“The young princess Ulemalik-Kurekli, doomed before her birth to die if she beheld the light of day, lived shut up in an obscure dungeon. And she asked her servants: ‘Is this what they call the world? Tell me, is there anything else outside these walls? is this tower in something?’
“‘No, princess, this is not the world: that is outside and very much larger. And there are also things they call stars, that they call sun and they call moon.’
“‘Oh!’ replied Ulemalik, ‘let me die, but let me see them!’”
(IX)
IT was at the close of winter, one of the first warm days of March, that Pussy Chinese made her début at my home in France. Pussy White still wore at that season her royal winter robe, and I had never seen her more imposing. The contrast would be the more overwhelming for my poor favorite, lean, lank, with her faded fawn-colored fur looking as if moth-eaten. I felt myself much embarrassed when our man Sylvester, returning with my pet from the ship, lifted, with a half disdainful air, the cover of the basket where he had placed her, and I saw, in the midst[34] of the assembled family, my little Chinese friend creep tremblingly forth.
Most deplorable was her first appearance. I felt the impression of the group in Aunt Clara’s simple exclamation: “Oh! my friend, how homely she is!”
Homely indeed! And in what way, under what pretense could I present her to the magnificent Pussy White? In utter helplessness I had her carried, for the time being, to an isolated granary,—that I might gain time to reflect on the situation.