happier household. Coranda and the beautiful Helen were a model pair.
The husband and wife were never heard to complain of each other; they
loved with drawn swords, and, thanks to their ingenious bargain, kept
for long years both their love and their noses.
_The Three Citrons_
A Neapolitan Tale
[Illustration: ]
Once upon a time there lived a king who was called the King of the
Vermilion Towers. He had but one son, whom he loved as the apple of
his eye, and who was the only hope of a royal line about to become
extinct. The old king's whole ambition was to marry this illustrious
prince--to find him a princess at once handsome, noble, young, and
rich. He could think of nothing but this wished-for marriage.
Unhappily, among all the virtues in which the heir to a crown is never
lacking, Carlino, for that was the young prince's name, had the
trifling fault of being shyer than a deer. He shook his head and fled
to the woods at the mere sound of a woman's name, to the great grief
of his father, who was in despair at seeing his family about to die
out. But his grief was in vain; nothing touched the heart of Carlino.
The tears of a father, the prayers of a whole people, the interest of
the state, nothing could melt this stony heart. Twenty preachers had
wasted their eloquence and thirty senators their Latin in reasoning
with him. To be stubborn is one of the privileges of royalty, as
Carlino had known from his birth, and he would have thought himself
dishonored by being second to a mule in obstinacy.
But more things often happen in an hour than in a hundred years, and
no one can say with safety, "This is a road that I shall never
travel." One morning at breakfast, as Carlino, instead of listening to
his father's sermon, was amusing himself by watching the flies buzzing
in the air, he forgot that he had a knife in his hand, and pricked his
finger in a gesture of impatience. The blood gushed forth and fell
into a plate of cream that had just been handed to him, where it made
a curious mixture of white and red. Either by chance or by the
punishment of Heaven, the prince was instantly seized with the maddest
caprice that could be imagined.
"Sir," said he to his father, "if I do not soon find a woman as white
and red as this cream dyed with my blood, I am lost. This wonder must
exist somewhere. I love her; I am dying for her; I must have her; I
will have her. To a resolute heart nothing is impossible. If you would
have me live, let me go in search of her, or before to-morrow I shall
be dead of loneliness."
The poor King of the Vermilion Towers was thunderstruck at this folly.
It seemed to him that his palace was crumbling over his head; he
turned red and pale by turns, stammered, wept, and finally cried, in
a voice broken with sobs:
"Oh, my child, the staff of my old age, my heart's blood, the life of
my soul, what an idea have you taken into your head! Have you lost
your reason? Yesterday you almost made me die of sorrow by refusing to
marry; to-day you are about to drive me from the world by another
piece of folly. Whither would you go, unhappy boy? Why leave your
home, where you have been born and bred? Do you know to what danger
and suffering the traveler exposes himself? Drive away these perilous
fancies, and stay with me, my child, if you would not deprive me of
life and destroy your kingdom and house at one blow."
All these words, and others equally wise, had no more effect than an
official harangue. Carlino, his eye fixed and his brow bent, listened
to nothing but his passion. All that was said to him went in at one
ear and out at the other; it was eloquence cast to the winds.
When the old king, worn out with prayers and tears, perceived that it
was easier to melt a leaden weathercock on its steeple than a spoiled
child in pursuit of his whim, he heaved a deep sigh and determined to
let Carlino go; and giving him counsels to which he scarcely listened,
several bags filled with guineas, which were rather better received
than the counsels, and two trusty servants, the good king clasped his
rebellious son to his heart and bade him adieu, then mounted to the
top of the great tower to follow the ungrateful boy with his eyes as
far as he could see. When Carlino at last disappeared in the distance,
the poor monarch thought that his heart was breaking. He buried his
face in his hands and wept, not like a child, but like a father. The
tears of a child are like the summer rain, large drops that are soon
dried up; the tears of a father are like the autumnal rain, which
falls slowly and soaks into the ground.
While the king wept, Carlino, mounted on a fine horse, rode on gaily,
his plume waving in the wind, like a hero about to conquer the world.
To find what he sought was not an easy task, however, and his journey
lasted more than one day. He crossed mountains and valleys, traversed
kingdoms, duchies, earldoms, and baronies, and visited cities,
villages, castles, and cottages, gazing at all the women, and gazed at
by them in turn; but all in vain: the treasure that he sought was not
to be found in old Europe.
At the end of four months he reached Marseilles, resolved to embark
for the Indies. At the sight of the raging sea, however, his brave and
faithful servants were seized with an epidemic, called by the
physicians stay-at-homeativeness in Hebrew, and the headache in the
feet in Latin. To the great regret of these honest people, they were
forced to quit their good master and remain quietly on shore, wrapped
in their warm blankets, while Carlino, embarked on a frail bark,
braved the winds and waves.
Nothing can stop a heart hurried away by passion. The prince roamed
over Egypt, India, and China, going from province to province, from
city to city, from house to house, and from cabin to cabin, everywhere
seeking the original of the fair image that was engraved on his heart,
but in vain. He saw women of all colors and shades, brown, blond,
olive, sandy, white, yellow, red, and black, but he did not see her
whom he loved.
Always seeking and never finding, Carlino at last reached the end of
the world. There was nothing more before him but the ocean and the
sky. His hopes were at an end; his dream had vanished. As he was
walking despairingly up and down the seashore, he spied an old man
warming himself in the sun. The prince asked him if there was nothing
beyond these waves that stretched as far as the eye could reach.
"No," said the old man; "no one has ever discovered anything in this
shoreless ocean, or, at least, those who have ventured on it have
never returned to tell the story. I remember, however, having heard
the old men among us say, when I was a child," he added, "that their
fathers had told them that yonder, a long, long way off, far beyond
the horizon, was the Island of the Fates; but woe to the imprudent man
who approaches these merciless fairies: he is struck with death at
their sight."
"What does that matter?" cried Carlino. "I would face death itself to
gain my wishes."
A bark lay by the strand. The prince sprang on board and unfurled the
sail. The wind, which blew off the shore, hurried forward the frail
craft, the land disappeared, and Carlino found himself in the midst of
the ocean. In vain he gazed about him; there was nothing but the
sea--the sea everywhere; in vain the bark bounded over the foaming
waves with the speed of lightning, like a steed with mane floating on
the wind; there was nothing but the sea--the sea everywhere. Billows
followed billows, the hours passed one after another, the day
declined, and the solitude and silence seemed to deepen around
Carlino, when all at once he uttered a cry; he saw a black speck in
the distance. At the same instant the bark, shooting ahead like an
arrow, struck upon the sand at the foot of huge rocks, which raised
their dark summits, notched and worn by time, to the skies. Fate had
thrown Carlino upon that strand from which none had ever returned.
To climb this wall was not an easy matter; there was neither road nor
path; and when Carlino, after long efforts, with torn hands and
wearied limbs, at last succeeded in reaching a level spot, what he
found was not calculated to reassure him. He saw nothing but glaciers
piled upon one another--black, damp rocks rising from the midst of the
snows--not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a bit of moss; it was the
picture of winter and death. The only sign of life in this desert was
a wretched hovel, the roof of which was loaded with great stones in
order to resist the fury of the winds. The prince approached the hut,
and was about to enter it, when he stopped short, struck with surprise
and terror at the spectacle which presented itself.
At the end of the room was a great web of cloth, on which were
pictured all the conditions of life. There were kings, soldiers,
farmers, and shepherds, with ladies richly dressed, and peasant women
spinning by their side. At the bottom boys and girls were dancing
gaily, holding each other by the hand. Before the web walked the
mistress of the house--an old woman, if the name woman can be given to
a skeleton with bones scarcely hidden by a skin yellower and more
transparent than wax. Like a spider ready to pounce upon its prey, the
old woman, armed with a great pair of shears, peered at all the
figures with a jealous eye, then suddenly fell upon the web and cut it
at random, when, lo! a piercing wail rose from it that would have
moved a heart of stone. The tears of children, the sobs of mothers,
the despair of lovers, the last murmurs of old age, all human sorrow
seemed mingled in this wail. At the sound the old woman burst into a
loud laugh, and her hideous face lighted up with ferocious delight,
while an invisible hand mended the web, eternally destroyed and
eternally repaired.
The hag, again opening her shears, was already approaching the web
anew, when she saw the shadow of Carlino.
"Fly, unhappy man," cried she, without turning round; "I know what
brings you here, but I can do nothing for you. Go to my sister;
perhaps she will give you what you desire. She is Life--I am Death."
Carlino did not wait for a second bidding. He rushed onward, too happy
to escape this scene of horror.
The landscape soon changed. Carlino found himself in a fertile valley.
On every side were harvests, blossoming fields, vines loaded with
grapes, and olive-trees full of fruit. In the thick shade of a
fig-tree, by a running spring, sat a blind woman unrolling the last
gold and silver thread from a spindle. Around her lay several
distaffs, full of different kinds of materials ready for
spinning--flax, hemp, wool, silk, and others.
When she had finished her task the fairy stretched out her trembling
hand at random, took the first distaff that came, and began to spin.
Carlino bowed respectfully to the lady, and began with emotion to tell
her the story of his pilgrimage, when the fairy stopped him at the
first word.
"My child," said she, "I can do nothing for you. I am only a poor
blind woman that does not even know herself what she is doing. This
distaff, which I have taken at random, decides the fate of all who are
born while I am spinning it. Riches or poverty, happiness or
misfortune, are attached to this thread that I cannot see. The slave
of destiny, I can create nothing. Go to my other sister; perhaps she
will give you what you desire. She is Birth; I am Life."
"Thanks, madam," answered Carlino; and with a light heart he ran to
find the youngest of the Fates. He soon discovered her, fresh and
smiling as the spring. Everything about her was taking root and
germinating; the corn was bursting through the earth and putting forth
its green blades from the brown furrows; the orange-blossoms were
opening; the buds on the trees were unfolding their pink scales; the
chickens, scarcely feathered, were running round the anxious hen, and
the lambs were clinging to their mother. It was the first smile of
life.
The fairy received the prince with kindness. After listening to him
without laughing at his folly, she asked him to sup with her, and at
dessert gave him three citrons, and a beautiful knife with a
mother-of-pearl handle.
"Carlino," said she, "you can now return to your father's house. The
prize is gained; you have found what you have been seeking. Go, then,
and when you have reached your kingdom, stop at the first fountain
that you see and cut one of these citrons. A fairy will come forth,
who will ask you for a drink. Give her the water quickly, or she will
slip through your fingers like quicksilver. If the second escapes you
in the same way, have an eye to the last; give her a drink instantly,
and you will have a wife according to your heart."
Intoxicated with joy, the prince kissed again and again the charming
hand that crowned his wishes. He was more happy than wise, and little
deserved to succeed; but fairies have their caprices, and Fortune is
always a fairy.
It was a long distance from the end of the world to the kingdom of the
Vermilion Towers. Carlino experienced more than one storm and braved
more than one danger on his way across land and sea, but at last,
after a long voyage and a thousand trials, he reached his father's
country with his three citrons, which he had treasured like the apple
of his eye.
He was not more than two hours' journey from the royal castle when he
entered a dense forest where he had hunted many a time. A transparent
fountain, bordered with wild flowers and shaded by the trembling
leaves of the aspen, invited the traveler to repose. Carlino seated
himself on a carpet of verdure enameled with daisies, and, taking his
knife, cut one of the citrons.
All at once a young girl as white as milk and as red as a strawberry
darted past him like lightning. "Give me a drink!" said she, pausing
an instant.
"How beautiful she is!" cried the prince, so ravished by her charms
that he forgot the advice of the Fate. He paid dearly for it; in a
second the fairy had disappeared. Carlino smote his breast in despair,
and stood as astonished as a child that sees the running water slip
through his fingers.
He tried to calm himself, and cut the next citron with a trembling
hand, but the second fairy was even more beautiful and more fleeting
than her sister. While Carlino admired her, wonder-struck, in the
twinkling of an eye she took flight.
This time the prince burst into tears and wept so bitterly that he
seemed a part of the fountain. He sobbed, tore his hair, and called
down all the maledictions of Heaven on his head.
"Fool that I am!" he cried; "twice I have let her escape as though my
hands were tied. Fool that I am, I deserve my fate. When I should have
run like a greyhound I stood still like a post. A fine piece of
business! But all is not lost; the third time conquers. I will try the
magic knife once more, and if it deceives me this time I will use it
on myself."
He cut the last citron. The third fairy darted forth and said, like
her companions, "Give me a drink!" But the prince had learned a
lesson. He instantly gave her the water, when, lo! a beautiful,
slender young girl, as white as milk, with cheeks like roses, stood
before him, looking like a freshly opened rosebud. She was a marvel of
beauty such as the world had never seen, as fresh as a lily and as
graceful as a swan; her hair was of brighter gold than the sun, her
clear blue eyes revealed the depths of her heart, her rosy lips seemed
made only to comfort and charm; in a word, from head to foot she was
the most enchanting creature that had ever descended from heaven to
earth. It is a great pity that we have no likeness of her.
At the sight of his bride the prince almost lost his reason from joy
and surprise. He could not understand how this miracle of freshness
and beauty had sprung from the bitter rind of a citron.
"Am I asleep?" he cried. "Am I dreaming? If I am the sport of a
delusion, for pity's sake do not awaken me."
The fairy's smile soon reassured him. She accepted his hand, and was
the first to ask to repair to the good king of the Vermilion Towers,
who would be so happy to bless his children.
"My love," answered Carlino, "I am as impatient as you to see my
father and to prove to him that I was right; but we cannot enter the
castle arm in arm like two peasants. You must go like a princess; you
must be received like a queen. Wait for me by this fountain; I will
run to the palace, and return in two hours with a dress and equipage
worthy of you." Saying this, he tenderly kissed her hand and left her.
The young girl was afraid, on finding herself alone; the cry of a
raven, the rustling of the trees, a dead branch broken by the wind,
everything frightened her. She looked tremblingly about her, and saw
an old oak by the side of the fountain whose huge trunk offered her a
shelter. She climbed the tree and hid herself in it, all but her
lovely face, which, encircled by the foliage, was reflected in the
transparent fountain as in a clear mirror.
[Illustration: HE INSTANTLY GAVE HER THE WATER, WHEN, LO! A BEAUTIFUL,
SLENDER YOUNG GIRL STOOD BEFORE HIM]
Now there was a negress, by the name of Lucy, who lived in the
neighborhood, and who was sent every day by her mistress to the
fountain for water. Lucy came, as usual, with her pitcher on her
shoulder, and just as she was about to fill it, she spied the image of
the fairy in the spring. The fool, who had never seen herself, thought
that the face was her own. "Poor Lucy!" she cried. "What! you, so
fresh and beautiful, are forced by your mistress to carry water like a
beast of burden! No, never!" And in her vanity she dashed the pitcher
to the ground and returned home.
When her mistress asked her why she had broken the pitcher, the slave
shrugged her shoulders and said, "The pitcher that goes often to the
well is soon broken." Upon this her mistress gave her a little wooden
cask and ordered her to go back immediately and fill it at the
fountain.
The negress ran to the spring, and, gazing lovingly at the beautiful
image in the water, sighed and said, "No, I am not an ape, as I am so
often told; I am more beautiful than my mistress. Mules may carry
casks--not I!" She dashed the cask on the ground, broke it in a
thousand pieces, and returned to her mistress, grumbling.
"Where is the cask?" asked her mistress, who was waiting impatiently
for the water.
"A mule ran against me and knocked it down, and it is all broken to
pieces."
At these words her mistress lost patience. Seizing a broom, she gave
the negress one of those lessons that are not soon forgotten; then,
taking down a leathern bottle that was hanging on the wall, "Run,
wretched ape," she said; "and if you do not instantly bring this back
to me full of water, I will beat you within an inch of your life."
The negress took to her heels in terror, and filled the bottle
obediently; but when it was filled she stopped to look once more in
the fountain; and seeing the lovely face reflected there, "No!" she
cried, in a burst of anger--"no, I will not be a water-carrier; no, I
was not made to serve my mistress like a dog."
Saying this, she took from her hair the great pin that held it, and
pierced the bottle through and through. The water spouted out in every
direction. At the sight the fairy in the tree burst into a fit of
laughter. The negress looked up, saw the beautiful stranger, and
understood the whole.
"Oh!" said she to herself, "so you are the cause of my beating; no
matter, you shall pay me well for it." Then, raising her voice, she
called, in her sweetest tones, "What are you doing up there, lovely
lady?"
The fairy, who was as good as she was beautiful, tried to comfort the
slave by talking with her. The acquaintance was soon made; an innocent
soul is unsuspicious in friendship. The fairy, without distrust, told
the negress all that had happened to her and the prince, why she was
alone in the forest, and how she was every instant expecting Carlino
with a grand equipage to conduct his bride to the king of the
Vermilion Towers, and to marry her there in the presence of all the
court.
On hearing this story, the wicked and envious negress conceived an
abominable idea. "Madame," said she, "if the prince is coming with all
his suite, you must be ready to meet him. Your hair is all in
disorder; let me come to you, and I will comb it."
"With pleasure," answered the fairy, with a gracious smile, as she
stretched out a little white hand, which looked, in Lucy's great black
paw, like a crystal mirror in an ebony frame.
No sooner had she climbed the tree than the wicked slave untied the
fairy's hair and began to comb it; then, all at once, taking her great
hair-pin, she pierced her to the brain. Feeling herself wounded, the
fairy cried, "Palomba! Palomba!" when she instantly turned to a
wood-pigeon and flew away. The horrible negress took her victim's
place, and stretched out her neck among the foliage, looking like a
statue of jet in a niche of emerald.
Meanwhile the prince, mounted on a magnificent horse, was riding
thither at full speed, followed by a long cavalcade. Poor Carlino was
astonished to find a crow where he had left a swan. He almost lost his
reason, his voice was choked with tears, and he gazed in all
directions, hoping to see his bride among the foliage. But the
negress, putting on a suffering air, said to him, casting down her
eyes, "Look no farther, my prince; a wicked fairy has made me her
victim, and a wretched fate has changed your lily to charcoal."
Though he cursed the fairies who had played on his credulity, Carlino,
like a true prince, would not break his word. He gallantly gave his
hand to Lucy and helped her to descend from the tree, all the while
heaving sighs that would have melted a heart of stone. When the
negress was dressed like a princess, and covered with lace and
diamonds that adorned her as the stars adorn the night, by rendering
the darkness still more visible, Carlino seated her at his right hand,
in a magnificent carriage lined with plate-glass and drawn by six
white horses, and took his way to the palace, as happy as a criminal
with the rope about his neck.
The old king came to meet them a league from the castle. The wonderful
stories of his son had turned his brain. In spite of etiquette and
against the remonstrances of his courtiers, he hastened to admire the
incomparable beauty of his daughter-in-law. "Upon my word," he
exclaimed, at the sight of a crow instead of the dove that had been
promised him--"upon my word, this is too much. I knew that my son was
mad, but I did not know that he was blind. Is this the spotless lily
that he has been to the end of the world to seek? Is this the rose
fresher than the morning dew, the miracle of beauty that has come from
the rind of a citron? Does he think that I will bear this new insult
to my gray hairs? Does he think that I will leave to mulatto children
the empire of the Vermilion Towers, the glorious inheritance of my
ancestors? This baboon shall never enter my palace."
The prince fell at his father's feet and tried to move him. The prime
minister, a man of great experience, remonstrated with his master
that, at court, black often becomes white and white black in the space
of twenty-four hours; and that there was no reason to be astonished at
such a very natural metamorphosis. What was the king of the Vermilion
Towers to do? He was a king and a father, and by this double title
always accustomed to do the will of others. He yielded and consented
with a bad grace to this strange union. The court gazette announced to
the whole kingdom the happy choice that the prince had made, and
ordered the people to rejoice. The wedding was postponed for a week;
it was impossible to make the preparations for the ceremony in less
time than this.
The negress was lodged in a magnificent suite of apartments;
countesses disputed with one another the honor of putting on her
slippers; and duchesses obtained, not without difficulty, the glorious
privilege of handing her her nightgown. The town and castle were
adorned with flags of all colors; walls were thrown down, yews were
planted, walks were graveled, old speeches were furbished up, stale
compliments were newly framed, and poems and sonnets that had done
duty everywhere were patched up anew. There was but one idea in the
kingdom--that of thankfulness to the prince for having chosen a wife
so worthy of him.