People were overjoyed and trembled with delight at the mere sight of her as she raised her eyebrows for a smile or lifted her hand to screen her yawn.  The young girl seemed to know all the secrets of life, and to embody all the mysteries of the universe.

Indeed, her charm and power over others were such that even the dragon living in the depths of the sea was compelled to notice her.  The dragon had lived there from time immemorial, tyrannizing over mortals’ lives; he was the ruler of Nature, from whom men snatched their meager subsistence.

Before the beauty was born, he was perhaps the only power that existed.  People had known all too well that he could not be overcome, that no one could escape his wrath, and that no worthwhile accomplishment was possible without his blessing.  This power, was, so to say, more obvious than seeing him breathe fire.

Now, watching people irresistibly drawn to the beauty, the dragon began stirring restlessly.  He did not know exactly what was making him uneasy.  Obviously, he too was attracted to the sheer beauty of the girl—even though it was embodied in a human form, whose fragility and transience he despised.

We might say that the dragon loved the beauty in a way, that is, in a natural way, as all things in nature proceed with logic inherent.

However, love was not what made him feel uncomfortable and ultimately prompted him to act.  The more he wanted to deny the beauty’s charm and power over the people, particularly her ability to draw a large crowd around her and to magically give them fantasies about the world, the more he grew uneasy and even worried.

For he sensed a serious danger in the situation.  He knew that the sort of fantasy she created was absolutely unwarranted by the squalid objective conditions of mere human beings.

That kind of fantasy, the dragon knew, would soon transform the decorations on the brows of the people—feathers, polished shells—into rich additions to what lay behind their brows—thoughts about their own competence and beauty, and ultimately, their own power.

He felt there might perhaps be a fundamental change in his relationship with human beings.