He started towards her--he forgot his promise--forgot it all the first
evening! "Follow, follow me!" alone sounded in his heart. He paused
not--he hastened after her.
"I will," said he; "there is really no sin in it! Why should I not do
so? I will see her! There is nothing lost if I only do not kiss her,
and that I will not do--for I have a firm will!"
The Fairy put aside the green, depending branches of the Tree of
Knowledge, and the next moment was hidden from sight.
"I have not sinned," said the prince, "and I will not!" He also put
aside the green, depending branches of the Tree of Knowledge, and
there sat the Fairy with her hands clasped, and the tears on her dark
eyelashes!
"Weep not for me!" said he passionately. "There can be no sin in what
I have done; weep not!" and he kissed away her tears, and his lips
touched hers!
At once a thunder crash was heard--a loud and deep thunder crash, and
all seemed hurled together! The beautiful, weeping Fairy, the Garden of
Paradise, sunk--sunk so deep--so deep!--and the prince saw it sink in
the deep night! Like a little gleaming star he saw it shining a long
way off! The coldness of death went through his limbs; he closed his
eyes, and lay long as if dead!
The cold rain fell upon his face; the keen wind blew around his head;
his thoughts turned to the past.
"What have I done!" sighed he; "I have sinned like Adam! Sinned, and I
have forfeited Paradise!"
He opened his eyes; the star so far off, which had shone to him like
the sunken Paradise, he now saw was the morning star in heaven.
He raised himself up, and was in the great wood near to the cave of the
winds; the old woman sat by his side, she looked angrily at him, and
lifted up her arm.
"Already! the first time of trial!" said she: "I expected as much! Yes,
if thou wast a lad of mine, I would punish thee!"
"Punishment will come!" said a strong old man, with a scythe in his
hand, and with large, black wings!--"I shall lay him in his coffin, but
not now. Let him return to the world, atone for his sin, and become
good in deed, and not alone in word. I shall come again; if he be then
good and pious, I will take him above the stars, where blooms the
Garden of Paradise; and he shall enter in at its beautiful pearl gates,
and be a dweller in it forever and ever; but if then his thoughts are
evil, and his heart full of sin, he will sink deeper than Paradise
seemed to sink--sink deeper, and that forever!--Farewell!"
The prince arose--the old woman was gone--the cave of the winds was
nothing now but a hollow in the rock; he wondered how it had seemed so
large the night before; the morning star had set, and the sun shone
with a clear and cheerful light upon the little flowers and blades of
grass, which were heavy with the last night's rain; the birds sang, and
the bees hummed in the blossoms of the lime tree. The prince walked
home to his castle. He told his grandmother how he had been to the
Garden of Paradise, and what had happened to him there, and what the
old man with the black wings had said.
"This will do thee more good than many book-lessons," said the old
grandmother; "never let it go out of thy memory!"--and the prince never
did.