To put aside all details of preparation (into which, indeed, this
person could not enter) he waved his hand gracefully, at the same time
smiling with an expression of tolerant acquiescence, as of one who
would say that what was good enough to be cooked and offered by so
entrancing a maiden was good enough to be eaten by him. After
remaining in unruffled tranquillity for the full portion of an hour,
and observing that no other person around had to wait above half that
period, this one began to perceive that the enterprise was not likely
to terminate in a manner satisfactory to himself; so that, leaving
this place with a few well-chosen phrases of intolerable regret in his
own tongue, he entered another, and conducted himself in a like
fashion. . . . Towards evening, with an unperturbed exterior, but
materially afflicted elsewhere, this person seated himself within the
eleventh tea-shop, and, pointing first towards his own constituents of
digestion, then at the fire, and lastly in an upward direction,
thereby signified to any not of stunted intellect that he had reached
such a condition of mind and body that he was ready to consume
whatever the ruling deities were willing to allot, whether boiled,
baked, roast, or suspended from a skewer. In this resolve nothing
would move him, until--after many maidens had approached with
outstretched hands and gestures of despair--there presently entered a
person wearing the helmet of a warrior and the manner of a high
official, who spoke strongly, yet persuasively, of the virtues of
immediate movement and a quiet and reposeful bearing.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28