Queen of Spades

“ Look for yourself, Masha. The queen of spades, emblem of all that is bad, lies across him, and thus it is easy to see that he is worrying about the dark [7] woman, your rival. Once more I will lay the cards. Now see; the king of diamonds is thinking of a journey and of home. The dark woman is restless, she thinks of the king of diamonds, and then of the king of clubs. ”

“ And the 2 Sevens speak of mutual love and marriage, altho one being reversed adds an element of regret.
We will now follow the cards as they lie before us from left to right:
The King of Spades is an unscrupulous man who is a dangerous enemy and will cause trouble.
The Queen of Hearts, reversed, speaks of a woman who, while good-natured, has had an unlucky love affair and on whom the inquirer has set his heart. ”

“ Married people who seek to read the cards must represent their own life partner by the king or queen of the suit they have chosen for themselves, regardless of anything else. For example, a very dark man, the King of Spades, must consider his wife represented by the Queen of Spades. ”

“ Seen ’tis by the ten of spades,
Thou wilt follow many trades,
Thrive by none—But women they
By this chance don’t work but play.
⁠⁠⁠King of Spades.
By this King observe and note,
You on golden streams will float.
Women by the self-same lot,
Long enjoy what they have got. ”

“ By the unwritten law of this realm of Venus, she, as queen, had the right to interpose between justice and its victim, and such interposition was always expressed in the way which we had witnessed. It was a right rarely exercised, and probably few then present had ever before seen it put into action. The sensation which it caused was, in consequence, exceedingly great, and a murmur of astonishment arose from the throng in the great apartment, and hundreds pressed around the throne, staring at us and at the queen. ”

“ An upstart, great-grandson to a carpenter, noble only in two descents, and in both of them stained by the block, he found a queen—the victim of a physical passion that took no account of the worthlessness underlying his splendid exterior—reaching out a hand to raise him to a throne. Being what he was, he weighed his young wife’s life at naught in the evil scales of his ambition. ”

“ Your majesty belongs not to yourself alone: you are married; and every sentiment which would separate your majesty from the queen, in leading you to take notice of me, will be a source of profoundest sorrow for the queen.” The king endeavored to interrupt the young girl, but she continued with a suppliant gesture. “The Queen Maria, with an attachment which can be well understood, follows with her eyes every step of your majesty which separates you from her. ”

“ He told of the grotto, its music, its perfumes, its exquisite scenes and round of delights presided over by Venus herself.
"Your heroic self-sacrifice," he ended sneeringly, "is cold and tame in comparison with this! And the fairest women of earth pale into insignificance beside this wonderful goddess. Ah, Venus! I have kept my promise! Thine be the praise!"
He ended as one in a trance—as in truth the poor knight must have been. He stood motionless with gaze fixed as it were upon some hidden scene, while his harp fell clattering from his hand to the ground. ”

“ She was beautiful, but with the face and figure rather of a Juno than a Venus—dark, imperious, restless—the lips almost too firmly set, the brow almost too massive and projecting—a queen, rather to be feared than loved—but a queen still, as truly royal as the man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight, as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape. ”

“ Know then future queen, that at the court of Tothmes the Second—and very close to his throne—my soul lives, for it is there, the only woman I have ever loved, shall abide.
“She is by birth and station, so far above me, that to love her, is like loving a star in heaven! but oh queen (that is to be) such love as mine knows no repining, because the object of its worship is beyond mortal possession! love such as mine, finds only joy in the thought that eons of what we call time, may stretch out, before I can take unto myself this other self but while I wait I can serve. ”

“ Never yet in all the months of her reign since her coronation in January of last year had she felt so much a queen, and so conscious of the power of her high estate; never so much a woman, and so conscious of the weakness of her sex. ”

“ Yet she contrived to answer him with the proper icy dignity due to her position as a princess of Spain, now Queen of France.
“Monsieur, you forget yourself. The Queen of France does not listen to such words. You are mad, I think.”
“Yes, I am mad,” he flung back. “Mad with love—so mad that I have forgot that you are a queen and I an ambassador. Under the ambassador there is a man, under the queen a woman—our real selves, not the titles with which Fate seeks to dissemble our true natures. ”

“ But there was something greater still for the woman to learn, when the heart in the breast of the Queen forgot throne and sceptre and, in the hours consecrated to Eros, tasted joys known to womanhood alone. ”

“ Oh yes, I forget one brave man—a generous prince.”
“Prince, countess! who is it?”
“Monsieur the Cardinal de Rohan.”
“My enemy,” said the queen, smiling.
“Your enemy! Oh, madame!”
“It seems you are astonished that a queen should have an enemy. It is evident you have not lived at court.”
“But, madame, he adores you. The devotion of the cardinal equals his respect for you.”
“Oh, doubtless,” said the queen, with a hearty laugh; “that is why he is my enemy.”
Jeanne looked surprised.
“And you are his protégée,” continued the queen; “tell me all about it.” ”

“ The despair of our young lovers cannot be described. Constancia then first comprehended the whole extent of her misfortune. To be a king's daughter, rightful owner of immense dominions, and to languish in the power of a cruel queen, who banished her son for fear of his affection for her—a princess who was his equal every way, and whose hand would be ardently desired by the greatest sovereigns in the world! ”

“ Pardon if I offend you.”
“Stay, sir,” replied the queen, with a pride not unmixed with anger; “what the king believes, others might believe, and my friends not be harder than my husband. It seems to me that it can give no pleasure to any man to see a woman whom he does not esteem. I do not speak of you, sir; to you I am not a woman, but a queen; as you are to me, not a man, but a subject. ”

“ I have therefore chosen this young princess, who appears to me most charming." "I advise you not to marry her," said the Frog, "for polygamy is a hanging matter. The Queen is not dead; here is a letter written in her own blood which she has entrusted to me; you have a little princess called Moufette, who is more beautiful than all the goddesses combined." ”

“ Did the heart of stone within him know its ancestry,—track its hard, loveless descent from the Sphinx's children?
Then a Queen;—a solitary woman, proud of her solitude, isolated in her regnant splendor, a dead planet like the moon, sung and pictured and adored, but keeping on her majestic path in awful beauty, deaf to human entreaty, cold to human love; a great statesman in a queen's robes; a keen, subtle politician, coifed and farthingaled; a revengeful sovereign; a deadly enemy; a woman who forgave nothing to a woman, and retaliated everything upon a man ”

“ Indeed, M. de Richelieu, who was at the ball in spite of his eighty-four years, wondered who the blue domino could be with whom the queen was walking, and he could only suspect you, for he knew all the others.”
“And pray how does he say he recognized the queen?”
“Not very difficult, when she took her mask off. Such audacity as that surpasses all imagination; she must really be mad about you. But take care, chevalier; you have jealous rivals to fear; it is an envied post to be favorite of the queen, when the queen is the real king. ”

“ But the dignity of the princess asserts itself with the forethought and sympathy of the woman in the discreet words with which she greets the destitute stranger, and modestly directs him to her royal mother. Her swift eye notes his air of distinction, his courteous address, and she naively wishes in her heart that the gods would send her such a husband. It is to Arête that she bids him go, to the beloved queen who shares the throne of Alcinous with " honors never before given to a woman." ”

“ On entering she saw the poor chevalier, who faithful to his pleasure, awaited her, his back against a pillar, as a sick man longs for the sun, the spring-time, and the dawn. Then she turned away her eyes, and wished to go to the queen and request her assistance in this desperate case, for she took pity on her lover, but one of the captains said to her, with great appearance of respect, “Madame, we have orders not to allow you to speak with man or woman, even though it should be the queen or your confessor. And remember that the lives of all of us are at stake.” ”

“ The sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the past misfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest with which she was beheld: the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and in spite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romantic image of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamed the imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love and glory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and urged adulation to the very brink of idolatry. ”

“ Certain it is that after having occupied the throne of France, presided over its Councils, and given birth to the ancestor of a long line of Princes, she was ultimately indebted to the sympathy and attachment of a foreign artist, of whom she had once been the zealous patron, for a roof under which to terminate her miserable existence! The whole life of this ill-fated Queen is, indeed, full of startling contrasts from which the mind shrinks back appalled ”

“ I have said to him a hundred times, “I wonder how any woman can run after you, whom they ought rather to fly from.”
He would reply, laughing, “Ah! you do not know the libertine women of the present day; provided they are talked of, they are satisfied.”
There was an affair of gallantry, but a perfectly honourable one, between him and the Queen of Spain. I do not know whether he had the good fortune to be agreeable to her, but I know he was not at all in love with her. He thought her mien and figure good, but neither her manners nor her face were agreeable to him. ”

“ Alicia showed a firm determination not to see her relative, as though his presence might quicken the grief that was keeping her away from society.
Spadoni, unaware of all this, continued to praise the Duchess.
"A noble heart! She always has to have some unfortunate person around to look after. ”

“ The letter was written to the Princess of Wales, Caroline of Anspach, by the widow of the Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV, mother of the Regent: ‘The Queen of Spain has a method of making her husband say exactly what she wishes. The king is a religious man; he believes that he will be damned if he touched any woman but his wife, and still this excellent prince is of a very amorous temperament. Thus the queen obtains her every wish. She has placed castors on her husband’s bed. If he refuses her anything, she pushes the bed away. ”

“ The lady made, but quickly suppressed, a movement of surprise, and said, “No, madame.”
“Well, madame, I recognize you, and will give you a proof;” and she drew the box from her pocket, saying, “you left this at my house.”
“But supposing this to be true, what makes you so agitated?”
“I am agitated by the danger that your majesty is incurring here.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Not before you have put on this mask;” and she offered hers to the queen, who, however, did not take it.
“I beg your majesty; there is not an instant to lose.”
The queen put on the mask. ”

“ The Queen, who had remarked with apprehension the growing passion of her royal consort for the young Princess, was overjoyed at the contemplated marriage, believing as she did that she must have been self-deluded, as it was beyond credibility that, had she been correct in her surmises, Henry would have sought to unite the object of his preference to his own nephew. Thus, therefore, she overwhelmed the bride-elect with the most condescending kindness, and even arranged a ballet in her honour in which she herself appeared. ”

“ What a shame to be young, beautiful, Spanish, and queen, and yet neglected. She conceived an intense disdain for those of her Court who had kept their lips closed concerning this infidelity, through fear of the king, and determined to revenge herself with the aid of this handsome Frenchman, who cared so little for life that in his first words he had staked it in making a proposition to a queen, which was worthy of death, if she did her duty. ”

“ If the queen could not skate she could by this time dance the Spanish dances as well as anybody, and especially she delighted in the canaris and the sarabande. One evening Don Pedro of Aragon gave a ball for her, and she proved herself so graceful and so spirited in all the steps and figures, that the king came up when it was over and, taking her by the arms, he repeated more than once: 'My queen! my queen! you are the most perfect creature in the whole world.'
And so he thought, not only till her death, but after it. ”