HANDS.
Curdie went home, pondering much, and told everything to his father and
mother. As the old princess had said, it was now their turn to find what
they heard hard to believe. If they had not been able to trust Curdie
himself, they would have refused to believe more than the half of what
he reported, then they would have refused that half too, and at last
would most likely for a time have disbelieved in the very existence of
the princess, what evidence their own senses had given them
notwithstanding. For he had nothing conclusive to show in proof of what
he told them. When he held out his hands to them, his mother said they
looked as if he had been washing them with soft soap, only they did
smell of something nicer than that, and she must allow it was more like
roses than anything else she knew. His father could not see any
difference upon his hands, but then it was night, he said, and their
poor little lamp was not enough for his old eyes. As to the feel of
them, each of his own hands, he said, was hard and horny enough for two,
and it must be the fault of the dulness of his own thick skin that he
felt no change on Curdie's palms.
"Here, Curdie," said his mother, "try my hand, and see what beast's paw
lies inside it."
"No, mother," answered Curdie, half-beseeching, half-indignant, "I will
not insult my new gift by making pretence to try it. That would be
mockery. There is no hand within yours but the hand of a true woman, my
mother."
"I should like you just to take hold of my hand, though," said his
mother. "You are my son, and may know all the bad there is in me."
Then at once Curdie took her hand in his. And when he had it, he kept
it, stroking it gently with his other hand.
"Mother," he said at length, "your hand feels just like that of the
princess."
"What! my horny, cracked, rheumatic old hand, with its big joints, and
its short nails all worn down to the quick with hard work--like the hand
of the beautiful princess! Why, my child, you will make me fancy your
fingers have grown very dull indeed, instead of sharp and delicate, if
you talk such nonsense. Mine is such an ugly hand I should be ashamed
to show it to any but one that loved me. But love makes all
safe--doesn't it, Curdie?"
"Well, mother, all I can say is that I don't feel a roughness, or a
crack, or a big joint, or a short nail. Your hand feels just and
exactly, as near as I can recollect, and it's not now more than two
hours since I had it in mine,--well, I will say, very like indeed to
that of the old princess."
"Go away, you flatterer," said his mother, with a smile that showed how
she prized the love that lay beneath what she took for its hyperbole.
The praise even which one cannot accept is sweet from a true mouth. "If
that is all your new gift can do, it won't make a warlock of you," she
added.
"Mother, it tells me nothing but the truth," insisted Curdie, "however
unlike the truth it may seem. It wants no gift to tell what anybody's
outside hands are like. But by it I _know_ your inside hands are like
the princess's."
"And I am sure the boy speaks true," said Peter. "He only says about
your hand what I have known ever so long about yourself, Joan. Curdie,
your mother's foot is as pretty a foot as any lady's in the land, and
where her hand is not so pretty it comes of killing its beauty for you
and me, my boy. And I can tell you more, Curdie. I don't know much
about ladies and gentlemen, but I am sure your inside mother must be a
lady, as her hand tells you, and I will try to say how I know it. This
is how: when I forget myself looking at her as she goes about her
work--and that happens oftener as I grow older--I fancy for a moment or
two that I am a gentleman; and when I wake up from my little dream, it
is only to feel the more strongly that I must do everything as a
gentleman should. I will try to tell you what I mean, Curdie. If a
gentleman--I mean a real gentleman, not a pretended one, of which sort
they say there are a many above ground--if a real gentleman were to lose
all his money and come down to work in the mines to get bread for his
family--do you think, Curdie, he would work like the lazy ones? Would he
try to do as little as he could for his wages? I know the sort of the
true gentleman--pretty near as well as he does himself. And my wife,
that's your mother, Curdie, she's a true lady, you may take my word for
it, for it's she that makes me want to be a true gentleman. Wife, the
boy is in the right about your hand."
"Now, father, let me feel yours," said Curdie, daring a little more.
"No, no, my boy," answered Peter. "I don't want to hear anything about
my hand or my head or my heart. I am what I am, and I hope growing
better, and that's enough. No, you shan't feel my hand. You must go to
bed, for you must start with the sun."
It was not as if Curdie had been leaving them to go to prison, or to
make a fortune, and although they were sorry enough to lose him, they
were not in the least heart-broken or even troubled at his going.
As the princess had said he was to go like the poor man he was, Curdie
came down in the morning from his little loft dressed in his working
clothes. His mother, who was busy getting his breakfast for him, while
his father sat reading to her out of an old book, would have had him put
on his holiday garments, which, she said, would look poor enough amongst
the fine ladies and gentlemen he was going to. But Curdie said he did
not know that he was going amongst ladies and gentlemen, and that as
work was better than play, his work-day clothes must on the whole be
better than his play-day clothes; and as his father accepted the
argument, his mother gave in.
When he had eaten his breakfast, she took a pouch made of goatskin, with
the long hair on it, filled it with bread and cheese, and hung it over
his shoulder. Then his father gave him a stick he had cut for him in the
wood, and he bade them good-bye rather hurriedly, for he was afraid of
breaking down. As he went out, he caught up his mattock and took it with
him. It had on the one side a pointed curve of strong steel, for
loosening the earth and the ore, and on the other a steel hammer for
breaking the stones and rocks. Just as he crossed the threshold the sun
showed the first segment of his disc above the horizon.