Everyone praised the wisdom of this edict; it was read and
subscribed to as an article of faith; towns greeted towns, house
congratulated house, and relations shook hands; what was still stranger
was, husbands and wives were reconciled--and what was even more
delightful, there was now some chance of the beautiful Princess
Babe-bi-bobu no longer remaining unmarried.
This fortunate edict, by which it was clear that those who believed a
mole to be a blemish were quite safe, and those who did not believe it,
were in no manner of danger, set everything to rights; the metropolis
was again filled with aspirants, the air tortured with the music of the
mandolins, and impregnated with the attar of roses. Who can attempt to
describe the sumptuousness of the palace, and the splendour of the hall
in which the beautiful princess sat, to receive the homage of the flower
of the youth of her kingdom. Soothingly soft, sweetly, lovingly soft,
were the dulcet notes of the warbling Asparas, or singing girls, now
ebbing, now flowing in tender gushes of melody, while down the sides of
the elegant and highly pillared hall, now advancing, now retreating, the
dancing girls, each beautiful as Artee herself in her splendour, seemed
almost to demand, in their aggregate, that gaze of homage due only to
the peerless individual who at once burned and languished on her emerald
throne. Three days had the princess sat in that hall of delight, tired
and annoyed with the constant stream of the Souffra youths, who
prostrated themselves and passed on.
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