One day, as I sat alone and brooding in my chamber, Taee flew in at the
open window and alighted on the couch beside me. I was always pleased
with the visits of a child, in whose society, if humbled, I was less
eclipsed than in that of Ana who had completed their education and
matured their understanding. And as I was permitted to wander forth with
him for my companion, and as I longed to revisit the spot in which I
had descended into the nether world, I hastened to ask him if he were
at leisure for a stroll beyond the streets of the city. His countenance
seemed to me graver than usual as he replied, “I came hither on purpose
to invite you forth.”
We soon found ourselves in the street, and had not got far from the
house when we encountered five or six young Gy-ei, who were returning
from the fields with baskets full of flowers, and chanting a song in
chorus as they walked. A young Gy sings more often than she talks. They
stopped on seeing us, accosting Taee with familiar kindness, and me with
the courteous gallantry which distinguishes the Gy-ei in their manner
towards our weaker sex.
And here I may observe that, though a virgin Gy is so frank in
her courtship to the individual she favours, there is nothing that
approaches to that general breadth and loudness of manner which those
young ladies of the Anglo-Saxon race, to whom the distinguished epithet
of ‘fast’ is accorded, exhibit towards young gentlemen whom they do not
profess to love. No; the bearing of the Gy-ei towards males in ordinary
is very much that of high-bred men in the gallant societies of the upper
world towards ladies whom they respect but do not woo; deferential,
complimentary, exquisitely polished--what we should call ‘chivalrous.’
Certainly I was a little put out by the number of civil things addressed
to my ‘amour propre,’ which were said to me by those courteous young
Gy-ei. In the world I came from, a man would have thought himself
aggrieved, treated with irony, ‘chaffed’ (if so vulgar a slang word
may be allowed on the authority of the popular novelists who use it
so freely), when one fair Gy complimented me on the freshness of my
complexion, another on the choice of colours in my dress, a third, with
a sly smile, on the conquests I had made at Aph-Lin’s entertainment. But
I knew already that all such language was what the French call ‘banal,’
and did but express in the female mouth, below earth, that sort of
desire to pass for amiable with the opposite sex which, above earth,
arbitrary custom and hereditary transmission demonstrate by the mouth of
the male. And just as a high-bred young lady, above earth, habituated
to such compliments, feels that she cannot, without impropriety, return
them, nor evince any great satisfaction at receiving them; so I who
had learned polite manners at the house of so wealthy and dignified
a Minister of that nation, could but smile and try to look pretty in
bashfully disclaiming the compliments showered upon me. While we were
thus talking, Taee’s sister, it seems, had seen us from the upper rooms
of the Royal Palace at the entrance of the town, and, precipitating
herself on her wings, alighted in the midst of the group.
Singling me out, she said, though still with the inimitable deference
of manner which I have called ‘chivalrous,’ yet not without a certain
abruptness of tone which, as addressed to the weaker sex, Sir Philip
Sydney might have termed ‘rustic,’ “Why do you never come to see
us?” While I was deliberating on the right answer to give to this
unlooked-for question, Taee said quickly and sternly, “Sister, you
forget--the stranger is of my sex. It is not for persons of my sex,
having due regard for reputation and modesty, to lower themselves by
running after the society of yours.”
This speech was received with evident approval by the young Gy-ei in
general; but Taee’s sister looked greatly abashed. Poor thing!--and a
PRINCESS too!
Just at this moment a shadow fell on the space between me and the group;
and, turning round, I beheld the chief magistrate coming close upon us,
with the silent and stately pace peculiar to the Vril-ya. At the sight
of his countenance, the same terror which had seized me when I first
beheld it returned. On that brow, in those eyes, there was that same
indefinable something which marked the being of a race fatal to our
own--that strange expression of serene exemption from our common cares
and passions, of conscious superior power, compassionate and inflexible
as that of a judge who pronounces doom. I shivered, and, inclining low,
pressed the arm of my child-friend, and drew him onward silently. The
Tur placed himself before our path, regarded me for a moment without
speaking, then turned his eye quietly on his daughter’s face, and, with
a grave salutation to her and the other Gy-ei, went through the midst of
the group,--still without a word.