down and stopped just above my head. The walls came slowly together,
and as they reached the Prince, his daughter, the Courteous Stranger,
and the eight tailors, gave way to them, so that all these persons
passed from view on the outer side, and I was left alone with the
hideous old woman, with the walls coming in upon us by degrees until I
thought we should be crushed.
I became dizzy; I sank in terror upon the chair which stood beside me.
The walls came on from all four sides until the place wherein I sat was
no bigger than a cupboard, and there they stopped. I breathed a sigh of
relief, and attempted to rise. To my horror, I could not move.
The old woman pointed a skinny finger at me and gave a loud and
angry laugh which sent a chill up and down my spine. She moved her
finger about in strange figures. She mumbled to herself a torrent of
meaningless words; and passing through the door which remained before
me in one wall of my cabinet, she left me, and closed the door behind
her. The closet began to rock; it seemed to rise, and in a moment I
knew that it was flying with me through space....
Thus, your majesty (said the old man in the spangled coat), I came to
be imprisoned in my cell beneath the Forest Pool. There I sat, unable
to move or speak, for nearly a hundred years, until the happy day when
I was delivered by the excellent Prince, your grandson; and for the
refuge which has been accorded me in your majesty’s castle I now tender
to your majesty my grateful thanks, and--
_“Eh? What? Did you say something?” exclaimed the King, waking up
from a sound slumber, and rubbing his eyes. “Oh, yes. I see. Very
interesting. Very interesting. Something about a button, wasn’t it?
Bless my soul, I’d no idea it was so late. It’s long past my bedtime.
I’m always late for breakfast when I stay up past my-- Mortimer, will
you see to it that the castle windows are locked for the night? My
dear, I think we will have bacon and eggs in the morning; and if it’s
at all possible, I’d like to have a piece of toast that isn’t burnt.
The audience is now over.”_
[Illustration]
THE SECOND NIGHT
ALB THE UNICORN
_Solario the Tailor was sitting at the open window of his room in the
northeast tower of the castle, looking out at the stars which glittered
in a clear sky over the Great Forest. He sighed, and rising wearily lit
the candles on his table; and at that moment there came a knock on his
door, and Bojohn and Bodkin entered, rather timidly._
_“If you please, sir--” said Bojohn._
_“Pray be seated,” said Solario, and they all sat down. “It’s a warm
evening,” said he._
_“We thought,” said Bojohn, “that you might perhaps be willing to tell
us one of the stories that you--”_
_“It’s very warm this evening, indeed,” said Solario. “Quite
oppressive.”_
_“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” said Bodkin, “we’d like you to
tell us about--”_
_“I don’t know when I’ve felt the heat so much,” said the old tailor.
“But then it’s the idleness. If there were only something to do, there
wouldn’t be so much time to think about the weather.”_
_“Last night, sir,” said Bojohn, “you were obliged to leave out some
parts of your story, and we thought--”_
_“If I only had a few good ells of cloth on my table, and a man
like--well, say like Mortimer the Executioner,--to exercise my art on,
I’d be the happiest man alive; but as it is, sitting here with nothing
to do--”_
_“There was one tale you mentioned,” said Bojohn, “about a--”_
_“It’s a very fine thing to be a Knight of the Silver Lamp,” said
Solario, “but there doesn’t seem to be much connected with it in the
nature of work. If I could only be employed in making a suit of clothes
for Mortimer the Executioner!_ There’s _a subject! The biggest man
I’ve ever seen in my life, and the hardest to fit! That would be an
undertaking worthy of my genius. Dear, dear!”_
_“I’ll speak to grandfather about it,” said Bojohn. “I’m sure he’ll let
you make a suit for Mortimer. But what we would like to know is--”_
_“We’d like to hear one of the stories,” began Bodkin again, “that the
King made you leave out last night when--”_
_“It made no difference to me, I assure you,” said Solario, stiffly.
“None whatever.”_
_“But if you would only tell us--” said Bodkin._
_“I do not wish to annoy any one with my dull tales,” said Solario.
“Far from it; far from it indeed, I assure you.”_
_“But there was one” said Bojohn, “about a griffin; what kind of a
griffin did you say it was?”_
_“I believe, if I remember correctly, it was a Roving Griffin; but his
majesty your grandfather--”_
_“Oh, never mind grandfather,” said Bojohn. “Tell us about the--”_
_“I’d rather hear the one about the giant,” said Bodkin._
_“You probably have reference to the Blind Giant,” said Solario.
“But--”_
_“Then there was one,” said Bojohn, “about some cave or other.”_
_“The Cave of Montesango,” said Solario. “I remember it only too well.
But I couldn’t tell you that; it would be too terrible. You wouldn’t be
able to sleep in your beds to-night.”_
_“Then tell us that one!” cried the two boys, together._
_“No,” said Solario. “The King would never approve if I--”_
_“Grandfather isn’t here now,” said Bojohn. “Please--”_
_“Perhaps,” said Solario, “I might tell you the story concerning the--
But I fear it would bore you.”_
_“No! no!” cried the boys._
_“Then I might perhaps tell you the story of Alb the Unicorn, only--”_
_“Yes! yes! Tell us about the unicorn!”_
_“You are sure it will not weary you?”_
_“Not a bit!” said Bojohn._
_“Would you mind, sir,” said Bodkin, “leaving out the big words?”_
_“I shall willingly endeavor to gratify your reasonable predilection
for lucidity,” said Solario._
_“Sir?” said Bodkin._
_“Never mind,” said Bojohn. “Let him go on.”_
_“Ahem!” said the old man, clearing his throat. “I will give you as
much of it as I can remember, as it was told me by the young man
in the white leather suit while we were sitting in the half-moon
pasture of Korbi by the river Tarn, after I had delivered him from his
enchantment. You are sure it will not weary you?”_
_“Go on! Go on!”_
_“Then I will begin,” said Solario, settling himself back at his ease,
and folding his hands across his stomach,_
“THE STORY OF ALB THE UNICORN.”
You must know (said the young man to me) that I am called Alb the
Fortunate. I was born in the Island Kingdom, far out in the Great Sea,
the only son of a rich goldsmith. I lived with my parents, by whom I
was tenderly loved, in the principal city of that kingdom, in which
city, on a height overlooking the island, stood the castle of the King.
_Alb the Fortunate and the Princess Hyla_
My father, whose skill in his art had caused him to be valued highly
by the King, was a familiar figure at the castle, and I had there,
in company with my mother, become acquainted with the young Princess
Hyla, the King’s only child, a beautiful and amiable girl some two
years younger than myself. We were even permitted to play together in
the gardens of the castle, for the King was in no wise proud, but on
the contrary made a point of treating his subjects with a friendliness
which endeared him to them all. I need hardly tell you that from the
earliest moment I knew that I loved the little Princess.
I grew thus in time to be twelve years old. Although my parents had
done for me all that love could devise and money could effect, I had
caused them much uneasiness. My disposition was unnaturally gloomy; I
scarcely ever smiled; my mind was filled with terrors, I knew not why;
I would sit for hours in moody silence; the games of other boys did not
amuse me; and I would find myself at times weeping bitterly, for no
reason whatever.
All that my parents could do to divert me availed nothing; I continued
to be a misery to myself and to them. They feared for my health;
their wealth no longer gave them any pleasure; and an atmosphere of
gloom settled down upon their house. Sometimes my mother would look
mournfully into my eyes while she smoothed back the yellow hair from my
forehead; and I knew that she would willingly have given all that she
had to make me happy.
On my twelfth birthday it chanced that I was in my father’s shop,
alone. My mother had gone into the back room, and my father was absent,
for the day, at the residence of a distant client. I had been trying
all that morning to find some occupation to amuse me, but without
success; I had finally given myself up to a restless and discontented
idleness; and at the moment I was examining in my hand, without
much interest, a long chain, of extremely fine gold and delicate
workmanship, which I had picked up from one of the cabinets in the
shop. I was in the act of placing it back in its case, wondering what I
should do next, when a strange figure entered the door from the street,
and approached me.
_A Tattered Old Beggar Comes to the Goldsmith’s Shop_
It was an old man, evidently a beggar, a huge man, fat and heavy, his
face covered by a gray beard which hung to his waist, and his eyes,
which were very bright, almost hidden by shaggy eyebrows,--the longest
eyebrows I had ever seen on any human being. A ragged tunic of brown,
belted around the middle, hung scantily to his knees; a battered felt
hat flapped over his forehead; and in his hand he carried, for a staff,
what seemed to be a yardstick, such as tailors use. From his belt hung
a pair of large shears, also of the sort used by tailors. A queer
tailor! thought I.
“Good morning, master Melancholy,” said he, “have you a mind for trade
this morning?”
The idea of this poor creature’s pretending to be a customer at such a
shop as ours was too absurd. I could not restrain a little toss of the
head.
[Illustration: “There is something here,” said the old beggar, “which I
wish to buy”]
“So?” said the old man. “Is that what you think? Nevertheless, there is
something here which I wish to buy.” He looked around the shop. “I wish
to buy a chain, a gold one; and I see none that pleases me so much as
the one you are holding behind your back. Will you sell it?”
I was astonished that he should have discovered the chain, which I
could have sworn was hidden from his eyes. I drew it forth and held it
up.
“Be so good as to let me see it,” said the old man; and at the same
time he took it from me, before I could snatch it away.
“What may the price be, my young merchant?” said he.
I was trembling with anxiety, but I thought it best to end the whole
matter by naming the price, which I found on the card which remained in
the cabinet.
While I hesitated, the horrid creature gazed at me with his glittering
eyes through his tangled eyebrows, and ran his fingers down his beard
like a comb.
“The price,” I said, “is four thousand gold florins. Now please give me
back the chain.”
“The price is high,” said the old man, “but I will take it.”
“Then give me the money,” said I.
“Money?” said he, with an air of great surprise. “Money? But I have no
money.”
“Then how are you going to buy the chain?” said I. “Give it back to me.”
“I will buy it, nevertheless,” said he. “I will give you what is better
than money.”
“What is that?” said I, suspiciously.
“I will give you,” said he, “whatever you would like best in the world.”
“Then give me back the chain.”
“Think!” said he. “What would you like best in all the world, for your
very self?”
“Nothing,” I said, ready to cry. “I want the chain back. If you don’t
give it to me,” I said, angrily, “I will call my mother.”
“With all the pleasure in the world,” said the impudent old rascal.
I was now ready to cry in good earnest.
_The Old Man Proposes a Strange Bargain_
“But I advise you to listen to me, my young friend,” went on the
dreadful creature. “You may make a wish, if you will; and if you don’t,
I will. If I keep the chain, you shall make the wish; if you keep the
chain, I will make it; but I warn you, if I make the wish, I shall wish
you harm! Such harm that you would rather be dead than alive! Come now,
will you sell me the chain for a wish?”
“I can’t,” I said, “I can’t.” And I began to cry.
“Then you would like to be crippled all your life? To find vipers in
your bed every night? To see the Princess run away from the sight of
you? To suffer a sharp pain in your ears, to have all your drink turn
to--”
“No, no!” I cried. “Please don’t, please don’t!”
“Then you had better sell me the chain. What would you like best in the
world?”
“Oh, I want to be happy! I want to be happy! I’m so miserable!”
“You really wish to be happy?”
“Oh, yes! If I could only be happy, always happy!”
“Think well. I can grant you that wish, if you really wish it.”
“I wish I could be happy, always happy!”
“The wish is granted. You shall be happy; after this day you shall be
nothing but happy, always. It is done. The chain is mine.”
“Oh, please! If you will only wait one moment! Just one! I must call my
mother!”
I ran to the door of the back room, and called my mother. She came at
once, alarmed by my outcry. Together we turned back into the shop,
toward the spot where I had left the old man. He was gone.
I dragged my mother to the shop door, and we looked up and down the
street. There was no sign of him. I ran from one corner to the other.
He was nowhere in sight. I returned to my mother and threw myself on
her breast and wept.
“The chain!” I sobbed. “It is gone!”
While she tried to comfort me I told her the story. She wrung her
hands. “What will your father say?”
That evening, when my father heard what had happened, he was very
angry. He was a kind man, but he scolded me so severely that I crept up
to bed weeping, without any supper. I had never been so miserable. I
cried myself to sleep.
When I awoke in the morning, sunshine was streaming in through the
window. I sprang out of bed. A fat sparrow was hopping on the window
sill, and when he saw me he cocked his head at me in the jolliest
manner possible. I whistled to him, and laughed after him as he flew
away.
While I was dressing, and humming a tune the while, I suddenly
remembered that I had gone to bed in tears for the loss of my father’s
golden chain; but I laughed as I thought of it, for the loss seemed
pitifully small, and my father’s anger over it was quite ridiculous. I
went on with my tune, and stood before the mirror with a hairbrush in
my hand. I began to brush my hair; and I cannot deny that as I looked
at its yellow and somewhat curly abundance I thought of the Princess
with complacency.
Now it happened that the most serious work of my life, on which I had
then been engaged for more than six months, had been the training of my
hair to lie in a flat sweep backward from my forehead. I had devoted
much patient labor to this work; it required that I should wear on my
head all day a tight skullcap, and I even suffered to the extent of
wearing it in bed at night, when I could do so without my mother’s
knowledge. I now shook my hair from my forehead with a quick backward
toss of the head, in a manner which always made my father look at me in
alarm, and proceeded to brush it straight back with vigorous strokes of
the brush.
_The Three Black Hairs in the Yellow Head_
I was in the act of applying a small quantity of dry soap, when I
looked at my yellow head in the mirror a trifle more attentively. My
gaze became fixed; and as I held my head close to the glass I was
astonished to see there, among the yellow strands, three coarse black
hairs, very distinct, one in the middle and one on either side.
They did not suit me very well, and I accordingly, with some trouble,
plucked each of them out by the root.
Before leaving the room, I gave a final glance of satisfaction at
myself in the mirror, and a final touch of the brush to my hair. I
stopped suddenly, fixed with astonishment; the three long, coarse black
hairs, which I had but a few moments before plucked away, lay there as
before, one in the middle of my head and one on either side.
I could not understand it in the least, but after all, what did it
matter? I could not allow myself to be bothered by such a trifle. I ran
downstairs singing merrily.
At breakfast, I found myself prattling of a thousand things, and I
was surprised to remark the confusion with which my parents received
my sallies. In the midst of my talk, my mother whispered with sudden
excitement into my father’s ear; I did not hear what she said, but I
saw his eyebrows rise and heard him blow out his lips in a long-drawn
“O-oh!” as if a light had dawned on him. And after that they responded
gayly to my chatter, and we had altogether the merriest meal we had
ever had in our lives.
After breakfast I accompanied my father to the castle, where I
sought out the Princess Hyla, and found her weeping beside one of the
fountains in the garden, because her ball had fallen into the water
which filled the wide marble basin. I laughed at her, for she did seem
comical enough. She stamped her foot angrily at me, but this only
made me laugh the more. I jumped into the pool and brought back the
ball. She looked at me as if in bewilderment, and cried, “What are you
laughing at? Are you crazy?” Far from being offended, I laughed more
merrily than before.
The King was much pleased with my little service to the Princess, and
after our departure my father assured me that I had advanced markedly
in the King’s regard. Everything, in short, was going well.
From that day, my unfailing spirits rejoiced my parents more and
more as time went by; their house rang with my merriment; my mother
became more youthful in appearance; and as I grew older I became known
throughout our city for the brightness of my face and the liveliness of
my talk, and I was everywhere in demand. It is true that the three long
black hairs continued in their places on my head, and my mother looked
at them at times, as it seemed to me, with uneasiness; but I laughed at
her; and although I sometimes plucked these hairs from my head, I did
so only for the amusement of seeing them reappear in their places as
before.
_Alb Wins the Promise of the Princess’s Hand_
When I was sixteen years of age, a circumstance befell which I was able
to turn to good account. The Princess Hyla one night unaccountably
disappeared. The King was strangely disturbed by this incident,
and though I could not quite understand the reason for so much
perturbation, I resolved to rescue the Princess and restore her to her
father’s arms, if I could. This I was able to do, in the course of a
very singular adventure, and in reward the King promised me her hand in
marriage. I will now relate to you, if you wish it, the adventure by
which I rescued the Princess from the strange fate which involved her;
it is the adventure, as I may call it, of
THE RAGPICKER AND THE PRINCESS
It happened (said Alb the Fortunate) that the King, with his daughter,
sojourned for a time at his castle of Ventamere, beside the Great Sea;
and my father and myself, being lodged in the town hard by,--
_“On second thoughts,” said Solario, interrupting himself, “I will not
relate this tale just now. It is too long. It will be better to go on
with--”_
_“But we’d like to hear it now,” said Bojohn._
_“No,” said Solario, firmly, “it will be much better to tell it some
other time.”_
Thus (said Alb, when he had finished the story of his adventure), I
restored the Princess, with the assistance of the One-Armed Sorcerer
whom I have mentioned, and in gratitude the King took the One-Armed
Sorcerer to dwell with him in his castle in our own city, and promised
to me the hand of the Princess in marriage when I should come of age.
Truly things were going well with me.
_A Trifling Incident Disturbs Alb’s Mother_
Some two years later, when I was just past my eighteenth birthday,
an incident occurred in our household which caused my mother much
disturbance. My father died. He had left the house on horseback in
the morning, for a journey to the country on a matter pertaining to
his business. In the evening, after the shop was closed, a loud knock
brought my mother and myself to the door in haste. A crowd was gathered
at the entrance, and on a litter carried by two men lay my father’s
body; and in this manner he was borne into the shop. His horse had
thrown him and his neck was broken.
My mother threw herself upon him and wailed. She tried to arouse him;
she talked to him as if he were alive; she even went so far as to try
to call him back to life. I was at first greatly astonished at her
behavior, and then it struck me as being excessively ridiculous. To
think of trying to call back the dead to life! It was highly amusing. I
felt a tide of merriment rising within me. I laughed.
I have never seen on any human being’s face the look of horror which my
mother turned on me when she heard my laugh. She crouched away from me
in fear. Her sobbing ceased, and her eyes remained fixed on me; they
grew wider and wider; I began to wonder how long they could stare so
without winking. I glanced at the others in the room, and was surprised
to see that no one else even so much as smiled. It was useless to
remain longer in a company so dead to the brighter things of life.
I controlled my good humor and composed my features, and patted my
mother affectionately on the shoulder; but she recoiled from my touch;
and without appearing to take her inconsiderate behavior in ill part in
the least, I left the room.
_Unreasonable Conduct of the Goldsmith’s Widow_
It astonished me afterward to observe that my mother met my customary
gayety with coldness, for she had always seemed to take great pleasure
in it. She grew very gloomy indeed. I could not discover any reason for
it, but I did what I could to cheer her by my own liveliness. For some
reason or other, my father’s death appeared to have a depressing effect
on her. I made my jokes and sang my songs as usual, but she reached
such a state in a few months that she would scarcely speak to me, but
on the contrary spent most of her time in her room, alone.
I noticed, in the course of time, a slight change in the manner of my
customers and friends. The former transacted their business briefly,
without an unnecessary word; and the latter appeared to avoid me, as if
they scarcely wished to know me any longer. It was very amusing.
In less than a year after my father’s death, my mother died. It was
thought by some that my father’s death had something to do with her
decline, but how that could be I never could understand.
_The Merrymakers Are Suddenly Sobered_
The night of the day on which she died was the night fixed for a feast
at the house of one of my friends. After looking for a moment into the
room where she lay, I dressed myself carefully for the occasion, and
found myself thrilled with pleasant anticipation.
A large and merry company met at table at my friend’s house; I talked
in my best manner; and whatever coldness I might have observed before
was dispelled in the general gayety. Toward the close of the banquet,
I chanced to remark across the table that my mother had that day died.
The effect of this remark was astonishing. As it passed from one to
another, silence fell upon the company.
I wondered if I had made some blunder. I endeavored in vain to relieve
the awkwardness of the moment by changing the subject and commencing
a story with which I had never failed to provoke a laugh; but in this
case it provoked not so much as a smile; I was absolutely perplexed.
The party soon broke up in what appeared to be confusion, and I went
home to enjoy in my own room the recollection of those lugubrious faces.
When I was twenty-one, I was married to the Princess, and thenceforth
the castle was my home. I sold the business which my father had left
me, and settled down to a life of unbounded bliss with my dear Hyla,
whom as a wife I found even more adorable than I had dreamed.
I became the life of the castle. The faces of my new acquaintances
always brightened in my company; I was the only one in that glittering
society who never knew a dull or uneasy moment; my presence was like a
ray of sunshine in the court.
I noticed after a while that the Princess, my wife, began to respond
to my constant gayety more carelessly; at times she would sit and look
at me wonderingly, I knew not why.
One day she asked me to accompany her on a little excursion in the
city. She did not tell me where she meant to go, but I asked nothing;
it was enough to be with her. I could not conceal my surprise, however,
when she stopped our carriage at the entrance to the city’s poorest
quarter; but I had no doubt she had planned some pleasant diversion,
and I followed her, talking in my liveliest manner all the while. She
herself was quite silent.