He was ordinary in a world that loved the extraordinary.

He was beautiful, but even more so in his formal attire, with his dark hair and pale eyes. His glistening sword hung at his side, and his tall boots shined in the candlelight. The Queen felt as if she were floating in a dream.

He was handsome then if never before, bound for one of those immortal moments which come so radiantly that their remembered light is enough to see by for years.

He was, she thought, as beautiful as a young god, lying on his side among the grass and flowers

As a girl, she had come to believe in the ideal man — the prince or knight of her childhood stories. In the real world, however, men like that simply didn't exist.

She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilights too her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illuminated his memory.

She knew intellectually that he was beautiful, the way the iridescent wings of a carrion fly would be.

She saw him fracture into rainbow colors through the prism of her love.

I suffer for birds and fireflies
but not frogs, she said,
and threw him across the room.
Kaboom!
Like a genie out of a samovar,
a handsome prince arose in the
corner of the bedroom.

Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon his memory.

When she looked at him now, she couldn't help thinking that the man he had become bore so little resemblance to the boy he had been. His smile was the only piece of baggage he had carried with him from boyhood into manhood.

The common man, he is the uncommon man

She loved him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness