King Nasrulla. Paris! What is Paris?
Nourmahal (standing in front of the horse and caressing its head). I don't know. I have never been there, but a horse makes me think of Paris. I don't know London, but a horse makes me think of London too. A horse could take me there. I could ride and ride, and every day there would be something new and something wonderful. There are cities beyond the water, too, marvelous cities, full of things more than we dream of here. A horse is swift, and the tapping of his feet on the stones is distance. When he lifts his head, when he curves his neck, already in his heart he is going on and on.
King Nasrulla. And these are the stories that you have heard, stories about Paris and London and the cities across the water?
Nourmahal. Stories? Perhaps not stories. Dreams, I think, imaginings dropped from the wings of falcons flying out of the west.
King Nasrulla. You shall sit on the horse, and you can seem to be riding. Then as your dreams come true, you can tell them to me. Let the horse be Paris in my fancies too, and London and the cities across the water.
The horse is still standing where he stopped when Nasrulla led him out from behind the trees with him. He faces toward the left, and Nasrulla is back of him. Nourmahal puts her foot into Nasrulla's hand, and he lifts her into the saddle. When she is comfortably seated, he stands beside her and in front of her, back of the horse, leaning against the horse's neck and caressing his shoulder.
King Nasrulla. Now we are on the road, and all the world is moving across the horizon. If it is all a dream, let me be in the dream.
Nourmahal (looking out and away from him and pausing a moment). Stories! Dreams!—What I have heard is only a whisper, but it seems so true and so beautiful. Somewhere a man loves one woman always and no other. Somewhere a king is not a manikin stalking through ceremonies. Somewhere he lives humanly as other men. Somewhere to-day is not like yesterday, and man has learned to break the cycle of what has been forever, of what seems dead and yet out of death comes back again and again. I have not seen it, but I know it. Somewhere you and I could be happy without being king or queen. Somewhere a woman thinks her own thoughts, and not the thoughts of her lord only. Somewhere men are not bound to a king, and somewhere kings are not bound to the words of their fathers' fathers.
King Nasrulla (slowly, after a pause). It is the way of the world, Nourmahal. What the world is, it is, and that is forever and ever, unless it should be the will of God to make a new world.
Nourmahal. A new world! (She pauses dreamily.) Yes, that is what I want, a new world. That is what men are making somewhere, I know it. That is what is in my heart, and the same thing must be in the hearts of other men and women. A new world! What would it be to wake up every morning with a fresh wonder, not knowing what the day would bring? What would it be every morning to take the saddle and follow a new road ahead of the sun?