PRINCESS VICTORIA &THE 3 SUITORS 1

PRINCESS VICTORIA AND THE THREE SUITORS I


CHAPTER 1


Alone in his sanctum, an elderly king gazes into space in deep introspection. He dreads what will befall his only child and heiress in her protracted maidenhood. She has been marriageable for seven years now! But to none of her innumerable suitors and admirers, personable or respectable, has she taken. Will Victoria perpetuate this unprecedentedness in Gustos? Gustos, after all, is not new to sole heiresses, or to princesses of devastating physical beauty. This, then, is a unique eccentricity; to the king much more of a mystery than a curiosity, his days fraught with anguish and apprehension at her advancing age. Hopeless, he can make nothing whatever of her odd pertinacity.

This Victoria of ever glaring nubility, always radiant as the sun, impeccably sound in mind and body, this blithe and blissful enigmatic princess, for whom no man has been adequate, passing her days with complete insouciance, seemingly oblivious to the passing of her years; the mysterious sole princess of Gustos, impervious to flattery or dissuasion, to the emotional blackmail of father and mother, and the renowned persuasiveness of the most slick and mealy-mouthed rhetoricians whom the royalty has year after year hired to prick her out of her slumber-not by an inch has she budged to their witty tongues, nor to those of the most passionate, at times tearful pleas of her closest peers and allies. It is as though she really lived in a substantial world of her romantic caprices, in a transcendental island of inscrutable super-earthly beings that upheld such semperidem, infrangible love philosophies.

She insists: he would be unassuming, unchauvinistic, unyielding; never be ruled by expediencies, always placing the harmony of a relationship of love above his personal wishes and sentiments, because his heart and mind would be bent upon a definite cause to nobility.

Well! Good enough! Eternally for her, but only shortly for her father. He dreads the prospect of his daughter becoming a notorious old spinster, labouring in the clouds of an airy-fairy, prudish, unrealistic notion of her romantic, otherworldly partner! “ Banish these fantastic fairies and take to an earthman!”


When in chat Victoria is asked about the masculine figure of her preference, readily she will reply:

“Clean-limbed!”

“Really?”

“Yes, really clean-limbed, reflecting vibrant virility!”

So no man has proposed or made advances to her who had not a prominently tall, stout and sturdy physique, frequently with positively masculine physiognomy that very much suggested characteristic masculinity!

Yet their sonorously deep and vibrant voices, their formidable goliathan and rugged physiques, masculinities of titanic magnitudes, have all amounted to nought, no fructification! - never passed beyond her brain to her breast.

The dream of every eligible bachelor, Victoria is accessible to nearly all and sundry. Therefore, comparing his educational status to hers and ascertaining its tolerability, no man feels himself too lowly to make advances to her, knowing her ways and principles. Infinitely egalitarian, dismissive of no one and considering every amorous offer with uncondescending, impartial objectivity. The arrogance and snobbery of power and prestige have no room within her. Therefore: “Just convince!” has been the thought of every informed admirer, “ convince her the harmony of the relationship of love shall always be your ALL: you are willing to ‘place the harmony of a relationship of love above [your] personal wishes and sentiments’-she will take to you!” The optimistic soliloquies of their amorous intoxications!

But more than that: She is praised as the very incarnation of those wondrous, super-earthly beauties celebrated in the folklores of Gustos; with the sublimity of her physical charms, she has put into flesh and blood the glorious sky blue of an immaculately bright early morning! And just this fresh brilliance has in itself been sufficient to enthral every male beholder, often biding his heart and loyalty to her before his first approach.

Of her, an utterly smitten suitor once wrote:

She cast a glance to me-
And swept me under her foot!
I cannot bear this ray!
I cannot bear this spell!
Her emerald eyes
Incorruptibly devastating nymphets
And her ever ruddy lips
Eve offering the Forbidding Fruit
Relieve me of every fidelity
I am deaed under her sway!
Behold Venus in flessh and blood!
Immaculately fair and favoured, perfectly bosomed!
And Her Mermaid coiffure pulls me out of me
For I swooned back to the age of fairies
Her willowy frame all angelic, seraphic, mesmerical!
It chants the very charms of my love and lure!
Transports my soul into the wondrous heights
Where I dream and drone, waste and wither
Now, what I shall I yet say!
Victorial dazzle, dazzle of death and devastation!


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CHAPTER 2

It has been seven years of depressing monotony in King Wet-hen’s palace. Love-struck six-footers entering with airs of prayerful hope and optimism, but leaving often with frustration and dismay. None has won Victoria’s heart.

To check these unending frustrations, this drift towards a grey historicity in Gustos, eternal desolation for him and his beloveds, the king decides for once to specify to the public what characters his daughter is keen on in a man. So a formalised handout goes out:

KING WET-HEN'S PALACE, THE BYWORD FOR
LOVESICKNESS!

His Royal Majesty, King Wet-Hen I, wishes to apprise the public of his deepening dejection over the dash which suitors eternally experience in his palace. As it is common knowledge that these long-drawn-out fruitless propositions to his daughter are an unwelcome aberration in our land and a sad break with our tradition, it is quite imaginable how downcast he is over this status quo. But the blame for this odd attaches not to his Majesty: it rests on the darkness in which admirers are kept about the personal, rather than the formal attributes that constitute the suitor of this much contested-belle. His Majesty hereby dispels this darkness: Princess Victoria does indeed thirst for a man constituted as follows: He is never governed by expediency - for wealth, for power, or for prestige. But especially by thoughts of her happiness for his own joy (just as his happiness would absolutely be her own joy): unassuming, unchauvinistic, unyielding; uncorrupted by the philosophy of “personal advantage at any expense” that prevails in our world. His heart and his mind are bent on some noble cause, and are, for this reason, ever willing to sacrifice personal wish and indulgence in the name of the harmony of the relationship of love-a relationship on joyous mutual advancement of a sacrificial give-and-take. Intending invitees would do very well to study closely these prerequisites, that they do not risk having, as others, to swing into the palace, only to stump out with the usual airs of frustration and chagrin. Finally, as for formal characteristics: the princess, as is common knowledge, prefers the stout, sturdy and masculine six-footer. No man under than six feet of height has been known to make her advances.

On behalf of his Royal Majesty,King Wet-hen I

******************

Customarily, an applicant to a princess must first send in a letter of introduction to introduce himself and his amorous sentiments. Along with this must be a full-length picture of a recently taken photograph-to present the figure harbouring the sentiments. The drill is a matter parading to the princess the suitability of an admirer for herself. Single princesses are reputedly ladies of atmospheric intuitions in matters of love and choice of partner, because they often perceive what lie hidden to the ordinary eye in gestures or protestations. If on reading and examining his introductions, she is favourably disposed to an admirer, she will be pleased to invite him for a closeted communion with herself, in her spacious in-boudoir.

Such invitations are often hard earned, and it is this fact, regarded by them with great pride, that often swells the heads of invitees, proudly swinging their feet along to the palace in logical optimism.

In the in-boudoir, he facing her, the invitee will be comfortably seated at a three-feet or four-feet long square table-three or four-feet depending on how intimately she felt drawn to him on examining his introduction.

…………………………………

But the follow-up episode mocks the king’s publicity: The number of admirers feigning sincerity in their introductions increases, while that of the invitees decreases, none satisfying Victoria’s dreams. She is inundated with introductions, whose spuriousness and pretension she readily intuits, often without much ado or consideration.

Shortly, another publicity goes out-that of the dashed invitees who grouse in one voice:


ABOUT THE ROMANTIC PRINCESS

Would that she stopped steling our hearts!
That she expelledthis magic that fills her figure!
Dwarfing for us the glamour of her wealth and status
Bewitches out of our wits
Renders us dead helpless
And not content she invited us
To drink in more of this spell
Which utterly spins our heads
And as we seated eying-facing her gaze upon us
From her heartlessheart she communes
With her coldeyes she looks us up-
Cold or heartless,yet to greater passion she bind-dazed us
To greater crave and longing:
To deeper vows and pledges, by her ways to abide
Deep from within our hearts
Out voices with conviction!
But she would advise for all this:
"Mr., we are ill-compatible
Victoria of cruel Sadism! Of deadly castigation!

The protesters enlisted the co-operation of some mercenary servants of King Wet-hen I, who helped to post a copy of this grouse in a conspicuous spot in the palace, just where the princess would not fail to notice it. Other copies, they posted at prominent spots all over Gustos and its suburbs-in loud, glaring prints that compelled attention.


CHAPTER 3


The publicity of the disgruntled admirers upsets Victoria to the depths. “Is there not a of man of thought and responsibility, one for whom the outward is purely secondary? Not one in Gustos and beyond whose inner being transcends the insignificant transience of wealth, power and glamour?”

She is depressed into a very uncharacteristic gloom and lethargy, envisaging the observable and remote implications of the depravities before her. Attired in a grey gown, she shambles up and down in her inner-room, the gloominess of the circumstance making the realisation of her dreams seem increasingly other-wordly, an improbable miracle.

She soon settles for a sofa ,and sinks into a long, wearied slumber. Her gentle world-weary countenance, a pathetic picture …

On wakening, she is greeted with a call from a servant. There is a message for her-a new letter of introduction. She shrouds it immediately with thoughts of rejection and pessimism-on the verge of asking that it should be returned to the sender. She feels it is all over with her lofty dreams, and with the hollow hocuspocus she has tolerated from admirers for ages. Her thoughts are certainly on the track of a resolve to end all amorous approaches, only they are still inhibited by the haziness of the dreary dreams into which she sank in her slumber. She is certain that her despondency in these mattes is incurable. What use is it, then, perpetually feeding an age-long darkness that has proven incurable?

But a strong feeling-an odd one she takes it to be- gently urges her to consider the arrival: “ Yes, the very last!”

Sluggishly, she withdraws into her inner-boudoir, her mind drifting in anticipation of the usual ingratiating tempo of previous introductions. She opens the envelope with vacant listlessness.

But… greeting her eyes is a rarity! The picture of an active-looking, dark-complexioned tall man, standing erect with an attentive attitude, hand linked to wrist and placed on his behind. His mien is evocative of a hypothetical mellowed-down child self-possessedly goggling with teethless excitement at a fantastic scenery; and his clear, cheery eyes stare at Victoria as in flesh-as though she in fact beheld his admirer, as he regards her with a deeply endeared, guardedly passionate facial expression.

This gesture at once catches Victoria’s eye. Her spirits revive. The expression before her stands distinct from previous ones of evidently studied and pretentious postures, garish with dramatic geniality that patently smacked of calculated affectation.

Excitedly, she takes out the letter. Few and far between, too! First, it is written in longhand! Then, its generally appearance… strikes the princess as an unmistakable expression of modesty and unpretentiousness!

Enraptured, she is favourably predisposed to the sender, eyes agog with life, bright and clear! She withdraws to her inner room, locked up, and with calm, assiduous pace and attention, she goes through the letter, reading between and beyond the lines.



5 Spartan Avenue
Cancer D.V.1
7th May


Miss Victoria Wethen
The King’s Palace


Dear Princess Wethen,

I ADORE YOU!!!


Responding to the formalised handout published on your behalf on the 1st of May, I, David Emotivian hereby wishes to express my deepest and innermost, indeed very deeply sincere inner affection for you!!!
As can be seen in my picture, I am (in flesh) a dark-complected young man; I am twenty-nine; my father is six feet three inches tall; I am neither fat nor slim-moderately muscular, almost from infancy.
I did a course for a diploma degree in Gynaecology Psychology with a Lower Credit (That is not to say that I am an out-and-out feminist, or that I am suffering from gyniolatry (i.e. excessive devotion to and regard for women!). The name given the course is to suggest the need for psychological health and understanding, and hence, fairness, when one handles women’s ailments. Women being the maltreated sex through ignorance, which galls my soul! The name does not suggest womanisation or promiscuousness.). I work as a stipendiary Gynaecology Psychologist.
As we have been admonished to do, I have most deeply, and seriously honestly studied those qualities which you said that you will wish to see in an admirer or suitor. I read it seven, or eight, or even ten times!!! Thoroughly!!! And I am extremely pleased!!! happy! excited!!! and absolutely satisfied !!!! That you very really, absolutely really, want much more in a human being than external things!!! And you believe in selflessness and true love! That very deeply pleases me!! That reminds me of a very exciting verse of a popular epic that I studied when I was in school. That epic eulogises Ezra, a princess (single as you) for her firmness and unique morality, a maiden in a million: The verse goes as follows:

Neither on thy looks, nor on thy prestige
Nor on thy great deeds nor on thy fame
Neither on the omnipotence of the bridge
Nor on th magic of thy name-
On NOUGHT of this will I dote
For death and dust these all connote!


This excerpt, is the firm and very moral word of Princess Ezra to a prince in a sister kingdom, a prince of a very much super-ordinate king to Ezra’s father, a prince to whom another princess would have looked up and even longed for his proposition and admired it. With a condescending attitude, this prince proposed to Ezra with a bait of superior wealth and power. And this prince also had highly great good-looks!
You are most very clearly, exactly Ezra’s image!!! You are extremely her image in facsimile!
By Behaviourist Psychology, I can deduce that one who can be or is as insisting as you on deep values and can resist all flattery and emotional blackmail for complete seven years!!! Such a person must very definitely be made and moulded in a noble way! And it is very much impossible for people like that to waiver. But, as it is rarely to be found, if by chance or by the greatest fortune existing, such an insisting mind is seen in a woman, then all those men who wish for what is greater than external things or studied, pretending goodness, politeness, and comportment, must embrace such a woman because they will IN SO DOING, be uplifted to transcending morality-all of them!! Not just one of them! Or the one that is closest to her! All of them! This is because “embracing her” means that they will listen to her, empathise with her, feel her emotions and feel her uplifting longing and thinking, which therefore slowly and gradually rubs off unto them and improves their psychological, moral and innermost states!!!
IF JUST additional 1 of such a woman HAVE BEEN in all existence ( not “ has been”), THE WORLD WOULD SURELY HAVE BECOME MUCH MUCH HEALTHIER THAN IT IS TODAY!!! Yes!!! Even if they were very few men who would decide to unite with these 2 women! Their edifying union would be spread and influence their offspring and other acquaintance of theirs! Definitely!!! I know!
For this reason ONLY, THEREFORE, I very much deeply inwardly adore you!!! because I am convinced that I will definitely be uplifted to transcending morality and relationship in a companionship relationship with you!!!!
But I wonder whether I can ever deserve to be called your companion! Whether peradventure I could ever be permitted to become your comrade!! because I extremely believe in much more than external things! I believe in love of spirit and soul as the only thing containing true and real substance! Just as you sincerely believe!…
If you might be able to condescend and offer me an opportunity or a trial chance, if when as a matter of fact I do not, deserve to be offered that!!! If you could kindly offer the chance to become your “fancy man” (as they call it)-not yet speaking of marriage that must be preceded by this upgrading companionship relationship; if you could graciously do this for my undeserving self, then I would have my deeply happiest day in twenty-nine years!!! And who knows, I may become one of the happiest and luckiest men that have ever lived!!!
Your greatness overwhelms me!! Princess Victoria, I INWARDLY ADORE YOU!!!


Your humble servant,
David Emotivian

(Please, princess, please forgive me!!!!… I am actually five feet and four inches tall. The picture of me in the photograph is exaggerated! Seeing my continuing and unstoppable passion and anguish for you despite my height, people advised me to do it that way in order not to be undiplomatic! (But they did not advise me to confess as I am now doing) I really apologise to you princess, even if I do not deserve to be forgiven!).

……………………….



Her absorbed gaze slowly rises towards the ceiling and descends with a strong expression of astonished wonder . She is touched, deeply and tenderly. Unprecedentedly. The spirit of the letter consonates perfectly with the impression of his picture. Without hesitation or oscillation, impatient for a communion with him, she sends an invitation to David. In her deep, affectionate predisposition towards him, she keenly looks forward to seeing him in the palace three days hence.

But no sooner than she dispatches the invitation note is she handed another enveloped package of introduction from another admirer. This unprecedented swift succession in which these introductions have arrived strike the princess to sit up and notice. She is struck by this signal tendency which she feels augurs ill or well for something decisive at hand!



CHAPTER 4

Cool-headedly, the princess scours the package-with Victorial intuitiveness, as is her wont- and perceives it has a grand ring, with a tinselly undertone. It was inscribed thus:


SENDER’S NAME AND ADDRESS
PROF. (DR) DUGALD INFINITE
L’UNIVERSITE DES GRANDS BIBLIOPHILES
LA TERRE DES ORATEURS DE
PRESTIDIGITATION VOCALE

RECIPIENT’S NAME AND ADDRESS
MS. VICTORIA WETHEN (ESQ)
THE PALACE OF KING WETHEN I
THE ABODE OF LOVE


The singularity of this addressing, the French and the crypticness of its mysterious diction, very eloquently suggests his grandness. Interpreted, the French reads: “ The University of the Great Bibliophiles, The Land of the Orators of Vocal Sleight of Hand.” Victoria wonders about the signification.

Dispassionately, however, she unpacks it-the picture of a quick-looking, especially clean-limbed young man instantly sends her quizzical! Seldom do photographic looks of introduction combine apparent keenness and pronounced, active-looking masculinity, with spellbinding prominence. Standing out in the picture is a strain of aggressive manfulness and virility immanent in the marshal attitude he struck, form, she hopes, testifying to content. His keen eyes, seemingly unyielding countenance, and his upright, firm attitude, crossed and folded arms held against his chest-these all largely satisfy as have never happened, her palate for masculine externals.

Eagerly, she tears open the hard fastened envelope, and plunges into an attentive perusal of the printed words:

******************





7 Gaudy Avenue
Aries D.I.1

9th May

Madam Victoria Wethen (Esq.)
The King’s Palace

Dear Ms. Victoria Wethen:

MAY I PLEAD YOUR SUITS?

I, Dugald Infinite, hereby wish suppliantly to bear to you my tender heart.

(As is gleanable from my features in the picture), I am a fair-complexioned young bloke, six feet nine point seven inches tall, sturdily-built with a super-Amazonian physique; a thirty-one-year holder of a First-Class Baccalaureate in Medical science, crowned with a current chair in Mechanical Engineering of full and gainful employment.

(My scientific flair stands not in prejudice to my compatibility with princess Victoria; an upper second-class degree holder in Psychological Philosophy, she in her field does embrace the mind and the thought of medical and engineering scientists.).

With insuperable inner excitement and singular prepossession, I have pored over the requisite male attributes of your desired matrimonial husbandry-or, of course, pre-matrimonial amatoriality-as spelt out in the handout posted in your name. These prerequisites, noble and humble, titillated me to the nth degree, I must admit! More owing to the unprecedentiality of their earnest purport-witness your uncompromising adamance through seven odd years-than to the captivating mystique of their brilliant drift.

In point of fact, the words are devastatingly quintessentially lofty! A magnificent animadversion of the incarnation of substantial feminity procreated by your very individuality whose call and countenance stare me right in the face and strike me deep in the heart.

By this, I allude to the charismatic inner image impressed upon my mind by the very words of these prerequisites-for me, a one-time procreation, a current inspiration, and a future transfiguration: the conception and birth of a spiritual edification within my psyche steadily metamorphosing into a compulsive call for inner revolution!

No man with his wit and heart undistorted or unprolapsed will but be warmed by those expressions made on your behalf, for they indicate conviction with a magnetic definiteness:

“ Unassuming, unchauvinistic, unyielding, he must be!”

As I mused over this direct deduction, my mind’s eye drinking in its captivating implication, I conjured an inferential concept:

That to be unassuming obliterates chauvinism, inconducive towards its existence; to be unchauvinistic quells the proverbial female shackling complex of inferiority, palliative for her woes; and to be unyielding spells a shining humanity, bolsters morality-(contextually) the unassumingness and non-chauvinism (inter alia) à la princess Victoria’s lofty vision.

A good man is but the compound of those three traits-modest, unmisogynistic, iron-willed!

In testament to this fact is the maxim: “ A bad man cannot be a good husband” (that is, a good man would husband his partner hand in hand, not hand in sceptre- with firm-minded, modest uncondescendingness! A good man is, consequently, made of those three traits-an axiomatic, indubitable theorematic conglomeration!).

A bad husband is invariably a bad man. A one either assuminglyimmodest or chauvinisticallymisogynous-perhaps mysogynously chauvinistic-or yieldingly flabby-willed in abominable suggestibility-or any couple of these (epithets) or all! A bad man, a (potential) bad husband, marriage being intrinsically a matter of human strength-and-weakness-display. (The qualifier “human” bears underscoring, for it alludes to the psyche and ego-will rather to than to the mind and mental intellection.). ---

These facts, given and deductive, surge up and effervesce within me; I must therefore restrain this surge and effervescence, lest I inadvertently tend towards a booklet. --

But I should like to consummate these facts with the emphasis corroborative placed on some words in a sentence from the handout thus:

“His heart and mind are [not “heart or mind is”] bent on some charitable cause, are [emphasis advised] ever wiling to sacrifice personal wish and indulgence in the name of the harmony of the relationship of love-a relationship on [advised] joyous mutual advancement of a sacrificial give-and-take.”

The consummation: Unassuming modesty, want of chauvinism, and an unyielding iron-will are testament to the work of the heart in unpunctuated perpetual liaison and consultation with the work of the mind, heart and mind in indispensable interdependence, the one unbreakably coupled to the other. Unassumingness is resident in the heart, the centre of all psychic feelings. There, in its spontaneous mobility, it indues a human with a psychic mechanism repelling chauvinism and feeble will, knowing only nobility, and accordingly, canalising the inner powers to define for it, in temporal terms, a charitable cause to its taste, a cause predicated on heart-conceived good-will and self-sacrifice-on “hearty love”-on a mental structure competent for and so worthy of a relationship of love.

But a relationship of love is NOT a sexual relationship OF joyous mutual advancement of a sacrificial give-and-take (because, viewed as a component of a conceptual, human-exclusive system, the mutual advancement is not fathered, but it does father, as a primordial infinite “space” within which all else occurs and by which they are procreated.). Rather, it is a relationship ON joyous mutual advancement of a sacrificial give-and-take. Only by this advancement and on this advancement is a relationship of love (as distinct from a love relationship) subsequently conceived and concretised, emerging and emanating from it, a bloom of this affectionate reciprocative advancement-not before (I intently use the word “reciprocative” rather than “reciprocal” or “reciprocating” because the advancement, personifiable in virtue of its work and effect, does characteristically reciprocate the benevolence of the unpretentious doer; it being inherently a living entity of responsive sentience, it affords joy and electrification to him who does, that is “makes” it, in duty-not in compulsion-in a solicitous lovingness of hearty affection); and so glaring from the handout is a creditable decrying of the prevalent conception in the stereotypical , dead inferior, so-called “love relationships”, ill-advisedly given, insalubriously formed, injuriously fixed-an abysmal straightjacket for the human psyche in the ill definitions of these rigid formats!

The italicised “are” and the linkage of “heart and mind”(in the quote above from the handout), therefore, accentuate my (empirical) inference corroboratively.

Additionally, you thirst for such a man as is “uncorrupted by the philosophy of ‘personal advantage at any expense’ that prevails in our world…’ ” Devoutly turned on by the altruism, the good will, and the beneficent humanity of this phrase, I should like once more to advert to my perception therein:

To speak forthright, (although it is unfortunate that this thought remains as yet unpredigestible by the prestidigitation of my vocal discretion), our world is an actual vivarium of scums and egotists! Consequently, nine and a half of every ten marriages are nothing but a blind propagation of lethal vices. Expedient engagements leading up to scandalous unions of he-egotism and she-egoism (“tism” giving and “ism” receiving), to produce offspring he-apolaustism and she-sensualism in an infestation of dead nauseating litters.

Evidently, your insistence on the lofty must have derived from the unspeakable disgust I express herein, and not from a claustrophobic self-insatiety or a hypochondriac self-aggrandisement, must have derived from the endogenous naturalness of a high-destined humble psyche. You yen-not “yearn”-for an oasis of noble-heartedness and altruism, for a veritable transubstantiation of soul and flesh towards true morality and conscience; for a world that could be, distant and dreamy as it seems. I as well itch for the birth of this world-charging towards the stars, endeavouring to cut my eyes the hands, to square the circle, to set the Thames on fire! This first, this second, this last; roasting on the field or not!

An incontrovertible testimony to the truth of that lies in my very name, “Dugald Infinite”: “Dugald” connotes “dark stranger”, signifying the prevalent rarity and incomprehensibility-or “darkness”, as it were- of my transcendental ends, while “Infinite” is directly and evidently symptomatic of my limitless crave for self-uplift. My yearnings are, consequently, preincarnative!

At this point it is pertinent first to state that I absolutely abominate passing words of flattery, specially to ladies! For it bespeaks deep weakness and spiritual literal-mindedness (and that is why a faint heart never won a fair lady). Plain-spokenly, I tell them precisely what I really think and feel about them, without exaggeration or embellishment. (Written and spoken eulogies on this trait, from friends and family, are a testament to this claim; they are available on request.).

Against this backcloth, I wish to state: This ravishing beauty of princess Victoria, this piquant charm of her sylphlike frame, and this magical grace of her gait, are an exact reflection of the grace and beauty of her very mind and thought, radiantly conferring with me after Venis Maria, the proverbial picture of beauty in form and in fibre-intoxicating my mind without drink! Stealing my heart without craft! Dwindling my calm without prick!

I am beside myself, bewitched to craziness!

I heartily implore you, princess, give me a chance: I am not one to take an ell when given an inch; just let me into your heart: solely by your noble intuitions and dictates will I abide; vouchsafe to my unworthy self this ambrosia percolating into my heart, ever whetting my appetite and intoxicating my thoughts: with a mind as open as smile, a devotion relentless as fate, and a heart faithful as the sun-with these will I work with you, hand in hand along this uphill vista, though ours become an iconoclastic spiritual union of unprtecedented turbulence

I pray!

While it is said:

The love of a woman and a bottle of wine
Are sweet for a season, but last for a time,

I herewith rebut this statement thus:

The love of a woman and the Rose of Eden
Are radiant forever, and ever will wax golden!

Therewith, I supersede the given analogy, applicable to only transient love of base egoism, with an apt one evoking the beauty of the primordial Rose of Eden in its induplicablity and originality, in accordance with the concept of timeless love of high-minded charity; and by “a woman”, I allude to your personality fastened onto the charismatic pedestal of everlasting love!

Ms. Victoria Wethen, should my supplication be granted, I shall indeed float upwards, easing with an absolute rapture into the seventh heaven where I will be able lovingly to implore: “May I plead your suits?”

Yours faithfully affectionately,

Dugald Infinite (Prof/Dr.)

**************************************************


The princess is as though entranced. She heaves a deep expressive sigh, coming back to reality from a long dreamy absorption that incorporated spasmodic bouts of strange phantasmagoria! Despite her strenuous penetration into the spirit of the letter, she is at loss as to the relative proportion of the admirer’s sincerity. She re-reads the entire letter, then the last fifteen paragraphs. She momentarily peers into space, with an uncomprehending, vacillating countenance. Gently stroking her chin with her index finger, she gazes at Dugald’s picture now, and then at the last page of his letter, as if weighing her impression of his picture alongside the substance of this page’s contents. The alternation persists for several moments, before the clarity of decisiveness once again brightens her countenance. Now she has an invitation for him for the a verbal intercourse, which is to take place four days hence.

At this juncture, Victoria orders a publicity announcing her unwillingness to receive further introductions! Never in the past seven years has this been. All over Gustos and beyond fly rumours about the final conquest of Princess Victoria. Inquisitive tongues and heads are restless, and indigenes as well as strangers to Gustos throng to the palace, to satisfy their itching eyes, anxious to behold the heavenly Cherub of Victoria’s eternal insatiety.

At the palace, the rumours are dispelled, but curiosities do not subside.


CHAPTER 5

Three days have passed and David is seen ambling to the palace. He is filled with mixed feelings, nervous and optimistic, optimism predominating and nerving him up from time to time. How on earth he has come to deserve the invitation mystifies him, considering his eccentric, perhaps unheard-of, five feet four inches! Then, his probably not uncommon romantic professions to the princess. Was this invitation accidental? Was it he and he that the princess did mean in her letter of invitation? “But you are ‘ David Emotivian’, the twenty-nine-year-old of 5 Spartan Avenue!” Wrapped up in this soliloquy, he soon emerges at the avenue leading straight to the palace-surprised! Time has ticked by so imperceptibly!

Espying him from the palace concourse, two guards issue forth and trot guardedly to welcome him and show him right to a seat in the forehall, certain of their recognition of their mistress’ expected invitee. Into the hall ease gentle tones of wordless classic music emanating from the beauty’s in-room, pleasantly harmonising with the wordless tones of his in-prayers of optimistic hope.

Hurriedly, one of the guards goes to inform his mistress of David’s arrival; and the latter already dressed up in expectation of her admirer, asks that he be ushered into her in-room and seated on one the sensuously upholstered light-blue armchairs already staring endlessly at each other with commensurate airs and graces across a three-feet-long white square table, awaiting the next sitters. David is shown in and invited to sit himself on either of the chairs. He is mesmerised by the gloriously decorated room, the charming simple flower arrangements, the aesthetic, ungarish tinsels, the oasis of the absolutely havening, blessed ambrosia endowing the room with sterling distinction, etc. With brief hesitation, he sits himself, feeling particular small in his wonder about this dream reality, wondering how much of his deserts really lie this grace and honour... Soon his host enters, a statuesque figure in a flowing white gown. In tribute to the unassuming charm in her radiant smile, her carriage is of such picturesque, unstudied grace as David had never seen or read. She gracefully suffuses the room with her modest captivating aroma, the invitee feeling transported towards heavenly blessedness, wondering if it had not been presumptuous of him to have made advances to this seemingly unearthly figure of infinitely superior looks and deportment-a few inches taller than him, to crown it! David immediately rises in veneration. The music stops. Victoria gracefully approaches her invitee, who is standing garbed up in a slinky brown suit:

- [Gently lowering his head] Good Morning, Princess Victoria.
- [Radiantly, calmly; voice dulcet and soothing[] Good Morning, Mr. Emotivian. Please, you could sit down.

He re-sits concurrently with the princess, who immediately slants her head in an attentive gaze at the table, her lush eyelashes fluttering pensively and reservedly. There is a slight trembling in David’s arms, an undreamt-of imposingness right before him. Momentary silence. Then David begins:

- [Gazing at the table, speaks deliberately] Princess, in my letter… I have given my heart… my earnest wish, I have expressed…If, if, if, sorry…if only I could deserve such an honour from your Greatness…[ Raises his head and looks to her slanted eyes]

Mutedly, Victoria, too, raises her head but looks right into his eyes with a sharp glimpse; then resumes her attitude-sends him into a nervous suspense. A two-minute silence follows.

- Could you hold on a minute, Mr. Emotivian?
- By all means, princess.

She rises and goes towards the inner room. Music resumes. David’s face, tense with suspense, are fixated nervously on her as she goes, wondering what she has made of his awkward tongue-tied punctuations and his odd emotional reticence. Several minutes later an attendant hands David, an envelope containing one of the blue cards on which she states her mind to such invitees. Written on the card is: “Mr. Emotivian, I thank you for your prayers and passions. I will get in touch with you.”

On receiving this envelope, David calmly rises, signalling thereby his intention to depart. The relevant guard, recognising this gesture, emerges and escorts him to the gate of the palace.

Beyond the gate, David opens the envelope, trembling with anxiety … “ Will get in touch with whom!” “ I thank you for your prayers…! What, what prayers!”. “I will”-not “I shall”-was definitely not accidental: “ She does really wish to get in touch with you-YES!!!” David’s soul is electrified! His “ego” melting and quavering! And this reply being without precedence, strong hope wells up within his spirit. With unspeakable exhilaration, he strides away, infecting everyone he meets with his something of his cheer!

A few hours later, another letter arrives at the palace. It is enclosed in a white envelope. It looks like one of the periodic letters of compliments she receives from admirers. Victoria simply tosses it on a table in one of her in-rooms, not feeling disposed to read words of compliments. She is taken up with thoughts about David, contemplating her impression of him alongside his picture and letter.


CHAPTERS 6, 7 AND 8 FOLLOW VERY SHORTLY