Ep. 986 - Bee: The Princess of the Dwarfs - Chapter 15

King Loc had not shown his weakness to the maiden, but when he was alone, he sat on the ground, and holding his feet in his hands, he gave way to grief.

He was jealous, and he said to himself:

"She is in love, and it is not with me! Yet I am a king and am full of learning; I have treasures, I know marvellous secrets; I am better than all the other dwarfs, who are superior to men. She does not love me, and she loves a young man who has not the learning of the dwarfs and who, perhaps, has none at all. Clearly she does not appreciate merit and is silly. I ought to laugh at her want of sense, but I love her and nothing in the world pleases me because she does not love me."

For many long days King Loc wandered alone in the wildest gorges of the mountains, revolving in his mind sad and sometimes wicked ideas. He thought of compelling Bee by captivity and hunger to become his wife. But discarding the idea almost as soon as he had formed it, he determined to go to the girl and to throw himself at her feet. Still he could not make up his mind, and did not know what to do. For truly, the power was not given to him to make Bee love him.

His anger turned all at once against George of the White Moor; he hoped that this young man would be carried far away by a magician, or at least, if he should ever be acquainted with Bee's love, that he would disdain it.

And the king thought:

"Without being old, I have already lived too long not to have suffered at times. But my suffering, deep as it was, was never so fierce as what I undergo to-day. These former pains being caused by tenderness or by pity had something of their heavenly gentleness. On the contrary, I feel at this hour that my grief has the blackness and bitterness of a bad passion. My soul is arid, and my eyes swim in tears as in a burning acid."

So thought King Loc. And, dreading that jealousy should make him unjust and wicked, he avoided meeting the young girl for fear of using, without wishing to, the tone of a weak or violent man.

One day, being more than ordinarily tortured by the thought that Bee loved George, he determined to consult Nur, who was the most learned of the dwarfs and lived in the bottom of a well dug in the entrails of the earth.