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190 |
LILITIT |
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am going into the black hall for a moment. I want you to get me something for my scratches.'
But I followed her close. Out of my sight I feared her.
The instant the princess entered, I heard a buzzing sound as of many low voices, and, one portion after another, the assembly began to be shiftingly illuminated, as by a ray that went travelling from spot to spot. Group after group would shine out for a space, then sink back into the general vagueness, while another part of the vast company would grow momently bright.
Some of the actions going on when thus illuminated, were not unknown to me; I had been in them, or had looked on them, and so had the princess : present with every one of them I now saw her. The skull-headed dancers footed the grass in the forest-hall: there was the princess looking in at the door! The fight went on in the Evil Wood: there was the princess urging it! Yet I was close behind her all the time, she standing motionless, her head sunk on her bosom. The confused murmur continued, the confused commotion of colours and shapes; and still the ray went shifting and showing. It settled at last on the hollow in the heath, and there was the princess, walking up and down, and trying in vain to wrap the vapour around her ! Then first I was startled at what I saw : the old librarian walked up to her, and stood for a moment regarding her ; she fell; her limbs forsook her and fled; her body vanished.
A wild shriek rang through the echoing place, and with the fall of her eidolon, the princess herself, till then standing like a statue in front of me, fell heavily, and lay still. I turned at once and went out: not again |
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