There was once upon a time a Prince who wanted to marry a Princess,
but she must be a true Princess. So he traveled through the whole
world to find one, but there was always something against each. There
were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if they were true
Princesses. In every case there was some little defect, which showed
the genuine article was not yet found. So he came home again in very
low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true Princess. One
night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the
rain streamed down in torrents. It was fearful! There was a knocking
heard at the palace gate, and the old King went to open it.
There stood a Princess outside the gate; but oh, in what a sad plight
she was from the rain and the storm! The water was running down from
her hair and her dress into the points of her shoes and out at the
heels again. And yet she said she was a true Princess!
"Well, we shall soon find out!" thought the old Queen. But she said
nothing and went into the sleeping-room, took off all the bedclothes,
and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed. Then she put twenty
mattresses on top of the pea and twenty eider-down quilts on the top
of the mattresses. And this was the bed in which the princess was to
sleep.
The next morning she was asked how she had slept.
"Oh, very badly!" said the Princess. "I scarcely closed my eyes all
night! I am sure I don't know what was in the bed. I lay on something
so hard that my whole body is black and blue. It is dreadful!"
Now they perceived that she was a true Princess, because she had
felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down
quilts.
No one but a true Princess could be so sensitive.
So the Prince married her, for now he knew that at last he had got
hold of a true Princess. And the pea was put into the Royal Museum,
where it is still to be seen if no one has stolen it. Now, this is a
true story.
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