dow, beautiful as the sun. He has no other life than to see the tsaritsa of his soul. There was no other life in life, for life was dead in him; and as life was ebbing away, he sat still at the window of his hut and thought one thought alone, "Shall I ever see her again?"
"Tbis is not all about me," says the radiant one. "He loved her as long as he did not touch her. If she had become his wife, she would have become his slave; she would have been obliged to tremble before him; he would have locked her up; he would have ceased to love her. He would have gone out hunting; he would have gone to the war; he would have caroused with his comrades; he would have seduced the daughters of his vassals; his wife would have been cast aside, locked up, despised. When once a man had enjoyed a woman, then he ceased to love her from that time forth. No, I was not there, then. That tsaritsa was called 'Chastity.' Here she is."
Modest, humble, tender, beautiful,—more beautiful than Astarte; more beautiful than Aphrodite herself, but melancholy, gloomy, sorrowful. Before her they bowed their knees; they bring her bouquets of roses. She says: "My soul is sad with deathly sorrow. A dagger is plunged into my heart. Be ye also sorrowful. Ye are unfortunate. The earth is a vale of sorrow."
"No, no! I was not in existence then," says the radiant one.
4.
"No, those tsaritsas did not resemble me. They are all still reigning, but the kingdoms are crumbling. With the birth of each of them the reign of her predecessor began to crumble. I was born only when the kingdom of the last began to crumble. And since I was born, their kingdom began to crumble more rapidly; and soon they will vanish entirely; the successor of each could not take the place left by the others, since the others still existed. I shall take the place of all of them; they shall vanish; I shall remain the mistress of the world. But they had to reign before me; without their reign, mine could not come.
"People used to be like beasts. They ceased to be like beasts when man began to value the beauty of woman. But woman's physical strength is less than man's; and man then was rude. Everything then was decided by strength. Man
