Page 365 - the-idiot

ing, which showed that he, too, was probably in the secret
of the ‘poor knight’ joke. But it had become quite a differ-
ent matter with Aglaya. All the affectation of manner which
she had displayed at the beginning disappeared as the bal-
lad proceeded. She spoke the lines in so serious and exalted
a manner, and with so much taste, that she even seemed
to justify the exaggerated solemnity with which she had
stepped forward. It was impossible to discern in her now
anything but a deep feeling for the spirit of the poem which
she had undertaken to interpret.
Her eyes were aglow with inspiration, and a slight tremor
of rapture passed over her lovely features once or twice. She
continued to recite:
‘Once there came a vision glorious, Mystic, dreadful,
wondrous fair; Burned itself into his spirit, And abode for
ever there!
‘Never more—from that sweet moment— Gazed he on
womankind; He was dumb to love and wooing And to all
their graces blind.
‘Full of love for that sweet vision, Brave and pure he took
the field; With his blood he stained the letters N. P. B. upon
his shield.
‘Lumen caeli, sancta Rosa!’ Shouting on the foe he fell,
And like thunder rang his war-cry O’er the cowering infi-
del.
‘Then within his distant castle, Home returned, he
dreamed his daysSilent, sad,—and when death took him He
was mad, the legend says.’
When recalling all this afterwards the prince could not

The Idiot