"Blue Bird, Blue Bird, Come to my side."
The Blue Bird flew to the window-sill, and they lavished on one another a hundred caresses, and talked together till dawn. Next night it happened the same, till they began to hope that the waiting-maid, who seemed to enjoy her sleep so much, would sleep every night to come. But on the third night, hearing a noise, she wakened, and saw by the light of the moon the Princess Florina sitting at the window with a beautiful Blue Bird, who warbled in her ear and touched her gently with his beak. The spy listened and heard all their conversation, very much astonished that a princess could be so fond of a mere bird. When day came she related all to the queen and Troutina, who concluded that the bird could be no other than King Charming. They sent the girl back, told her to express no curiosity, but to feign sleep, and to go to bed earlier than usual. Then the poor deceived princess opened her little window, and sang her usual song--
"Blue Bird, Blue Bird, Come to my side."
But no Blue Bird appeared. The queen had caused sharp knives to be hung outside the hollow of the tree: he flew against them and cut his feet and wings, till he dropped down, covered with blood.
"Oh, Florina, come to my help!" sighed he, "But she is dead, I know, and I will die also."
At that moment, his friend, the magician, who since he had seen the chariot with flying frogs return without King Charming, had gone eight times round the world in search of him, made his ninth journey, and came to the tree where the poor Blue Bird lay, calling out, "King Charming, King Charming!"
The king recognised the voice of his best friend: whereupon the magician took him out of the hollow tree, healed his wounds, and heard all his history. He persuaded King Charming that, overcome with fear and cruel treatment, Florina must have betrayed him.
"Then do as you will with me!" cried the king. "Put me into a cage and take me back with you. I shall at least be safe there for the five years that are to be endured."
"But," said the enchanter, "can you remain five years in so undignified a position? And you have enemies who will a.s.suredly seize on your kingdom."
"Why can I not return and govern it as before?"
"I fear," replied his friend, "that the thing is difficult. Who would obey a Blue Bird?"
"Ah, that is too true!" cried the king, sadly, "People only judge by the outside."
Meantime Florina, overcome with grief, fell dangerously sick, and in her sickness she kept singing, day and night, her little song--
"Blue Bird, Blue Bird, Come to my side."
But no one regarded her.
At last a sudden change took place in her fortunes. The king her father died, and the people, who knew she was his heir, began to inquire, with one accord, where was the Princess Florina? They a.s.sailed the palace in crowds, demanding her for their sovereign. The riot became so dangerous that Troutina and her mother fled away to the fairy Soussio. Then the populace stormed the tower, rescued the sick and almost dying princess, and crowned her as their queen.
The exceeding care that was taken of her, and her longing to live in order to see again her Blue Bird, restored Florina"s health, and gave her strength to call a council and arrange all the affairs of her kingdom. Then she departed by night, and alone, to go over the world in search of her Blue Bird.
The magician, who was King Charming"s friend, went to the fairy Soussio, whom he knew, for they had quarrelled and made it up again, as fairies and magicians do, many times within the last five or six hundred years. She received him civilly, and asked him what he wanted.
He tried to make a bargain with her but could effect nothing, unless King Charming would consent to marry Troutina. The enchanter found this bride so ugly that he could not advise. Still, the Blue Bird had run so many risks in his cage: the nail it was hung upon had broken, and the king suffered much in the fall; Minetta, the cat, had glowered at him with her green eyes; the attendants had forgotten his hemp-seed and his water-gla.s.s, so that he was half dying of hunger and thirst; and a monkey had plucked at his feathers through the wires as disrespectfully as if, instead of a king, he had been a linnet or a jay. Worse than all, his next heir spread reports of his death, and threatened to seize on his throne.
Under these circ.u.mstances the magician thought it best to agree with Soussio that King Charming should be restored to his kingdom and his natural shape for six months, on condition that Troutina should remain in his palace, and that he should try to like her and marry her. If not, he was to become again a Blue Bird. So he found himself once more King Charming, and as charming as ever; but he would rather have been a bird and near his beloved, than a king in the society of Troutina.
The enchanter gave him the best reasons for what had been done, and advised him to occupy himself with the affairs of his kingdom and people; but he thought less of these things than how to escape from the horror of marrying Troutina.
Meanwhile the Queen Florina, in a peasant"s dress, with a straw hat on her head, and a canvas sack on her shoulder, began her journey: sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, sometimes by sea, sometimes by land, wandering; evermore after her beloved King Charming. One day, stopping beside a fountain, she let her hair fall loose, and dipped her weary feet in the cool water, when an old woman, bent, and leaning on a stick, came by.
"My pretty maiden, what are you doing here all alone?"
"Good mother," replied the queen, "I have too many troubles to be pleasant company for anybody."
"Tell me your troubles, and I may be able to soften them."
Florina obeyed, and told her whole history, and how she was travelling over the world in search of the Blue Bird. The little woman listened attentively, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, became, instead of an old woman, a beautiful fairy.
"Incomparable Florina, the king you seek is no longer a bird; my sister Soussio has restored him to his proper shape, and he reigns in his own kingdom. Do not afflict yourself; happiness will yet be yours.
Take these four eggs, and whenever you are in trouble, break them, and see what ensues." So saying, the fairy vanished.
Florina, greatly comforted, put the eggs in her sack, and turned her steps towards the country of King Charming. She walked eight days and nights without stopping, and then came to a mountain made entirely of ivory, and nearly perpendicular. Despairing of ever climbing it, she sank down at the foot, prepared to die there, when she bethought herself of the eggs. "Let me see," said she, "if the fairy has deceived me or not." So she broke one, and inside it were little hooks of gold, which she fitted on her feet and hands, and by means of which she climbed the mountain with ease. Arrived at the summit she found new difficulties; for the valley below was one large smooth mirror, in which sixty thousand women stood admiring themselves. They had need, for the charm of the mirror was that each saw herself therein, not as she was, but as she wished to be; and the grimaces they made were enough to cause a person to die of laughter. Not one of them had ever gained the top of the mountain; and when they saw Florina there, they all burst into angry outcries, "How has this woman got up the hill? If she descends upon our mirror her first footstep will crack it into a thousand pieces."
The queen, uncertain what to do, broke the second egg, and there flew out two pigeons harnessed to a fine chariot, in which Florina mounted, and descended lightly over the mirror to the valley"s foot. "Now, my pretty pigeons," said she, "will you convey me to the palace of King Charming?" The obedient pigeons did so, flying day and night till they reached the city gates; when the queen dismissed them with a sweet kiss, which was worth more than her crown.
How her heart beat as she entered, and begged to see the king! "You!"
cried the servants mocking. "Little peasant-girl, your eyes are not half good enough to see the king. Besides, he is going to-morrow to the temple with the Princess Troutina, whom he has at last agreed to marry."
Florina sat down on a door-step, and hid her face under her straw hat and her drooping hair. "Alas!" she cried, "my Blue Bird has forsaken me."
She neither ate nor slept, but rose with the dawn, and pushed her way through the guards to the temple, where she saw two thrones, one for King Charming, and the other for Troutina. They arrived shortly; he more charming and she more repulsive than ever. Knitting her brows, Troutina exclaimed, "What creature is that who dares approach so near my golden throne?"
"I am a poor peasant-girl," said Florina. "I come from afar to sell you curiosities." And she took out of her sack the emerald bracelets which the Blue Bird had given her.
"These are pretty trinkets," said Troutina; and going up to the king she asked him what he thought of them. At sight of the ornaments he turned pale, remembering those he had given to Florina.
"These bracelets are worth half my kingdom; I did not think there had been more than one pair in the world."
"Then I will buy these," said Troutina; but Florina refused to sell them for money: the price she asked was permission to sleep a night in the Chamber of Echoes.
"As you will; your bargains are cheap enough," replied Troutina, laughing: and when she laughed she showed teeth like the tusks of a wild boar.
Now the king, when he was a Blue Bird, had informed Florina about this Chamber of Echoes, where every word spoken could be heard in his own chamber; she could not have chosen a better way of reproaching him for his infidelity. But vain were her sobs and complainings; the king had taken opium to lull his grief; he slept soundly all night long. Next day, Florina was in great disquietude. Could he have really heard her, and been indifferent to her sorrow; or had he not heard her at all?
She determined to buy another night in the Chamber of Echoes; but she had no more jewels to tempt Troutina; so she broke the third egg. Out of it came a chariot of polished steel, inlaid with gold, drawn by six green mice, the coachman being a rose-coloured rat, and the postilion a grey one. Inside the carriage sat little puppets, who behaved themselves just like live ladies and gentlemen.
When Troutina went to walk in the palace garden, Florina awaited her in a green alley, and made the mice gallop, and the ladies and gentlemen bow, till the princess was delighted, and ready to buy the curiosity at any price. Again Florina exacted permission to pa.s.s the night in the Chamber of Echoes; and again the king, undisturbed by her lamentation, slept without waking till dawn.
The third day, one of the palace valets, pa.s.sing her by, said, "You stupid peasant-girl, it is well the king takes opium every night, or you would disturb him by that terrible sobbing of yours."
"Does he so?" said the queen, now comprehending all. "Then if you will promise to-night to keep the opium cup out of his way, these pearls and diamonds," and she took a handful of them from her sack, "shall a.s.suredly be yours."
The valet promised; and then Florina broke her fourth egg, out of which came a pie composed of birds, which, though they had been plucked, baked, and made ready for the table, sang as beautifully as birds that are alive. Troutina, charmed with this marvellous novelty, bought it at the same price as the rest, adding generously a small piece of gold.
When all the palace were asleep, Florina for the last time, hoping King Charming would hear her, called upon him with all sorts of tender expressions, reminding him of their former vows, and their two years of happiness. "What have I done to thee, that thou shouldst forget me and marry Troutina?" sobbed she; and the king, who this time was wide awake, heard her. He could not make out whose voice it was, or whence it came, but it somehow reminded him of his dearest Florina, whom he had never ceased to love. He called his valet, inquired who was sleeping in the Chamber of Echoes, and heard that it was the little peasant-girl who had sold to Troutina the emerald bracelet. Then he rose up, dressed himself hastily, and went in search of her. She was sitting mournfully on the floor, with her hair hiding her face, and her eyes swollen with tears; but he knew at once his faithful Florina.
He fell on his knees before her covered her hands with kisses, and they embraced and wept together. For what was the good of all their love when they were still in the power of the fairy Soussio?
But at this moment appeared the friendly enchanter, with a fairy still greater than Soussio, the one who had given Florina the four eggs.
They declared that their united power was stronger than Soussio"s, and that the lovers should be married without further delay.
When this news reached Troutina, she ran to the Chamber of Echoes, and there beheld her beautiful rival, whom she had so cruelly afflicted.
But the moment she opened her mouth to speak, her wicked tongue was silenced for ever; for the magician turned her into a trout, which he flung out of the window into the stream that flowed through the castle garden.
As for King Charming and Queen Florina, delivered out of all their sorrows, and given to one another, their joy was quite inexpressible, and it lasted to the end of their lives.
_Note._--It will be seen that this tale, which is from the French, bears a curious resemblance to Grimm"s story of "The Iron Stove," except that the latter retains a brevity and German simplicity, not found here. This family likeness may be traced in the fairy tales of all countries. I merely refer to it to show that the repet.i.tion of incidents was not un.o.bserved or unintentional.--EDITOR.