I
Once upon a time there was a beautiful palace where the king's children
lived as happily as they alone can live. They never wanted anything and
they never knew that there could be others who were not as happy as
they. Sometimes, it is true, they would hear a story which would make
them almost think that perhaps there was a world beyond, which they did
not know, outside the palace of the king and its gardens, but something
would seem to say that after all it was only a fairy story, and they
would forget that it meant anything that might really be true.
One of the little princesses seemed to think more of these stories of a
world beyond the palace garden than the others, and she would sometimes
find herself gazing at the sun, and wondering if the great world lay
beyond the purple forests where the golden-edged clouds shone like dark
mountains in the distance. And the name of this princess was Eline.
More and more as she thought of these things she felt sure that there
must be a world where things were very different from the happy life in
the palace garden; and in the stories which the children heard she
thought of many things, which, with the others, she used to pass by
without notice. Once they used to hear of no sorrow, no pain, but only
joy and peace. Now, in thinking, she sometimes noticed that there were
things which were not spoken; that there were things passed by in
silence; that there were things which travelers passing through the
palace kept back, as though they knew of much which the children must
not know, and yet which they would have told had they dared.
Questions Eline asked, and the answers seldom satisfied her, for they
never seemed to tell her everything. Every time one of the travelers
left the palace to return on his journey there seemed to be a look of
appeal in his eyes, an appeal which only Eline seemed to see, and which
made her wish to follow them for the very love that shone in the kind
faces of these strangers--strangers who told the children stories of
things they loved--of wonderful fairy worlds where they were not as in
the palace; of worlds where Eline seemed to have traveled many times,
long, long ago.
One day she asked her father, the king:
"Shall I never go out of the palace, never leave the garden of delight
and see the world that lies beyond the cloud-mountains, beyond the
sunset and the whispering forests?"
And the king looked intently at Eline.
"These are strange fancies," he said. "Are you not happy here in the
garden?"
"Yes, I am happy," she said, "happier than I can tell. But you have not
answered me. Is there not a world beyond? Shall I ever see it?"
"Some traveler must have been telling you forbidden tales," said the
king. "These things I have said may not be spoken in my garden."
"No traveler has told me," said Eline. "I have seen them looking as
though they would tell me, but could not, of things beyond the garden,
beyond the palace. I have asked them, and they have told me nothing. Yet
I have felt that I long to go with them. I have felt that I remember
strange places, strange sights, things I know not here, when they speak.
Sometimes, even, it seems that I hear a voice like my own repeating a
promise--a promise unfulfilled that must be kept. 'I will return! I
will! I will!' it says. And I hear voices calling in the wind, in the
rustling of the leaves, and in the silence of the day, 'Come back! Come
back!' And the birds say, 'Come!' The pines whisper to me strange
things, and the laughing water in the brooks says 'Come!' What does it
mean?"
"I cannot tell you here," said the king. "But why do you wish to leave
the palace? You are yet young and there are many, many years of
happiness before you. You may stay in the palace where all things are
good, and put these things out of mind. There is another world, but not
for you--yet!"
Eline was troubled, or would have been had such a thing been possible in
the palace of the king.
"May I ever see that land? May I ever leave the palace?"
"The children of the king are free to come and go," he said. "I may not
keep them if they will not stay; for I know that they will come again."