His pride is not irritable like Miss Griffith's, it belongs to his inner nature; he forces us to civility because his own manners are so perfect, and holds us at a distance by the respect he shows us. My father declares that there is a great deal of the nobleman in Senor Henarez, whom, among ourselves, he calls in fun Don Henarez. A few days ago I took the liberty of addressing him thus.
Such a man ought no more to be looked at than a frog; he is ugly and fascinating. For two days I have been hesitating whether to tell my father point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and have Henarez sent about his business. But in spite of all my brave resolutions, I feel that the horrible sensation which comes over me when I see that man has become necessary to me.
Ah! my dear, never should I have conceived it possible to throw so much meaning and passion into a single word. His eyes had dropped, and he dared no longer look at me. "M. de Talleyrand," I said, "in whose house you spent your years of exile, declares that any one bearing the name of Henarez must either be the late Duc de Soria or a lacquey."
He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants. In a single letter Henarez has outstripped volumes from Lovelace or Saint-Preux. Here is true love, no beating about the bush. Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity. Here am I, shorn of all my little arts! To refuse or accept!
Vandenesse reported the Prince's reply, word for word, as follows: "Henarez is the Moorish name of the Soria family, who are, they say, descendants of the Abencerrages, converted to Christianity. The old Duke and his two sons were with the King.
I replied quite simply that if my father and M. Henarez were of one mind, I had no reason to oppose their wishes. Thereupon my mother invited the Baron to dinner; and after dinner, we all four went for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, where I had the pleasure of smiling ironically to M. de Marsay as he passed on horseback and caught sight of Macumer sitting opposite to us beside my father.
Word Of The Day