There was once an honest gentleman who took for his second wife a lady,
the proudest and most disagreeable in the whole country. She had two
daughters exactly like herself in all things. He also had one little
girl, who resembled her dead mother, the best woman in all the world.
Scarcely had the second marriage taken place, than the stepmother
became jealous of the good qualities of the little girl who was so
great a contrast to her own two daughters. She gave her all the menial
occupations of the house; compelled her to wash the floors and
staircases; to dust the bedrooms, and clean the grates; and while her
sisters occupied carpeted chambers hung with mirrors, where they could
see themselves from head to foot, this poor little damsel was sent to
sleep in an attic, on an old straw mattress, with only one chair and
not a looking-glass in the room.
She suffered all in silence, not daring to complain to her father, who
was entirely ruled by his new wife. When her daily work was done, she
used to sit down in the chimney corner among the ashes; from which the
two sisters gave her the nickname of Cinderella. But Cinderella,
however, shabbily clad, was handsomer than they were with all their
fine clothes.
It happened that the king’s son gave a series of balls, to which were
invited all the rank and fashion of the city, and among the rest the
two elder sisters. They were very proud and happy, and occupied their
whole time in deciding what they should wear; a source of new trouble
to Cinderella, whose duty it was to get up their fine linen and laces,
and who never could please them however much she tried. They talked of
nothing but their clothes.
“I,” said the elder, “shall wear my velvet gown and my trimmings of
English lace.”
“And I,” added the younger, “will have but my ordinary silk petticoat,
but I shall adorn it with an upper skirt of flowered brocade, and shall
put on my diamond tiara, which is a great deal finer than anything of
yours.”
Here the elder sister grew angry, and the dispute began to run so high
that Cinderella, who was known to have excellent taste, was called upon
to decide between them. She gave them the best advice she could, and
gently and submissively offered to dress them herself, and especially
to arrange their hair, an accomplishment in which she excelled many a
noted coiffeur. The important evening came, and she exercised all her
skill to adorn the two young ladies. While she was combing out the
elder’s hair, this ill-natured girl said sharply, “Cinderella, do you
not wish you were going to the ball?”
“Ah, madam” (they obliged her always to say madam), “you are only
mocking me; it is not my fortune to have any such pleasure.”
“You are right; people would only laugh to see a little cinder wench at
a ball.”
Any other than Cinderella would have dressed the hair all awry, but she
was good, and dressed it perfectly even and smooth, and as prettily as
she could.
The sisters had scarcely eaten for two days, and had broken a dozen
staylaces a day, in trying to make themselves slender; but to-night
they broke a dozen more, and lost their tempers over and over again
before they had completed their toilet. When at last the happy moment
arrived, Cinderella followed them to the coach; after it had whirled
them away, she sat down by the kitchen fire and cried.
Immediately her godmother, who was a fairy, appeared beside her. “What
are you crying for, my little maid?”
“Oh, I wish—I wish—” Her sobs stopped her.
“You wish to go to the ball; isn’t it so?”
Cinderella nodded.
“Well then, be a good girl, and you shall go. First run into the garden
and fetch me the largest pumpkin you can find.”
Cinderella did not comprehend what this had to do with her going to the
ball, but being obedient and obliging, she went. Her godmother took the
pumpkin, and having scooped out all its inside, struck it with her
wand; it became a splendid gilt coach, lined with rose-colored satin.
“Now fetch me the mousetrap out of the pantry, my dear.”
Cinderella brought it; it contained six of the fattest, sleekest mice.
The fairy lifted up the wire door, and as each mouse ran out she struck
it and changed it into a beautiful black horse.
“But what shall I do for your coachman, Cinderella?”
Cinderella suggested that she had seen a large black rat in the rat
trap, and he might do for want of better.
“You are right; go and look again for him.”
He was found; and the fairy made him into a most respectable coachman,
with the finest whiskers imaginable. She afterward took six lizards
from behind the pumpkin frame, and changed them into six footmen, all
in splendid livery, who immediately jumped up behind the carriage, as
if they had been footmen all their days. “Well, Cinderella, now you can
go to the ball.”
“What, in these clothes?” said Cinderella piteously, looking down on
her ragged frock.
Her godmother laughed, and touched her also with the wand; at which her
wretched threadbare jacket became stiff with gold, and sparkling with
jewels; her woolen petticoat lengthened into a gown of sweeping satin,
from underneath which peeped out her little feet, no longer bare, but
covered with silk stockings, and the prettiest glass slippers in the
world. “Now, Cinderella, depart; but remember, if you stay one instant
after midnight, your carriage will become a pumpkin, your coachman a
rat, your horses mice, and your footmen lizards; while you, yourself,
will be the little cinder wench you were an hour ago.”
Cinderella promised without fear, her heart was so full of joy.
Arrived at the palace, the king’s son, whom some one, probably the
fairy, had told to await the coming of an uninvited princess, whom
nobody knew, was standing at the entrance, ready to receive her. He
offered her his hand, and led her with the utmost courtesy through the
assembled guests, who stood aside to let her pass, whispering to one
another, “Oh, how beautiful she is!” It might have turned the head of
anyone but poor Cinderella, who was so used to be despised, that she
took it all as if it were something happening in a dream.
Her triumph was complete; even the old king said to the queen, that
never since her majesty’s young days had he seen so charming and
elegant a person. All the court ladies scanned her eagerly, clothes and
all, determining to have theirs made next day of exactly the same
pattern. The king’s son himself led her out to dance, and she danced so
gracefully that he admired her more and more. Indeed, at supper, which
was fortunately early, his admiration quite took away his appetite. For
Cinderella, herself, with an involuntary shyness, sought out her
sisters; placed herself beside them and offered them all sorts of civil
attentions, which coming as they supposed from a stranger, and so
magnificent a lady, almost overwhelmed them with delight.
While she was talking with them, she heard the clock strike a quarter
to twelve, and making a courteous adieu to the royal family, she
reentered her carriage, escorted tenderly by the king’s son, and
arrived in safety at her own door. There she found her godmother, who
smiled approval; and of whom she begged permission to go to a second
ball, the following night, to which the queen had earnestly invited
her.
While she was talking, the two sisters were heard knocking at the gate,
and the fairy godmother vanished, leaving Cinderella sitting in the
chimney corner, rubbing her eves and pretending to be very sleepy.
“Ah,” cried the eldest sister maliciously, “it has been the most
delightful ball, and there was present the most beautiful princess I
ever saw, who was so exceedingly polite to us both.”
“Was she?” said Cinderella indifferently; “and who might she be?”
“Nobody knows, though everybody would give their eyes to know,
especially the king’s Son.”
“Indeed!” replied Cinderella, a little more interested; “I should like
to see her. Miss Javotte”—that was the elder sister’s name—“will you
not let me go to-morrow, and lend me your yellow gown that you wear on
Sundays?”
“What, lend my yellow gown to a cinder wench! I am not so mad as that;”
at which refusal Cinderella did not complain, for if her sister really
had lent her the gown, she would have been considerably embarrassed.
The next night came, and the two young ladies, richly dressed in
different toilets, went to the ball.
Cinderella, more splendidly attired and beautiful than ever, followed
them shortly after. “Now remember twelve o’clock,” was her godmother’s
parting speech; and she thought she certainly should. But the prince’s
attentions to her were greater even than the first evening, and in the
delight of listening to his pleasant conversation, time slipped by
unperceived. While she was sitting beside him in a lovely alcove, and
looking at the moon from under a bower of orange blossoms, she heard a
clock strike the first stroke of twelve. She started up, and fled away
as lightly as a deer.
Amazed, the prince followed, but could not catch her. Indeed he missed
his lovely princess altogether, and only saw running out of the palace
doors, a little dirty lass whom he had never beheld before, and of whom
he certainly would never have taken the least notice. Cinderella
arrived at home breathless and weary, ragged and cold, without
carriage, or footman or coachman; the only remnant of her past
magnificence being one of her little glass slippers—the other she had
dropped in the ballroom as she ran away.
When the two sisters returned, they were full of this strange
adventure, how the beautiful lady had appeared at the ball more
beautiful than ever, and enchanted everyone who looked at her; and how
as the clock was striking twelve she had suddenly risen up and fled
through the ballroom, disappearing no one knew how or where, and
dropping one of her glass slippers behind her in her flight. How the
king’s son had remained inconsolable, until he chanced to pick up the
little glass slipper, which he carried away in his pocket, and was seen
to take it out continually, and look at it affectionately, with the air
of a man very much in love; in fact, from his behavior during the
remainder of the evening, all the court and royal family were convinced
that he had become desperately enamored of the wearer of the little
glass slipper.
Cinderella listened in silence, turning her face to the kitchen fire,
and perhaps it was that which made her look so rosy, but nobody ever
noticed or admired her at home, so it did not signify, and next morning
she went to her weary work again just as before.
A few days after, the whole city was attracted by the sight of a herald
going round with a little glass slipper in his hand, publishing with a
flourish of trumpets, that the king’s son ordered this to be fitted on
the foot of every lady in the kingdom, and that he wished to marry the
lady whom it fitted best, or to whom it and the fellow slipper
belonged. Princesses, duchesses, countesses, and simple gentlewomen all
tried it on, but being a fairy slipper, it fitted nobody; and besides,
nobody could produce its fellow slipper, which lay all the time safely
in the pocket of Cinderella’s old linsey gown.
At last the herald came to the house of the two sisters, and though
they well knew neither of themselves was the beautiful lady, they made
every attempt to get their clumsy feet into the glass slipper, but in
vain.
“Let me try it on,” said Cinderella from the chimney corner.
“What, you?” cried the others, bursting into shouts of laughter; but
Cinderella only smiled, and held out her hand.
Her sisters cou1d not prevent her, since the command was that every
young maiden in the city should try on the slipper, in order that no
chance might be left untried, for the prince was nearly breaking his
heart; and his father and mother were afraid that though a prince, he
would actually die for love of the beautiful unknown lady.
So the herald bade Cinderella sit down on a three-legged stool in the
kitchen, and himself put the slipper on her pretty little foot, which
it fitted exactly; she then drew from her pocket the fellow slipper,
which she also put on, and stood up—for with the touch of the magic
shoes all her dress was changed likewise—no longer the poor despised
cinder wench, but the beautiful lady whom the king’s son loved.
Her sisters recognized her at once. Filled with astonishment, mingled
with no little alarm, they threw themselves at her feet, begging her
pardon for all their former unkindness. She raised and embraced them;
told them she forgave them with all her heart, and only hoped they
would love her always. Then she departed with the herald to the king’s
palace, and told her whole story to his majesty and the royal family,
who were not in the least surprised, for everybody believed in fairies,
and everybody longed to have a fairy godmother.
For the young prince, he found her more lovely and lovable than ever,
and insisted upon marrying her immediately. Cinderella never went home
again, but she sent for her two sisters to the palace, and with the
consent of all parties married them shortly after to two rich gentlemen
of the court.