They had now arrived at the splendid city of Lahore whose mausoleums and
shrines, magnificent and numberless where Death appeared to share equal
honors with Heaven would have powerfully affected the heart and
imagination of LALLA ROOKH, if feelings more of this earth had not taken
entire possession of her already. She was here met by messengers
despatched from Cashmere who informed her that the King had arrived in the
Valley and was himself superintending the sumptuous preparations that were
then making in the Saloons of the Shalimar for her reception. The chill
she felt on receiving this intelligence,--which to a bride whose heart was
free and light would have brought only images of affection and
pleasure,--convinced her that her peace was gone for ever and that she was
in love, irretrievably in love, with young FERAMORZ. The veil had fallen
off in which this passion at first disguises itself, and to know that she
loved was now as painful as to love without knowing it had been delicious.
FERAMORZ, too,--what misery would be his, if the sweet hours of
intercourse so imprudently allowed them should have stolen into his heart
the same fatal fascination as into hers;--if, notwithstanding her rank and
the modest homage he always paid to it, even _he_ should have yielded to
the influence of those long and happy interviews where music, poetry, the
delightful scenes of nature,--all had tended to bring their hearts close
together and to waken by every means that too ready passion which often
like the young of the desert-bird is warmed into life by the eyes alone!
[184] She saw but one way to preserve herself from being culpable as well
as unhappy, and this however painful she was resolved to adopt.
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