Who was SHE?

While I was still wondering, what to read next, suddenly like a great sword of flame, a beam from the setting sun pierced my bookshelf, and smote upon the row, wherein was laid “She”, illuminating Ayesha’s lovely form, made on the front cover, with unearthly splendor. I picked it up, kicked off the dust from its cover, and read the introduction, the theme appealed to me and I decided it to be my next read.

It turned out to be a dreadful but enchanting experience when I finished it. Being one of the early works of fantasy literature, this has a sub-genre of adventure romance. Initially, it looked like an adventurous travelogue and too much expository but the story became immensely attractive when “She”, a two thousand years old sorceress, entered the story. I am sure her extraordinary portrayal by the author might have mesmerized its readers when it was first published in 1886.

 I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and I can easily perceive why this novel is counted among the highest selling novels of history. I appreciate the astonishing imagination of Haggard and his capacity to make very impossible-looking adventures appear real. The seductive Ayesha replicates the long-lasting fidelity to her husband and she is the embodiment of personal independence and her supreme authority over men.

A Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his ward go to the lost kingdom in the interior of Africa and there they unravel the mystery of ‘She’. See what the narrator felt of “She” when he saw her for the first time emerging from behind the curtain…

“The curtain agitated itself a little, then suddenly between its folds there appeared a most beautiful white hand (white as snow), and with long tapering fingers, ending in the pinkest nails. The hand grasped the curtain and drew it aside, and as it did so I heard a voice, I think the softest and yet most silvery voice I ever heard. It reminded me of the murmur of a brook.”

“say a figure, for not only the body but also the face was wrapped up in soft white, gauzy material in such a way as at first sight to remind me most forcibly of a corpse in its grave-clothes. And yet I do not know why it should have given me that idea, seeing that the wrappings were so thin that one could distinctly see the gleam of the pink flesh beneath them.”

“of a tall and lovely woman, instinct with beauty in every part, and also with a certain snake-like grace which I had never seen anything to equal before. When she moved a hand or foot her entire frame seemed to undulate, and the neck did not bend, but curved.”

A great read for those who have a taste of adventure, supernatural portrayals and have a propensity towards a mystic storyline. Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and the creator of the Lost World literary genre. He is very famous for ‘King Solomon’s mine’.

“Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.”


― H. Rider Haggard, 

The Vengeance of a mother: A Maupassant tale!

The narrator reached a place with his friend Serval, after fifteen years. Serval had rebuilt his chateau which the Prussians had destroyed. He loves the district, it’s springs, woods, pools, hills, they all are like joyful events to him. One day when they were stepping along the countryside, they saw by the thicket that was forming a boundary of the wood of Sandres, a cottage in ruins!

He recalled that last he had seen it in 1869, it was neat, covered with vines, chickens before the door, but now it is sadder than a dead house, skeleton standing bare and sinister.! His friend Serval told him the history of its inhabitants. The father, an old poacher, had been killed by the gendarmes. people called them “Les Sauvage.”
He asked,

“What’s become of these people?”

And Serval narrates the story of Mother Sauvage then. When the war was declared her son who was thirty-three was enlisted and he left his old mother alone. And far from the village at the edge of the wood, she remained alone in her isolated dwelling. One day Prussian force arrived and as per the rules it was billeted upon the inhabitants, as per properties and resources of each. Four soldiers were allotted to her cottage.

And now without revealing the further story, I would like to tell that Maupassant has converted this plot, into a compact and dense tale of vendetta. Vendetta of an old mother against the armed soldiers! But For what? For her son. For her old husband. But there can not be a blood -feud. There can not be a wrangle. How can it be? This old and lonely woman, This Mother Sauvage can not face them with all her strength. But she did it her way!

This is a heart-rending, tragic story. The backdrop is ‘The Franco-Prussian War’ of 1870, I assume as the year mentioned in the story clearly indicates it. I loathed the outcome of the story, and it will generate smarting sensations in your heart, but it’s compact execution I liked. The mother’s unemotional vengeance was something I will remember, the author has very strangely portrayed the contradiction of ‘ an emotionless cruel act’ and ‘a fervor of love towards her son. She showed her vengeance and love both in her deadpan voice of silence!

“A sick thought can devour the body’s flesh more than fever or consumption.”


― Guy de Maupassant