He saw the Woman enter, and then be
imagined her opening the door of the sacred hutch and
peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the thick
straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod
at the straw in her clumsy impatience. And Conradin
fervently breathed his prayer for the last time. But he
knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the
Woman would come out presently with that pursed smile he
loathed so well on her face, and that in an hour or two the
gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no
longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew
that the Woman would triumph always as she triumphed now,
and that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering
and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing
would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be
proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he
began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his
threatened idol:
Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.
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