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 dullness 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 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 often 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 heartbroken 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
among the fine ladies and gentlemen he was going to. But Curdie said
he did not know that he was going among ladies and gentlemen, and that
as work was better than play, his workday clothes must on the whole be
better than his playday 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.