The Red Fairy Book - Andrew Lang (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗

their arms from their sides, yet she

was not hurt in the least. However, the Duchess thought she must

be black and blue after such a beating; so Graciosa, when she was

released, pretended to feel very bad, and went away into her own

room, where she told her nurse all that had happened, and then the

nurse left her, and when the Princess turned round there stood

Percinet beside her. She thanked him gratefully for helping her so

cleverly, and they laughed and were very merry over the way they

had taken in the Duchess and her waiting-maids; but Percinet

advised her still to pretend to be ill for a few days, and after

promising to come to her aid whenever she needed him, he disappeared

as suddenly as he had come.

 

The Duchess was so delighted at the idea that Graciosa was

really ill, that she herself recovered twice as fast as she would have

done otherwise, and the wedding was held with great magnificence.

Now as the King knew that, above all other things, the Queen loved

to be told that she was beautiful, he ordered that her portrait should

be painted, and that a tournament should be held, at which all the

bravest knights of his court should maintain against all comers that

Grumbly was the most beautiful princess in the world.

 

Numbers of knights came from far and wide to accept the

challenge, and the hideous Queen sat in great state in a balcony

hung with cloth of gold to watch the contests, and Graciosa had to

stand up behind her, where her loveliness was so conspicuous that

the combatants could not keep their eyes off her. But the Queen

was so vain that she thought all their admiring glances were for

herself, especially as, in spite of the badness of their cause, the King’s

knights were so brave that they were the victors in every combat.

 

However, when nearly all the strangers had been defeated, a

young unknown knight presented himself. He carried a portrait,

enclosed in a bow encrusted with diamonds, and he declared himself

willing to maintain against them all that the Queen was the

ugliest creature in the world, and that the Princess whose portrait

he carried was the most beautiful.

 

So one by one the knights came out against him, and one by

one he vanquished them all, and then he opened the box, and said

that, to console them, he would show them the portrait of his Queen

of Beauty, and when he did so everyone recognised the Princess

Graciosa. The unknown knight then saluted her gracefully and

retired, without telling his name to anybody. But Graciosa had no

difficulty in guessing that it was Percinet.

 

As to the Queen, she was so furiously angry that she could

hardly speak; but she soon recovered her voice, and overwhelmed

Graciosa with a torrent of reproaches.

 

`What!’ she said, `do you dare to dispute with me for the prize

of beauty, and expect me to endure this insult to my knights? But

I will not bear it, proud Princess. I will have my revenge.’

 

`I assure you, Madam,’ said the Princess, `that I had nothing to

do with it and am quite willing that you shall be declared Queen

of Beauty

 

`Ah! you are pleased to jest, popinjay!’ said the Queen, `but

it will be my turn soon!’

 

The King was speedily told what had happened, and how the

Princess was in terror of the angry Queen, but he only said:

`The Queen must do as she pleases. Graciosa belongs to her!’

 

The wicked Queen waited impatiently until night fell, and then

she ordered her carriage to be brought. Graciosa, much against

her will, was forced into it, and away they drove, and never stopped

until they reached a great forest, a hundred leagues from the

palace. This forest was so gloomy, and so full of lions, tigers, bears

and wolves, that nobody dared pass through it even by daylight,

and here they set down the unhappy Princess in the middle of the

black night, and left her in spite of all her tears and entreaties. The

Princess stood quite still at first from sheer bewilderment, but when

the last sound of the retreating carriages died away in the distance

she began to run aimlessly hither and thither, sometimes knocking

herself against a tree, sometimes tripping over a stone, fearing

every minute that she would be eaten up by the lions. Presently

she was too tired to advance another step, so she threw herself

down upon the ground and cried miserably:

 

`Oh, Percinet! where are you? Have you forgotten me altogether?’

 

She had hardly spoken when all the forest was lighted up with

a sudden glow. Every tree seemed to be sending out a soft

radiance, which was clearer than moonlight and softer than

daylight, and at the end of a long avenue of trees opposite to her the

Princess saw a palace of clear crystal which blazed like the sun.

At that moment a slight sound behind her made her start round,

and there stood Percinet himself.

 

`Did I frighten you, my Princess?’ said he. `I come to bid you

welcome to our fairy palace, in the name of the Queen, my mother,

who is prepared to love you as much as I do.’ The Princess

joyfully mounted with him into a little sledge, drawn by two stags,

which bounded off and drew them swiftly to the wonderful palace,

where the Queen received her with the greatest kindness, and a

splendid banquet was served at once. Graciosa was so happy to

have found Percinet, and to have escaped from the gloomy forest

and all its terrors, that she was very hungry and very merry, and

they were a gay party. After supper they went into another lovely

room, where the crystal walls were covered with pictures, and the

Princess saw with great surprise that her own history was represented, even down to the moment when Percinet found her in the

forest.

 

`Your painters must indeed be diligent,’ she said, pointing out

the last picture to the Prince.

 

`They are obliged to be, for I will not have anything forgotten

that happens to you,’ he answered.

 

When the Princess grew sleepy, twenty-four charming maidens

put her to bed in the prettiest room she had ever seen, and then

sang to her so sweetly that Graciosa’s dreams were all of mermaids,

and cool sea waves, and caverns, in which she wandered with

Percinet; but when she woke up again her first thought was that,

delightful as this fairy palace seemed to her, yet she could not stay

in it, but must go back to her father. When she had been dressed

by the four-and-twenty maidens in a charming robe which the

Queen had sent for her, and in which she looked prettier than ever,

Prince Percinet came to see her, and was bitterly disappointed when

she told him what she had been thinking. He begged her to

consider again how unhappy the wicked Queen would make her, and

how, if she would but marry him, all the fairy palace would be

hers, and his one thought would be to please her. But, in spite of

everything he could say, the Princess was quite determined to go

back, though he at last persuaded her to stay eight days, which were

so full of pleasure and amusement that they passed like a few

hours. On the last day, Graciosa, who had often felt anxious to

know what was going on in her father’s palace, said to Percinet

that she was sure that he could find out for her, if he would, what

reason the Queen had given her father for her sudden disappearance.

Percinet at first offered to send his courier to find out, but

the Princess said:

 

`Oh! isn’t there a quicker way of knowing than that?’

 

`Very well,’ said Percinet, `you shall see for yourself.’

 

So up they went together to the top of a very high tower, which,

like the rest of the castle, was built entirely of rock-crystal.

 

There the Prince held Graciosa’s hand in his, and made her put

the tip of her little finger into her mouth, and look towards the town,

and immediately she saw the wicked Queen go to the King, and

heard her say to him, `That miserable Princess is dead, and no

great loss either. I have ordered that she shall be buried at once.’

 

And then the Princess saw how she dressed up a log of wood

and had it buried, and how the old King cried, and all the people

murmured that the Queen had killed Graciosa with her cruelties,

and that she ought to have her head cut off. When the Princess

saw that the King was so sorry for her pretended death that he

could neither eat nor drink, she cried:

 

`Ah, Percinet! take me back quickly if you love me.’

 

And so, though he did not want to at all, he was obliged to

promise that he would let her go.

 

`You may not regret me, Princess,’ he said sadly, `for I fear

that you do not love me well enough; but I foresee that you will

more than once regret that you left this fairy palace where we

have been so happy.’

 

But, in spite of all he could say, she bade farewell to the Queen,

his mother, and prepared to set out; so Percinet, very unwillingly,

brought the little sledge with the stags and she mounted beside him.

But they had hardly gone twenty yards when a tremendous noise

behind her made Graciosa look back, and she saw the palace of crystal

fly into a million splinters, like the spray of a fountain, and vanish.

 

`Oh, Percinet!’ she cried, `what has happened? The palace is

gone.’

 

`Yes,’ he answered, `my palace is a thing of the past; you will

see it again, but not until after you have been buried.’

 

`Now you are angry with me,’ said Graciosa in her most coaxing

voice, `though after all I am more to be pitied than you are.’

 

When they got near the palace the Prince made the sledge and

themselves invisible, so the Princess got in unobserved, and ran up

to the great hall where the King was sitting all by himself. At

first he was very much startled by Graciosa’s sudden appearance,

but she told him how the Queen had left her out in the forest, and

how she had caused a log of wood to be buried. The King, who

did not know what to think, sent quickly and had it dug up, and

sure enough it was as the Princess had said. Then he caressed

Graciosa, and made her sit down to supper with him, and they were

as happy as possible. But someone had by this time told the wicked

Queen that Graciosa had come back, and was at supper with the

King, and in she flew in a terrible fury. The poor old King quite

trembled before her, and when she declared that Graciosa was not

the Princess at all, but a wicked impostor, and that if the King did

not give her up at once she would go back to her own castle and

never see him again, he had not a word to say, and really seemed

to believe that it was not Graciosa after all. So the Queen in great

triumph sent for her waiting women, who dragged the unhappy

Princess away and shut her up in a garret; they took away all her

jewels and her pretty dress, and gave her a rough cotton frock, wooden

shoes, and a little cloth cap. There was some straw in a corner,

which was