His mother finished reading the story of the Beautiful Princess, and it
was surely the saddest story he had ever heard. He could not bear to
think of that lovely and delicate lady all alone in the great, black
forest waiting until the giant came back from killing her seven brothers.
He would return with their seven heads swinging pitifully from his
girdle, and, when he reached the castle gates, he would gnash his teeth
through the keyhole with a noise like the grinding together of great
rocks, and would poke his head through the fanlight of the door, and say,
fee-faw-fum in a voice of such exceeding loudness that the castle would
be shaken to its foundation.
Thinking of this made his throat grow painful with emotion, and then his
heart swelled to the most uncomfortable dimensions, and he resolved to
devote his whole life to the rescue of the Princess, and, if necessary,
die in her defence.
Such was his impatience that he could not wait for anything more than his
dinner, and this he ate so speedily that his father called him a
Perfect-Young-Glutton, and a Disgrace-To-Any-Table. He bore these
insults in a meek and heroic spirit, whereupon his mother said that he
must be ill, and it was only by a violent and sustained outcry that he
escaped being sent to bed.
Immediately after dinner he set out in search of the giant's castle. Now
there is scarcely anything in the world more difficult to find than a
giant's castle, for it is so large that one can only see it through the
wrong end of a telescope; and, furthermore, he did not even know this
giant's name. He might never have found the place if he had not met a
certain old woman on the common.
She was a very nice old woman. She had three teeth, a red shawl, and an
umbrella with groceries inside it; so he told her of the difficulty he
was in.
She replied that he was in luck's way, and that she was the only person
in the world who could assist him. She said her name was
Really-and-Truly, and that she had a magic head, and that if he cut her
head off it would answer any questions he asked it. So he stropped his
penknife on his boot, and said he was ready if she was.
The old woman then informed him that in all affairs of this delicate
nature it was customary to take the will for the deed, and that he might
now ask her head anything he wanted to know--so he asked the head what
was the way to the nearest giant, and the head replied that if he took
the first turning to the left, the second to the right, and then the
first to the left again, and if he then knocked at the fifth door on the
right-hand side, he would see the giant.
He thanked the old woman very much for the use of her head, and she
permitted him to lend her one threepenny-piece, one pocket-handkerchief,
one gun-metal watch, one cap, and one boot-lace. She said that she never
took two of anything, because that was not fair, and that she wanted
these for a very particular, secret purpose, about which she dare not
speak, and, as to which she trusted he would not press her, and then she
took a most affectionate leave of him and went away.
He followed her directions with the utmost fidelity, and soon found
himself opposite a house which, to the eyes of any one over seven years
of age, looked very like any other house, but which, to the searching eye
of six and three quarters, was patently and palpably a giant's castle.
He tried the door, but it was locked, as, indeed, he had expected it
would be. Then he crept very cautiously, and peeped through the first
floor window. He could see in quite plainly. There was a polar bear
crouching on the floor, and the head looked at him so directly and
vindictively that if he had not been a hero he would have fled. The
unexpected is always terrible, and when one goes forth to kill a giant it
is unkind of Providence to complicate one's adventure with a gratuitous
and wholly unnecessary polar bear. He was, however, reassured by the
sight of a heavy chair standing on the polar bear's stomach, and in the
chair there sat the most beautiful woman in the world.
An ordinary person would not have understood so instantly that she was
the most beautiful woman in the world, because she looked very stout, and
much older than is customary with princesses--but that was owing to the
fact that she was under an enchantment, and she would become quite young
again when the giant was slain and three drops of his blood had been
sprinkled on her brow.
She was leaning forward in the chair, staring into the fire, and she was
so motionless that it was quite plain she must be under an enchantment.
From the very first instant he saw the princess he loved her, and his
heart swelled with pity to think that so beautiful a damsel should be
subjected to the tyranny of a giant. These twin passions of pity and
love grew to so furious a strength within him that he could no longer
contain himself. He wept in a loud and very sudden voice which lifted
the damsel out of her enchantment and her chair, and hurled her across
the room as though she had been propelled by a powerful spring.
He was so overjoyed at seeing her move that he pressed his face against
the glass and wept with great strength, and, in a few moments, the
princess came timidly to the window and looked out. She looked right
over his head at first, and then she looked down and saw him, and her
eyebrows went far up on her forehead, and her mouth opened; and so he
knew that she was delighted to see him. He nodded to give her courage,
and shouted three times, "Open Sesame, Open Sesame, Open Sesame," and
then she opened the window and he climbed in.
The princess tried to push him out again, but she was not able, and he
bade her put all her jewels in the heel of her boot and fly with him.
But she was evidently the victim of a very powerful enchantment, for she
struggled violently, and said incomprehensible things to him, such as "Is
it a fire, or were you chased?" and "Where is the cook?" But after a
little time she listened to the voice of reason, and recognised that
these were legitimate and heroic embraces from which she could not
honourably disentangle herself.
When her first transports of joy were somewhat abated she assured him
that excessive haste had often undone great schemes, and that one should
always look before one leaped, and that one should never be rescued all
at once, but gradually, in order that one might become accustomed to the
severe air of freedom--and he was overjoyed to find that she was as wise
as she was beautiful.
He told her that he loved her dearly, and she admitted, after some
persuasion, that she was not insensible to the charms of his heart and
intellect, but she confessed that her love was given to another.
At these tidings his heart withered away within him, and when the
princess admitted she loved the giant his amazement became profound and
complicated. There was a rushing sound in his ears. The debris of his
well-known world was crashing about him, and he was staring upon a new
planet, the name of which was Incredulity. He looked round with a queer
feeling of insecurity. At any moment the floor might stand up on one of
its corners, or the walls might begin to flap and waggle. But none of
these things happened. Before him sat the princess in an attitude of
deep dejection, and her lily-white hands rested helplessly on her lap.
She told him in a voice that trembled that she would have married him if
he had asked her ten years earlier, and urged that she could not fly with
him now, because, in the first place, she had six children, and, in the
second place, it would be against the law, and, in the third place, his
mother might object. She admitted that she was unworthy of his love, and
that she should have waited, and she bore his reproaches with a meekness
which finally disarmed him.
He stropped his penknife on his boot, and said that there was nothing
left but to kill the giant, and that she had better leave the room while
he did so, because it would not be a sight for a weak woman, and he
wondered audibly how much hasty-pudding would fall out of the giant if he
stabbed him right to the heart. The princess begged him not to kill her
husband, and assured him that this giant had not got any hasty-pudding in
his heart at all, and that he was really the nicest giant that ever
lived, and, further, that he had not killed her seven brothers, but the
seven brothers of quite another person entirely, which was only a
reasonable thing to do when one looked at it properly, and she continued
in a strain which proved to him that this unnatural woman really loved
the giant.
It was more in pity than in anger that he recognised the impossibility of
rescuing this person. He saw at last that she was unworthy of being
rescued, and told her so. He said bitterly that he had grave doubts of
her being a princess at all, and that if she was married to a giant it
was no more than she deserved, and further he had a good mind to rescue
the giant from her, and he would do so in a minute, only that it was
against his principles to rescue giants.--And, saying so, he placed his
penknife between his teeth and climbed out through the window again.
He stood for a moment outside the window with his right hand extended to
the sky and the moonlight blazing on his penknife--a truly formidable
figure, and one which the princess never forgot; and then he walked
slowly away, hiding behind a cold and impassive demeanour a mind that was
tortured and a heart that had plumbed most of the depths of human
suffering.