"That inverted Bowl we call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help—for It
As impotently moves as you or I."
You are my sky, and the old poet is right, if you must have four wives because your father had four wives, and his father.
King Nasrulla. They are but symbols of kingliness, and they shall bow in the dust before you, whom my heart chooses, as weeds by the roadside bow when you pass in your tahktiravan and the air follows its flying curtains.
Nourmahal. Why should anyone bow to me? Why should I care for bowing? It would make me a slave to the custom of bowing. Are you a king and must you be a slave too? Impotence is the name of such kingship, and why should I care to be a queen when my king cannot make me queenly?
King Nasrulla (advancing to the tower and leaving his horse standing). Come! The stars are paling, and there is only the light of your eyes to lift me out of the dust. Come!
In the side of the wall by the tower a sloping series of stout pegs has been driven, descending to the ground at short intervals. Nourmahal comes out of the tower, puts her foot on the highest of these pegs, takes Nasrulla's hand, and, with his help, comes slowly down the pegs, as if they were a flight of stairs, to the ground.
Nourmahal. How I love a horse! It is Samarcand and Delhi and Bokhara and Paris, even Paris.