At these words, at once tender and respectful, the princess, who had long heard of the fairy-prince Percinet, felt so happy that she feared Grognon no more. They talked a little while together, and then returned to the palace, where the page a.s.sisted her to mount her horse; on which she looked so beautiful, that all the new queen"s splendours faded into nothing in comparison, and not one of the courtiers had eyes for any except Graciosa.
As soon as Grognon saw it, "What!" cried she, "has this creature the impudence to be better mounted than myself! Descend, Miss, and let me try your horse;--and your page, whom everybody thinks so much of, bid him come and hold my bridle."
Prince Percinet, who was the page, cast one look at his fair Graciosa and obeyed; but no sooner had the d.u.c.h.ess mounted, than the horse ran away with her and dragged her over briers, stones, and mud, and finally threw her into a deep ditch. Her head was cut in several places, and her arm fractured. They picked her up in little pieces, like a broken winegla.s.s; never was there a poor bride in worse plight.
But in spite of her sufferings her malice remained. She sent for the king:
"This is all Graciosa"s fault; she wished to kill me. I desire that your majesty will punish her, or leave me to do it--else I will certainly be revenged upon you both."
The king, afraid of losing his casks full of gold pieces, consented, and Graciosa was commanded to appear. She came trembling and looking round vainly for Prince Percinet. The cruel Grognon ordered four women, ugly as witches, to take her and strip off her fine clothes, and whip her with rods till her white shoulders were red with blood.
But lo! as soon as the rods touched her, they turned into bundles of feathers, and the women tired themselves to death with whipping, without hurting Graciosa the least in the world!
"Ah! kind Percinet, what do I not owe you? What should I do without you!" sighed the princess, when she was taken back to her own chamber and her nurse. And then she saw the prince standing before her, in his green dress and his white plume, the most charming of pages.
Percinet advised her to pretend illness on account of the cruel treatment she was supposed to have received; which so delighted Grognon, that she got well all the sooner, and the marriage was celebrated with great splendour.
Soon after, the king, who knew that his wife"s weak point was her vanity, gave a tournament, at which he ordered the six bravest knights of the court to proclaim that Queen Grognon was the fairest lady alive. No knight ventured to dispute this fact, until there appeared one who carried a little box adorned with diamonds, and proclaimed aloud that Grognon was the ugliest woman in the universe, and that the most beautiful was she whose portrait was in the box. He opened it, and behold the image of the Princess Graciosa!
The princess, who sat behind her stepmother, felt sure that the unknown knight was Percinet; but she dared say nothing. The contest was fixed for next day; but in the meantime, Grognon, wild with anger, commanded Graciosa to be taken in the middle of the night to a forest a hundred leagues distant, full of wolves, lions, tigers, and bears.
In vain the poor maiden implored that the attendants would kill her at once, rather than leave her in that dreadful place: the queen"s orders must be obeyed; no answer was made to her, but the servants remounted and rode away. Graciosa, in solitude and darkness, groped through the forest, sometimes falling against the trunks of trees, sometimes tearing herself with bushes and briers; at last, overcome with fear and grief, she sank on the ground, sobbing out, "Percinet, Percinet, have you forsaken me?"
While she spoke, a bright light dazzled her eyes, the midnight forest was changed into glittering alleys, at the end of which appeared a palace of crystal, shining like the sun. She knew it was the doing of the fairy-prince who loved her, and felt a joy mingled with fear. She turned to fly, but saw him standing before her, more handsome and charming than ever.
"Princess," said he, "why are you afraid of me? This is the palace of the fairy-queen my mother, and the princesses my sisters, who will take care of you, and love you tenderly. Enter this chariot, and I will convey you there."
Graciosa entered, and pa.s.sing through many a lovely forest glade, where it was clear daylight, and shepherds and shepherdesses were dancing to merry music, they reached the palace, where the queen and her two daughters received the forlorn princess with great kindness, and led her through many rooms of rock-crystal, glittering with jewels, where, to her amazement, Graciosa saw the history of her own life, even down to this adventure in the forest, painted on the walls.
"How is this?" she said. "Prince, you know everything about me."
"Yes; and I wish to preserve everything concerning you," said he tenderly; whereupon Graciosa cast down her eyes. She was only too happy, and afraid that she should learn to love the fairy-prince too much.
She spent eight days in his palace--days full of every enjoyment; and Percinet tried all the arguments he could think of to induce her to marry him, and remain there for ever. But the good and gentle Graciosa remembered her father who was once so kind to her, and she preferred rather to suffer than to be wanting in duty. She entreated Percinet to use his fairy power to send her home again, and meantime to tell her what had become of her father.
"Come with me into the great tower there, and you shall see for yourself."
Thereupon he took her to the top of a tower, prodigiously high, put her little finger to his lips, and her foot upon his foot. Then he bade her look, and she saw as hi a picture, or as in a play upon the stage, the King and Grognon sitting together on their throne. The latter was telling how Graciosa had hanged herself in a cave.
"She will not be much loss, sire; and as, when dead, she was far too frightful for you to look at, I have given orders to bury her at once."
She might well say that, for she had had a large f.a.ggot put into a coffin, and sealed up; the king and all the nation mourned over it; and now, that she was no more, they declared there never was such a sweet creature as the lost princess.
The sight of her father"s grief quite overcame Graciosa. "Oh, Percinet!" she cried, "my father believes me dead. If you love me, take me home."
The prince consented, though very sorrowfully, saying that she was as cruel to him as Grognon was to her, and mounted with her in his chariot, drawn by four white stags. As they quitted the courtyard, they heard a great noise, and Graciosa saw the palace all falling to pieces with a great crash.
"What is this?" she cried, terrified.
"Princess, my palace, which you forsake, is among the things which are dead and gone. You will enter it no more till after your burial."
"Prince, you are angry with me," said Graciosa sorrowfully; only she knew well that she suffered quite as much as he did in thus departing and quitting him.
Arrived in her father"s presence, she had great difficulty in persuading him that she was not a ghost, until the coffin with the f.a.ggot inside it was taken up, and Grognon"s malice discovered But even then, the king was so weak a man, that the queen soon made him believe he had been cheated, that the princess was really dead, and that this was a false Graciosa. Without more ado, he abandoned his daughter to her stepmother"s will.
Grognon, transported with joy, dragged her to a dark prison, took away her clothes, made her dress in rags, feed on bread and water, and sleep upon straw. Forlorn and hopeless, Graciosa dared not now call upon Percinet; she doubted if he still loved her enough to come to her aid.
Meantime, Grognon had sent for a fairy, who was scarcely less malicious than herself. "I have here," said she, "a little wretch of a girl for whom I wish to find all sorts of difficult tasks; pray a.s.sist me in giving her a new one every day."
The fairy promised to think of it, and soon brought a skein as thick as four persons, yet composed of thread so fine, that it broke if you only blew upon it, and so tangled that it had neither beginning nor end. Grognon, delighted, sent for her poor prisoner.
"There, miss, teach your clumsy fingers to unwind this skein, and if you break a single thread I will flay you alive. Begin when you like, but you must finish at sunset, or it will be the worse for you." Then she sent her to her miserable cell, and treble-locked the door.
Graciosa stood dismayed, turning the skein over and over, and breaking hundreds of threads each time. "Ah! Percinet," she cried in despair, "come and help me, or at least receive my last farewell."
Immediately Percinet stood beside her, having entered the cell as easily as if he carried the key in his pocket. "Behold me, princess, ready to serve you, even though you forsook me." He touched the skein with his wand, and it untangled itself, and wound itself up in perfect order. "Do you wish anything more, madam?" asked he coldly.
"Percinet, Percinet, do not reproach me; I am only too unhappy."
"It is your own fault. Come with me, and make us both happy." But she said nothing, and the fairy-prince disappeared.
At sunset, Grognon eagerly came to the prison-door with her three keys, and found Graciosa smiling and fair, her task all done. There was no complaint to make, yet Grognon exclaimed that the skein was dirty, and boxed the princess"s ears till her rosy cheeks turned yellow and blue. Then she left her, and overwhelmed the fairy with reproaches.
"Find me, by to-morrow, something absolutely impossible for her to do."
The fairy brought a great basket full of feathers, plucked from every kind of bird--nightingales, canaries, linnets, larks, doves, thrushes, peac.o.c.ks, ostriches, pheasants, partridges, magpies, eagles--in fact, if I told them all over, I should never come to an end; and all these feathers were so mixed up together, that they could not be distinguished.
"See," said the fairy, "even one of ourselves would find it difficult to separate these, and arrange them as belonging to each sort of bird.
Command your prisoner to do it; she is sure to fail."
Grognon jumped for joy, sent for the princess, and ordered her to take her task, and finish it, as before, by set of sun.
Graciosa tried patiently, but she could see no difference in the feathers; she threw them all back again into the basket, and began to weep bitterly. "Let me die," said she, "for death only will end my sorrows. Percinet loves me no longer; if he did, he would already have been here."
"Here I am, my princess," cried a voice from under the basket; and the fairy-prince appeared. He gave three taps with his wand--the feathers flew by millions out of the basket, and arranged themselves in little heaps, each belonging to a different bird.
"What do I not owe you?" cried Graciosa.
"Love me!" answered the prince, tenderly, and said no more.
When Grognon arrived, she found the task done. She was furious at the fairy, who was as much astonished as herself at the result of their malicious contrivances. But she promised to try once more; and for several days employed all her industry in inventing a box, which, she said, the prisoner must be forbidden on any account to open. "Then,"
added the cunning fairy, "of course, being such a disobedient and wicked girl, as you say, she will open it, and the result will satisfy you to your heart"s content."
Grognon took the box, and commanded Graciosa to carry it to her castle, and set it on a certain table, in an apartment she named, but not upon any account, to open it or examine its contents.
Graciosa departed. She was dressed like any poor peasant, in a cotton gown, a woollen hood and wooden shoes; yet, as she walked along, people took her for a queen in disguise, so lovely were her looks and ways. But being weak with imprisonment, she soon grew weary, and, sitting down upon the edge of a little wood, took the box upon her lap. Suddenly a wonderful desire seized her to open it.
"I will take nothing out, I will touch nothing," said she to herself, "but I must see what is inside."
Without reflecting on the consequences, she lifted up the lid, and instantly there jumped out a number of little men and little women, carrying little tables and chairs, little dishes, and little musical instruments. The whole company were so small, that the biggest giant among them was scarcely the height of a finger. They leaped into the green meadow, separated into various bands, and began dancing and singing, eating and drinking, to Graciosa"s wonder and delight. But when she recollected herself, and wished to get them into the box again, they all scampered away, played at hide-and-seek in the wood, and by no means could she catch a single one.