Stories From The Old Attic by Robert Harris (popular books of all time .TXT) đ
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How the Noble Percival Won the Fair Arissa
Once upon a time in a kingdom by the sea, two knights stood talking about the strategy of battle when their conversation was interrupted by the sight of the beautiful Arissa as she walked upon the green. âForsooth, I think Iâll ask her for a date,â said Sir Wishful, one of the knights. âDitto,â said Sir Percival, the other knight.
So Sir Wishful sauntered up to Arissa in his most elegant and refined manner, and, twirling his mustache genteelly, said, âArissa, my dear, methinks Iâd like to take you out to dinner.â
Arissa sized up Sir Wishful a moment and then replied, âSorry, Wishy, youâre not my type.â Sir Percival, seeing his rival stumble off in a confused, embarrassed, humiliated, dazedâoh you get the idea. Anyway, Sir Percival saw his opportunity and approached Arissa. âArissa,â he said, âhow about a date anon?â Only a moment was needed for the look of mild surprise to alter the beautiful maidenâs features, after which she laughed loudly in Sir Percivalâs face for a good ten minutes.
Well, both Sir Wishful and Sir Percival retired to lick their wounds and lament the fate of men in this whole romantic con game, and Sir Wishful soon enough decided that he liked the taste of trout just about as well as the taste of womenâs lips, so he grabbed his bait and tackle and headed for the river. Sir Percival, on the other hand, really thought Arissa might be worth another attempt, and he rationalized with himself that perhaps she didnât quite understand the question. âOr belikes the maiden is just shy,â he thought.
So Sir Percival, seeing on another day the fair, delicate Arissa using her footmanâs coat to clean the mud off her shoes, again approached and asked: âArissa, sweet one, wonât you go out with me sometime?â
Arissa generously gave Sir Percival a look that could have frozen several pounds of choice lobster, and replied, âYou must be kidding.â
Sir Percival thought about this answer for a couple of days, and still finding his inclination toward the gentle Arissa unchanged, he thought to make a clarificatory attempt, just in case the maiden did believe he had been kidding. Approaching her the next morning, Sir Percival said, âKind Arissa, I wasnât kidding the other day. Ifay, Iâd like to date you.â Only the authorâs extreme commitment to complete truth forces him to admit that a tiny trace of irritation now flashed, but only for the briefest of moments, across the lovely Arissaâs brow. âGet lost, creep,â she said, clearly and distinctly.
Well, needless to say, by now most of the other knights in the realm were getting sufficient jollies out of Sir Percivalâs romantic endeavors. Even Sir Wishful had joined in the laughter, ridicule, and derision that seasoned Sir Percivalâs every meal with his friends. This hilarity touched the young knight and caused him to spend several days in contemplation of his past behavior. âAm I gaining or losing ground with Arissa?â he asked himself. âRather had she said, âGet lostâ before she said, âYou must be kidding,â for as it stands, I canât say Iâm making much progress.â
But âSteadfastâ was probably Sir Percivalâs middle name (or his uncleâs middle name, anyway), so the knight decided to approach Arissa yet again. After all, Arissa seemed to be pretty okay, and Sir Percival wanted a date. In a few days, then, Arissa heard a familiar question in a familiar voice: âArissa, sweetheart, let me ensconce you in my carriage and take you on a date.â To which Arissa replied, âSorry Perce, Iâm busy. Iâve got to wash my hair.â
To which the knight: âWell, when could you go then?â
To which Arissa: âWell, Iâll be busy for the next ten years. I mean, Iâve got stuff to do, forsooth.â
Well, our hero was getting a bit despondent about all this, and for sure his friends werenât helping much. Far from their giving him encouragement, their laughter rang so constantly in Sir Percivalâs head that he began to wonder if he was still quite sane. And not a few of his friends hinted here and there that psychiatric consultation might be useful to the knight, to get him over his ridiculous interest in the agreeable Arissa.
About this time it so happened that as Sir Percival was on his way to visit Sir Wishful for a nice dinner of trout and onions, he quite unexpectedly came upon Arissa, lovely as ever, sitting near the village waterfall and picking her teeth. Almost out of habit, Sir Percival spoke: âArissa, sugar, would you like to go out with me sometime?â
To which Arissa: âOh, Perce, didnât I tell you I was busy?â
To which Sir Percival: âYeah, fair one, but I thought maybe youâd had a cancellation or something.â
To which Arissa: âWell, if I did have a cancellation, I wouldnât fill it up with you. Besides, what would we do?â To which Sir Percival: âWe could go to dinner.â
To which Arissa: âLike where, ifay?â
To which Sir Percival: âAndreâs French Victuals.â
To which Arissa: âAnd when would this be?â
To which Sir Percival: âI dunno. How about tomorrow night?â
To whichâwell, anyway, to her own surprise, to the astonishment of Sir Percival, and to the great confusion of the rest of the kingdom, Arissa finally actually agreed to this scenario and the next evening the two young people went to Andreâs.
Arissa, of course, ordered the eleven most expensive things on the menu, for she was still intending to discourage Sir Percival, but the knight was willing to put up with only a glass of water for his own dinner, because the success he had enjoyed so far with the desirable Arissa had quite taken away his appetite anyway.
In the course of the evening, Arissa happened to remark, âI wish they had apricots on the menu here. You know, I really love them. I could eat them by the ton.â To which Sir Percival: âWhy, Arissa, my dove, I own an orchard of apricot trees.â
To which Arissa: âReally? Oh, Perce.â When she pronounced his name, the young maiden sighed and a glisten appeared in one or both eyes.
Well, from here the story gets pretty mushy, so weâd better make it short. This delightful couple soon held hands; they discovered anon that their lips fit together pretty well, Arissaâs ten yearsâ worth of plans were miraculously cancelled, and Sir Percival finally asked the Big Question, to which Arissa replied, âWell, okay.â
And so they were married and lived happily ever after, with Arissa often telling Sir Percival how she had secretly loved him from the first time she saw him, while Sir Percival, each time he kissed Arissaâs apricot-flavored lips, congratulated himself for his skill in winning her.
Truth Carved in Stone
A wise old philosopher was walking through the park with a young man and his true love when they came upon a beautiful statue of a Nereid. âCome here,â he said to the youth, âand touch this statue.â The young man put his hand on the statueâs arm and felt of it closely, though he did not seem surprised at what he found. âNow the girl,â the old man continued; so the lover also felt of his girlfriendâs arm, in the same way. âAnd now,â the man said, âtell me what you have learned.â
âIâm not sure,â the young man began. âThe statue is hard and cold; the girl is warm and soft. Her flesh yields when I press; the marble does not.â
âYou have learned well,â concluded the philosopher, âand if each of you remembers and lives by these truths, you will have a happy life together.â
How Sir Philo Married a Beautiful Princess Instead of the Woman He Loved
Once upon a timeâand it had to be pretty long ago, as you will seeâthere lived a bunch of people in a little inland kingdom. The king, Cleon the Modest, was basically a good fellow, though he was not known for his brilliance in government. Instead, he was known chiefly for his glowing and nubile daughter, Jennifrella, a girl, though proud and a trifle petulant, so freighted with beauty and charms that pretty much every bachelorâand not a few married menâin the kingdom dreamed about her, whether awake or asleep. Truly, she maketh my pen tremble even as I write this.
Now Cleon was desirous of marrying off this legendary beauty as soon as possible so that he could be free of the constant entreaties for her hand, free of the frequent bills for supplying her dressing table, and free to spend more time in his rose garden, which he truly loved. The king would have had little trouble choosing the richest suitor in the kingdom for his daughter, except that there were no exceptionally wealthy bachelors in the realm, and those of modest wealth all had castles and money boxes of essentially similar dimensions.
For her part, the Princess Jennifrella was repletely enamored of Sir Fassade, a handsome, dashing, suave, carefree young knight who most people, when they faced reality, agreed would almost certainly become her husband and therefore the next king.
King Cleon, however, was desirous of exercising his regal authority in having a say in who would follow him on the throne. And faced with what he clearly saw was an impossible number of choices, he therefore sought the opinion of his favorite advisor, the young Sir Philo. Now, persons of a cynical bent might begin to think that Sir Philo, an eligible bachelor himself and not at all impervious to feminine gorgeousness, would argue craftily that he himself was the most suitable and worthy candidate. This might have been so but for two equally powerful reasons. First, Sir Philo, brave, skilled, and thoughtful, was a man of integrity who would never abuse his position as the kingâs advisor to advance his own interests, even in a matter so emotionally and biologically compelling as that before us. The other reason is that Sir Philo was already in love with another. It was a gentle love, like a deep river, quiet and calm on the surface but fully substantial and powerful in its flow.
His happiness, the Lady Lucinda, though not of outward visage the equal of Jennifrella, was handsome enough for the young knightâs daydreams. When asked what attracted him to Lucinda, he would answer ambiguously or mutter something about the light in her eyes. What joy he got sitting with her under a tree in the bright spring, gazing upon her and dallying with her fingers or brushing a love-sick gnat from her collar. But what really twirled Sir Philoâs cuff links was Lucindaâs wit, her laugh, her playfulness. He relished taking the sprightly maid hand in hand on long walks, listening to the music of her voice and to the sentiments accompanying the music. How he loved to play with her tresses, or when her hair was up, to steal up behind her and kiss her unexpectedly on the back of the neck: for she would invariably produce a little shriek of surprise and delight and embarrassment, and then turning to him, her cheeks glowing irresistibly, attempt to glare and call him âmonster,â only to spoil her mock anger by bursting into giggles or even outright laughter. She would chide him and call him ârogue,â and âimpertinent,â and he would say something like, âIâll put a stop to this abuse,â and then their lips, who were old friends by now, would once again meet for fellowship. Of course, Lucinda would struggle just enough to enhance the enjoyment, until
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