"
"Oh, it is very true," says Manuel, "that all my life henceforward will
be a wearying business because of long desires for Suskind's love and
Suskind's lips and the grave beauty of her youth, and for all the
high-hearted dissatisfactions of youth. But the Alf charm is lifted from
the head of my child, and Melicent will live as Niafer lives, and it
will be better for all of us, and I am content."
From below came many voices wailing confusedly. "We weep for Suskind.
Suskind is slain with the one weapon that might slay her: and all we
weep for Suskind, who was the fairest and the wisest and the most
unreasonable of queens. Let all the Hidden Children weep for Suskind,
whose heart and life was April, and who plotted courageously against the
orderings of unimaginative gods, and who has been butchered to preserve
the hair of a quite ordinary child."
Then said the Count of Poictesme: "And that young Manuel who was in his
day a wilful champion, and who fretted under ordered wrongs, and who
went everywhither with a high head a-boasting that he followed after his
own thinking and his own desire,--why, that young fellow also is now
silenced and dead.
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