‘No, my Princess; but I love you so much that I feel I cannot express
it, try as I may. I only bring you these worthless trifles to show that
I have not ceased to think of you, though I have been obliged to leave
you for a time.’ The following night he gave Fiordelisa a watch set in a
single pearl. The Princess laughed a little when she saw it, and said--
‘You may well give me a watch, for since I have known you I have lost
the power of measuring time. The hours you spend with me pass like
minutes, and the hours that I drag through without you seem years to
me.’
‘Ah, Princess, they cannot seem so long to you as they do to me!’
he answered. Day by day he brought more beautiful things for the
Princess--diamonds, and rubies, and opals; and at night she decked
herself with them to please him, but by day she hid them in her straw
mattress. When the sun shone the Blue Bird, hidden in the tall fir-tree,
sang to her so sweetly that all the passersby wondered, and said that
the wood was inhabited by a spirit. And so two years slipped away, and
still the Princess was a prisoner, and Turritella was not married. The
Queen had offered her hand to all the neighbouring Princes, but they
always answered that they would marry Fiordelisa with pleasure, but
not Turritella on any account. This displeased the Queen terribly.
‘Fiordelisa must be in league with them, to annoy me!’ she said. ‘Let us
go and accuse her of it.’
So she and Turritella went up into the tower. Now it happened that it
was nearly midnight, and Fiordelisa, all decked with jewels, was sitting
at the window with the Blue Bird, and as the Queen paused outside the
door to listen she heard the Princess and her lover singing together a
little song he had just taught her. These were the words:--
‘Oh! what a luckless pair are we,
One in a prison, and one in a tree.
All our trouble and anguish came
From our faithfulness spoiling our enemies’ game.
But vainly they practice their cruel arts,
For nought can sever our two fond hearts.’
They sound melancholy perhaps, but the two voices sang them gaily
enough, and the Queen burst open the door, crying, ‘Ah! my Turritella,
there is some treachery going on here!’
As soon as she saw her, Fiordelisa, with great presence of mind, hastily
shut her little window, that the Blue Bird might have time to escape,
and then turned to meet the Queen, who overwhelmed her with a torrent of
reproaches.
‘Your intrigues are discovered, Madam,’ she said furiously; ‘and you
need not hope that your high rank will save you from the punishment you
deserve.’
‘And with whom do you accuse me of intriguing, Madam?’ said the
Princess. ‘Have I not been your prisoner these two years, and who have I
seen except the gaolers sent by you?’
While she spoke the Queen and Turritella were looking at her in the
greatest surprise, perfectly dazzled by her beauty and the splendour of
her jewels, and the Queen said:
‘If one may ask, Madam, where did you get all these diamonds? Perhaps
you mean to tell me that you have discovered a mine of them in the
tower!’
‘I certainly did find them here,’ answered the Princess.
‘And pray,’ said the Queen, her wrath increasing every moment, ‘for
whose admiration are you decked out like this, since I have often seen
you not half as fine on the most important occasions at Court?’
‘For my own,’ answered Fiordelisa. ‘You must admit that I have had
plenty of time on my hands, so you cannot be surprised at my spending
some of it in making myself smart.’
‘That’s all very fine,’ said the Queen suspiciously. ‘I think I will
look about, and see for myself.’
So she and Turritella began to search every corner of the little room,
and when they came to the straw mattress out fell such a quantity of
pearls, diamonds, rubies, opals, emeralds, and sapphires, that they were
amazed, and could not tell what to think. But the Queen resolved to hide
somewhere a packet of false letters to prove that the Princess had been
conspiring with the King’s enemies, and she chose the chimney as a good
place. Fortunately for Fiordelisa this was exactly where the Blue Bird
had perched himself, to keep an eye upon her proceedings, and try to
avert danger from his beloved Princess, and now he cried:
‘Beware, Fiordelisa! Your false enemy is plotting against you.’
This strange voice so frightened the Queen that she took the letter and
went away hastily with Turritella, and they held a council to try and
devise some means of finding out what Fairy or Enchanter was favouring
the Princess. At last they sent one of the Queen’s maids to wait upon
Fiordelisa, and told her to pretend to be quite stupid, and to see and
hear nothing, while she was really to watch the Princess day and night,
and keep the Queen informed of all her doings.
Poor Fiordelisa, who guessed she was sent as a spy, was in despair, and
cried bitterly that she dared not see her dear Blue Bird for fear that
some evil might happen to him if he were discovered.
The days were so long, and the nights so dull, but for a whole month she
never went near her little window lest he should fly to her as he used
to do.
However, at last the spy, who had never taken her eyes off the Princess
day or night, was so overcome with weariness that she fell into a deep
sleep, and as son as the Princess saw that, she flew to open her window
and cried softly:
‘Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
Fly to me now, there’s nobody by.’
And the Blue Bird, who had never ceased to flutter round within sight
and hearing of her prison, came in an instant. They had so much to say,
and were so overjoyed to meet once more, that it scarcely seemed to them
five minutes before the sun rose, and the Blue Bird had to fly away.
But the next night the spy slept as soundly as before, so that the Blue
Bird came, and he and the Princess began to think they were perfectly
safe, and to make all sorts of plans for being happy as they were before
the Queen’s visit. But, alas! the third night the spy was not quite so
sleepy, and when the Princess opened her window and cried as usual:
‘Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
Fly to me now, there’s nobody nigh,’
she was wide awake in a moment, though she was sly enough to keep
her eyes shut at first. But presently she heard voices, and peeping
cautiously, she saw by the moonlight the most lovely blue bird in the
world, who was talking to the Princess, while she stroked and caressed
it fondly.
The spy did not lose a single word of the conversation, and as soon as
the day dawned, and the Blue Bird had reluctantly said good-bye to the
Princess, she rushed off to the Queen, and told her all she had seen and
heard.
Then the Queen sent for Turritella, and they talked it over, and very
soon came to the conclusion than this Blue Bird was no other than King
Charming himself.
‘Ah! that insolent Princess!’ cried the Queen. ‘To think that when
we supposed her to be so miserable, she was all the while as happy as
possible with that false King. But I know how we can avenge ourselves!’
So the spy was ordered to go back and pretend to sleep as soundly as
ever, and indeed she went to bed earlier than usual, and snored as
naturally as possible, and the poor Princess ran to the window and
cried:
‘Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
Fly to me now, there’s nobody by!’
But no bird came. All night long she called, and waited, and listened,
but still there was no answer, for the cruel Queen had caused the
fir tree to be hung all over with knives, swords, razors, shears,
bill-hooks, and sickles, so that when the Blue Bird heard the Princess
call, and flew towards her, his wings were cut, and his little black
feet clipped off, and all pierced and stabbed in twenty places, he fell
back bleeding into his hiding place in the tree, and lay there groaning
and despairing, for he thought the Princess must have been persuaded to
betray him, to regain her liberty.
‘Ah! Fiordelisa, can you indeed be so lovely and so faithless?’ he
sighed, ‘then I may as well die at once!’ And he turned over on his side
and began to die. But it happened that his friend the Enchanter had been
very much alarmed at seeing the Frog chariot come back to him without
King Charming, and had been round the world eight times seeking him,
but without success. At the very moment when the King gave himself up
to despair, he was passing through the wood for the eighth time, and
called, as he had done all over the world:
‘Charming! King Charming! Are you here?’
The King at once recognised his friend’s voice, and answered very
faintly:
‘I am here.’
The Enchanter looked all round him, but could see nothing, and then the
King said again:
‘I am a Blue Bird.’
Then the Enchanter found him in an instant, and seeing his pitiable
condition, ran hither and thither without a word, until he had collected
a handful of magic herbs, with which, and a few incantations, he
speedily made the King whole and sound again.
‘Now,’ said he, ‘let me hear all about it. There must be a Princess at
the bottom of this.’
‘There are two!’ answered King Charming, with a wry smile.
And then he told the whole story, accusing Fiordelisa of having betrayed
the secret of his visits to make her peace with the Queen, and indeed
saying a great many hard things about her fickleness and her deceitful
beauty, and so on. The Enchanter quite agreed with him, and even went
further, declaring that all Princesses were alike, except perhaps in
the matter of beauty, and advised him to have done with Fiordelisa, and
forget all about her. But, somehow or other, this advice did not quite
please the King.
‘What is to be done next?’ said the Enchanter, ‘since you still have
five years to remain a Blue Bird.’
‘Take me to your palace,’ answered the King; ‘there you can at least
keep me in a cage safe from cats and swords.’
‘Well, that will be the best thing to do for the present,’ said his
friend. ‘But I am not an Enchanter for nothing. I’m sure to have a
brilliant idea for you before long.’
In the meantime Fiordelisa, quite in despair, sat at her window day and
night calling her dear Blue Bird in vain, and imagining over and over
again all the terrible things that could have happened to him, until
she grew quite pale and thin. As for the Queen and Turritella, they
were triumphant; but their triumph was short, for the King, Fiordelisa’s
father, fell ill and died, and all the people rebelled against the Queen
and Turritella, and came in a body to the palace demanding Fiordelisa.
The Queen came out upon the balcony with threats and haughty words, so
that at last they lost their patience, and broke open the doors of the
palace, one of which fell back upon the Queen and killed her. Turritella
fled to the Fairy Mazilla, and all the nobles of the kingdom fetched the
Princess Fiordelisa from her prison in the tower, and made her Queen.
Very soon, with all the care and attention they bestowed upon her,
she recovered from the effects of her long captivity and looked more
beautiful than ever, and was able to take counsel with her courtiers,
and arrange for the governing of her kingdom during her absence. And
then, taking a bagful of jewels, she set out all alone to look for the
Blue Bird, without telling anyone where she was going.
Meanwhile, the Enchanter was taking care of King Charming, but as his
power was not great enough to counteract the Fairy Mazilla’s, he at last
resolved to go and see if he could make any kind of terms with her for
his friend; for you see, Fairies and Enchanters are cousins in a sort
of way, after all; and after knowing one another for five or six
hundred years and falling out, and making it up again pretty often, they
understand one another well enough. So the Fairy Mazilla received him
graciously. ‘And what may you be wanting, Gossip?’ said she.
‘You can do a good turn for me if you will;’ he answered. ‘A King, who
is a friend of mine, was unlucky enough to offend you--’
‘Aha! I know who you mean,’ interrupted the Fairy. ‘I am sorry not to
oblige you, Gossip, but he need expect no mercy from me unless he
will marry my goddaughter, whom you see yonder looking so pretty and
charming. Let him think over what I say.’
The Enchanter hadn’t a word to say, for he thought Turritella really
frightful, but he could not go away without making one more effort for
his friend the King, who was really in great danger as long as he lived
in a cage. Indeed, already he had met with several alarming accidents.
Once the nail on which his cage was hung had given way, and his
feathered Majesty had suffered much from the fall, while Madam Puss, who
happened to be in the room at the time, had given him a scratch in the
eye which came very near blinding him. Another time they had forgotten
to give him any water to drink, so that he was nearly dead with thirst;
and the worst thing of all was that he was in danger of losing his
kingdom, for he had been absent so long that all his subjects believed
him to be dead. So considering all these things the Enchanter agreed
with the Fairy Mazilla that she should restore the King to his natural
form, and should take Turritella to stay in his palace for several
months, and if, after the time was over he still could not make up his
mind to marry her, he should once more be changed into a Blue Bird.
Then the Fairy dressed Turritella in a magnificent gold and silver robe,
and they mounted together upon a flying Dragon, and very soon reached
King Charming’s palace, where he, too, had just been brought by his
faithful friend the Enchanter.
Three strokes of the Fairy’s wand restored his natural form, and he
was as handsome and delightful as ever, but he considered that he paid
dearly for his restoration when he caught sight of Turritella, and the
mere idea of marrying her made him shudder.
Meanwhile, Queen Fiordelisa, disguised as a poor peasant girl, wearing
a great straw hat that concealed her face, and carrying an old sack over
her shoulder, had set out upon her weary journey, and had travelled far,
sometimes by sea and sometimes by land; sometimes on foot, and sometimes
on horseback, but not knowing which way to go. She feared all the time
that every step she took was leading her farther from her lover. One day
as she sat, quite tired and sad, on the bank of a little brook, cooling
her white feet in the clear running water, and combing her long hair
that glittered like gold in the sunshine, a little bent old woman passed
by, leaning on a stick. She stopped, and said to Fiordelisa:
‘What, my pretty child, are you all alone?’
‘Indeed, good mother, I am too sad to care for company,’ she answered;
and the tears ran down her cheeks.
‘Don’t cry,’ said the old woman, ‘but tell me truly what is the matter.
Perhaps I can help you.’
The Queen told her willingly all that had happened, and how she was
seeking the Blue Bird. Thereupon the little old woman suddenly stood up
straight, and grew tall, and young, and beautiful, and said with a smile
to the astonished Fiordelisa:
‘Lovely Queen, the King whom you seek is no longer a bird. My sister
Mazilla has given his own form back to him, and he is in his own
kingdom. Do not be afraid, you will reach him, and will prosper. Take
these four eggs; if you break one when you are in any great difficulty,
you will find aid.’
So saying, she disappeared, and Fiordelisa, feeling much encouraged, put
the eggs into her bag and turned her steps towards Charming’s kingdom.
After walking on and on for eight days and eight nights, she came at
last to a tremendously high hill of polished ivory, so steep that it was
impossible to get a foothold upon it. Fiordelisa tried a thousand times,
and scrambled and slipped, but always in the end found herself exactly
where she started from. At last she sat down at the foot of it in
despair, and then suddenly bethought herself of the eggs. Breaking one
quickly, she found in it some little gold hooks, and with these fastened
to her feet and hands, she mounted the ivory hill without further
trouble, for the little hooks saved her from slipping. As soon as she
reached the top a new difficulty presented itself, for all the other
side, and indeed the whole valley, was one polished mirror, in which
thousands and thousands of people were admiring their reflections. For
this was a magic mirror, in which people saw themselves just as they
wished to appear, and pilgrims came to it from the four corners of the
world. But nobody had ever been able to reach the top of the hill, and
when they saw Fiordelisa standing there, they raised a terrible outcry,
declaring that if she set foot upon their glass she would break it
to pieces. The Queen, not knowing what to do, for she saw it would
be dangerous to try to go down, broke the second egg, and out came a
chariot, drawn by two white doves, and Fiordelisa got into it, and was
floated softly away. After a night and a day the doves alighted outside
the gate of King Charming’s kingdom. Here the Queen got out of the
chariot, and kissed the doves and thanked them, and then with a beating
heart she walked into the town, asking the people she met where she
could see the King. But they only laughed at her, crying:
‘See the King? And pray, why do you want to see the King, my little
kitchen-maid? You had better go and wash your face first, your eyes are
not clear enough to see him!’ For the Queen had disguised herself, and
pulled her hair down about her eyes, that no one might know her. As they
would not tell her, she went on farther, and presently asked again,
and this time the people answered that to-morrow she might see the King
driving through the streets with the Princess Turritella, as it was said
that at last he had consented to marry her. This was indeed terrible
news to Fiordelisa. Had she come all this weary way only to find
Turritella had succeeded in making King Charming forget her?
She was too tired and miserable to walk another step, so she sat down in
a doorway and cried bitterly all night long. As soon as it was light
she hastened to the palace, and after being sent away fifty times by the
guards, she got in at last, and saw the thrones set in the great hall
for the King and Turritella, who was already looked upon as Queen.
Fiordelisa hid herself behind a marble pillar, and very soon saw
Turritella make her appearance, richly dressed, but as ugly as ever, and
with her came the King, more handsome and splendid even than Fiordelisa
had remembered him. When Turritella had seated herself upon the throne,
the Queen approached her.
‘Who are you, and how dare you come near my high-mightiness, upon my
golden throne?’ said Turritella, frowning fiercely at her.
‘They call me the little kitchen-maid,’ she replied, ‘and I come to
offer some precious things for sale,’ and with that she searched in her
old sack, and drew out the emerald bracelets King Charming had given
her.
‘Ho, ho!’ said Turritella, those are pretty bits of glass. I suppose you
would like five silver pieces for them.’
‘Show them to someone who understands such things, Madam,’ answered the
Queen; ‘after that we can decide upon the price.’
Turritella, who really loved King Charming as much as she could love
anybody, and was always delighted to get a chance of talking to him, now
showed him the bracelets, asking how much he considered them worth. As
soon as he saw them he remembered those he had given to Fiordelisa, and
turned very pale and sighed deeply, and fell into such sad thought that
he quite forgot to answer her. Presently she asked him again, and then
he said, with a great effort:
‘I believe these bracelets are worth as much as my kingdom. I thought
there was only one such pair in the world; but here, it seems, is
another.’
Then Turritella went back to the Queen, and asked her what was the
lowest price she would take for them.
‘More than you would find it easy to pay, Madam,’ answered she; ‘but if
you will manage for me to sleep one night in the Chamber of Echoes, I
will give you the emeralds.’
‘By all means, my little kitchen-maid,’ said Turritella, highly
delighted.
The King did not try to find out where the bracelets had come from, not
because he did not want to know, but because the only way would have
been to ask Turritella, and he disliked her so much that he never spoke
to her if he could possibly avoid it. It was he who had told Fiordelisa
about the Chamber of Echoes, when he was a Blue Bird. It was a little
room below the King’s own bed-chamber, and was so ingeniously built
that the softest whisper in it was plainly heard in the King’s room.
Fiordelisa wanted to reproach him for his faithlessness, and could not
imagine a better way than this. So when, by Turritella’s orders, she
was left there she began to weep and lament, and never ceased until
daybreak.
The King’s pages told Turritella, when she asked them, what a sobbing
and sighing they had heard, and she asked Fiordelisa what it was all
about. The Queen answered that she often dreamed and talked aloud.
But by an unlucky chance the King heard nothing of all this, for he took
a sleeping draught every night before he lay down, and did not wake up
until the sun was high.
The Queen passed the day in great disquietude.
‘If he did hear me,’ she said, ‘could he remain so cruelly indifferent?
But if he did not hear me, what can I do to get another chance? I have
plenty of jewels, it is true, but nothing remarkable enough to catch
Turritella’s fancy.’
Just then she thought of the eggs, and broke one, out of which came a
little carriage of polished steel ornamented with gold, drawn by six
green mice. The coachman was a rose-coloured rat, the postilion a grey
one, and the carriage was occupied by the tiniest and most charming
figures, who could dance and do wonderful tricks. Fiordelisa clapped her
hands and danced for joy when she saw this triumph of magic art, and as
soon as it was evening, went to a shady garden-path down which she knew
Turritella would pass, and then she made the mice galop, and the tiny
people show off their tricks, and sure enough Turritella came, and the
moment she saw it all cried:
‘Little kitchen-maid, little kitchen-maid, what will you take for your
mouse-carriage?’
And the Queen answered:
‘Let me sleep once more in the Chamber of Echoes.’
‘I won’t refuse your request, poor creature,’ said Turritella
condescendingly.