“The Princess Hermonthis has found her foot again!”
Even Xixouthros himself was visibly affected.
He raised his heavy eyelids, stroked his mustache with his fingers, and turned upon me a glance weighty with centuries.
“By Oms, the dog of Hell, and Tmei, daughter of the Sun and of Truth! this is a brave and worthy lad!” exclaimed Pharaoh, pointing to me with his sceptre which was terminated with a lotus-flower.
“What recompense do you desire?”
Filled with that daring inspired by dreams in which nothing seems impossible, I asked him for the hand of the Princess Hermonthis;—the hand seemed to me a very proper antithetic recompense for the foot.
Pharaoh opened wide his great eyes of glass in astonishment at my witty request.
“What country do you come from? and what is your age?”
“I am a Frenchman; and I am twenty-seven years old, venerable Pharaoh.”
“—Twenty-seven years old! and he wishes to espouse the Princess Hermonthis, who is thirty centuries old!”—cried out at once all the Thrones and all the Circles of Nations.