It
seemed to be mixed up with the sunlight and the scent of the roses;
to be a portion of the chorus of the birds. But he listened to the
narrative with the same air of surprised attention that he had
offered to its first recital.
"I dreamed that I was a swine rooting in the streets of Paris, and
that I found a pearl of great price in the gutter. I set it in my
crown and it filled all Paris with its light. But it seemed to grow
so heavy for my forehead that I cast it from me and would have
trodden it into the earth, but that a star fell from heaven and
stayed me, and I awoke trembling."
The king's nasal voice droned through the familiar repetition; then
he suddenly turned his head with a kind of bird-like alacrity upon
the astrologer and asked sharply: "Well, what do you make of it?"
The astrologer shook his head. "The stars are bright," he said
slowly, "but their brightness is bewildering to mortal eyes and it
is hard to read between the lines of their effulgence. Dreams are
dim, and it is difficult for mortal minds to interpret their
obscurity."
The king frowned. "I know well enough," he said, "that stars are
bright and that dreams are dim, but your wisdom is clothed and
housed and nourished for deeper knowledge than this.
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