Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 HER ROYAL LOVER. All was dark. Alone, the white disk of the moon in her first quarter permitted from time to time her silhouette to appear through the fleet of clouds. In spite of himself, Mineleko thinks of those de- scriptions of the Apocalypse, of those angels with unfolded wings, of those monsters, terrible hydras, of which the holy Bible gives a description. ‘Truly, he is afraid. All these things clash together in his aching head; he scarcely knows whether he is asleep or awake. His limbs, broken by fatigue, refuse their office; the more active the mind, the more the body seems devoted to torture, to inertia. As in a harp, whose lightly stretched cords vibrate at the slightest contact of the fingers which press it, thus his hearing, marvelously developed by the sensibility of his over-excited nerves, is of an extreme delicacy. From his secretary a paper falls to the floor; this noise, slight as it was, makes him start; a sudden and convulsive movement takes possession of him. It had been impossible for him to tell for how long a time this sort of lethargy had lasted, when it ap- peared to him that his door was opened, that a light and gliding step advanced toward him. Does he dream that a shadow holdsa light raised above its head, or is it really some one who is before him? This woman, this vision, does she wish to assure herself that the prince is really asleep? Is that a real sigh which he hears breathed there, near him, or does he still continue to be the sport of a dream? But, however, this sigh, so laden with sorrow, appeared to proceed from the oppressed breast of a woman. “Najeska Ivanowna, perhaps?” (E(@) Al Cc JOO KS (E(@)