churls, men of no character, no elevation, no refinement,--forgive me;
I am not quite myself; these men, if I may call them men, to whom I
owed, I believe, some trifling sums of no account, came to my shop one
morning in a body, fifteen or so; and if you can believe a thing so
monstrous, they seized, they tore away, they loaded into oxcarts in the
street, in the broad light of day, all the goods of my shop and all the
furnishings of my house. I wept, I threatened, I raved; but all to no
purpose. They answered never so much as a word; they departed, and left
my sister and myself without so much as a chair to sit on, or one coin
to jingle against another.
_“Now that,” said the Queen, “was going entirely too far. However did
they expect the poor man to sit down?”_
One thing I entreated them to spare me, my Perfection Cream, a salve
or ointment of my own invention, warranted to relieve in all cases of
affliction of the skin; a remedy which I had compounded many years
before, and had tried once or twice on myself with good results.
Of this, having never sold any, I had on hand, in little jars, a
quite considerable quantity. They left me this, with contempt; and
my sister, observing it, begged them to spare to her of her own
possessions one thing only, her mirror, a handglass backed with blue
enamel, with a long handle of the same; and this also they granted, not
without a jeer.
We sat for a long time upon the barren floor; and then we rose, and
shaking the dust of the place from our feet, we departed, never to
return. In a pouch at my side I carried my Perfection Cream, and in her
hand my sister carried her blue mirror; and thus we went forth, to try
our fortunes in the world.
We sought the wharves, designing to take ship for some distant clime;
and we found, in fact, a vessel loading for a voyage. The ship’s master
was sitting on a bale, directing the porters, and I addressed him
politely, explaining our case. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his
head; but he happened to turn around and catch sight of my sister, and
his manner changed. He jumped to his feet, bowed, and begged us to come
aboard.
In effect, we sailed away. My heart was light again. The city faded
behind us, the sunlight sparkled on the waves; and I was none the less
happy because I had not the least idea where we were going. I composed
a song regarding life on the ocean wave, and sang it with ecstasy,
until my sister begged me to stop.
The master of the ship treated us with distinguished courtesy; I could
not help contrasting his conduct with that of the cold-blooded men who
had-- But I resolved to think of them no more. I gave myself up to the
pleasures of the voyage.
_They Find Themselves on an Unknown Shore_
On the third day, when we were sailing offshore in a light breeze, my
sister came to me in tears. The master of the ship had demanded that
she marry him, as the price of our passage. I went to him at once,
and remonstrated with him patiently. It was no use. He was set upon
marrying my sister. We left the matter to Paravaine herself, and she
rejected the proposal with scorn. “You see!” said I, throwing up my
hands in despair. “Yes, I see,” said the mariner. “You wish to go
ashore. I will not detain you any longer.” The ship was brought in
closer to the shore, a boat was lowered, and my sister and myself (I
assure you the black-hearted scoundrel bowed to us politely to the
last)--my sister and myself were landed on a sandy beach, and the ship
sailed away.
_“Now isn’t that a perfect shame,” said the Queen. “And such a nice
young man, too.”_
We stood for a time in silence, petrified with despair. A vast,
treeless plain stretched away beyond the beach, far as the eye could
see; there was no human habitation anywhere. Not an ounce of food nor
a copper coin did we have between us,--nothing but my Perfection Cream
and my sister’s blue mirror. We were at our wits’ end.
“Let us sit down and think what we had better do,” said I, and I led
my sister to a brown rock embedded in the sand at no great distance.
It was a large rock, round and smooth, and we sat down with our backs
against it, gazing mournfully at the Great Sea, where it sparkled in
the sunlight. It was a beautiful sight, and I began to think up a new
song.
_“I always used to say,” said the Queen, “that the sea was a very
pretty thing, but the King never could abide it. He used to get_ so
_sick! And he finally declared he would never put his foot on a boat as
long as he-- Dear me! I remember a sailor on one of our trips who had
a parrot that used to talk--Oh, dear! Such things as he did say! Oh,
dear! Oh, dear! When I think of them!”_
_“All right, grandmother,” said Bojohn. “Go on, Solario.”_
As we sat there (said the fat young man) with our backs against the
brown rock, I amused myself by plucking away idly certain blades of
long brown grass which fringed the lower portion of the rock near my
hand; and these blades I twined, scarce thinking what I did, into a
ring of a size to fit a finger. Instead of putting it on my own finger,
I took my sister’s hand and placed the ring, jestingly, on the first
finger of her right hand.
_The Startling Effect of Making a Ring of Grass_
No sooner was this done than a kind of groan came from the rock. The
sand on which we sat heaved and shuddered. It rose beneath us, and we
were lifted slowly into the air; and when we were higher than a man’s
height above the ground we were thrown off on to the beach, and we were
looking up at a monstrous creature in the shape of a man, who had risen
up under us from beneath the sand. He was chocolate brown in color,
and he towered above us full seven yards or more. The rock against
which we had been sitting was, as we now perceived, his head; he had
been lying, no doubt asleep, on his stomach under the sand, completely
covered except for his head. We had been sitting above his buried
shoulders, and leaning against the back of his head; and from this
head, all bald but for a fringe of hair at the bottom, I had plucked
the hairs which I had thought were grass.
“A genie!” I cried, and pulled my sister to her feet in fright.
The genie opened his mouth in a great yawn, and stretched his mighty
arms; and as he breathed out again, jets of flame shot from his
nostrils. He was bare, except for a wide cloth twisted around his
middle from waist to thigh, and in the waistband he wore a long, curved
scimitar, which flashed in the sun. He spread his hands out before him
and bowed low.
“Were you asleep in the sand?” said my sister, recovering her wits
first.
He bowed again.
“What do you want with us?” said my sister, becoming bolder.
“I await your commands,” said the genie, in a voice like the roaring of
a waterfall.
“Oh!” said my sister. “Is it the ring of hair on my finger? Is that it?”
He bowed again, extending his hands.
“Then please! please! take us away from here!” cried my sister.
“What is it you seek?” said the genie.
“We seek the best thing in the world!” cried my sister. “Take us where
we may find it!”
“What do you mean by the best thing in the world?” said I to my sister.
“I don’t know,” said she; “but the genie ought to know, and he’ll take
us where we may find it. Won’t you?” said she, looking up at him.
“Hearing is obedience!” said the genie, and little jets of fire spurted
from his nostrils.
“Where will you take us?” said I.
“I will take you where you may find the best thing in the world,” said
the genie. “And if you find it, it will be the best thing in the world
for me too, because it will release me from the power of the One-Armed
Sorcerer, who dwells in an island far out in the Great Sea. If you
don’t find it, it will be your own fault, and in that case,--beware!”
“This sounds pretty doubtful,” said I.
“No matter!” cried my sister. “We will find it. Take us there at once!”
_They Start Upon a Journey Through the Air_
The genie stooped down over us, and under his right arm he gathered me
up, and under his left arm he gathered up my sister. He stamped upon
the earth so that it shook, and leaped into the air; and in an instant
we were soaring over the treeless plain, and I was sick with dizziness.
Higher and higher we mounted, with the speed of an arrow; we seemed to
be flying straight into the face of the sun; I could no longer tell
which was sea and which was plain below. I closed my eyes.
[Illustration: The genie flew away with Tush and his sister]
It was a long time before I opened them again. We were lower, and I
could see the plain, flat and grassy, without a tree. The sun declined,
and still we kept our course; I thought we should soon be at the end of
the world; and still there were no trees anywhere on the plain below us.
I ached in every limb; I cried out, but the genie did not hear me; and
when I was ready to faint with exhaustion his speed suddenly relaxed,
and I saw, at the edge of the horizon before me, what was, or seemed to
be, a city. And still there were no trees.
Scarcely a moment passed before the city rose in plain view; and with
a swoop the genie descended upon the earth, and we were standing,
all three of us, before a gate in the city wall, and my sister was
arranging her hair before her mirror.
A tall and muscular man stood beside the gate, as if on guard. He was
chocolate brown in color, and he was bare except for a wide cloth
twisted about his middle from waist to thigh, and in his right hand he
carried a scimitar, which flashed in the sunlight. I looked around for
the genie, but he was gone.
“What city is this?” said I to the Guardian of the Gate.
“It is the City of Dead Leaves,” said the man. “What do you seek in the
city?”
“We are seeking,” said my sister, “the best thing in the world. We were
told that we would find it here.”
“Ah!” said the Guardian, looking at my sister. “You are she who has
come to save the King’s brother. Come with me.”
He led the way through the gate, and we found ourselves in an alley
of high walls, along which we followed him for some distance, coming
out upon an open plot of grass, surrounded by the same high walls in
a circle. As we approached it, I smelled a familiar fragrance, the
fragrance of orange blossoms; and I thought with some regret of the
groves upon our slopes at home.
_The Orange Tree and the Panther_
In the center of this plot was an orange tree. It was green with
foliage and white with blossoms; the odor was delicious. Under the
tree, prowling stealthily around it, was a panther. I drew back in
alarm. “Do not go too close,” said our guide. “It is death to touch the
tree.”
I had no desire to approach that terrible beast, and we gave him a wide
berth as we proceeded around the rim of the grassplot to an opening in
the opposite wall. We passed through that opening into a city street;
a street of glass, as it seemed, for the front wall of every house was
made of glass; and within, in every case, was a kind of storeroom,
piled up with something which looked like dead leaves. In the greater
houses these rooms were piled quite full; in the meaner there were only
little mounds; but much or little, they appeared to be on exhibition,
as if in pride.
“The treasures of our people,” said the Guardian of the Gate. “Dead
orange leaves. Our most precious possession. The wealth and station of
each citizen are gauged by his store of dead leaves. It is of course
only proper to put them where they may be seen. But come; the King’s
brother awaits us.”
I nudged my sister. “The King’s brother!” I whispered. “Here is a
chance for you!” She smiled, and glanced into her mirror.
We wound through many streets of glass, and I observed that besides
glass the houses contained no material but stone and metal; the absence
of wood was very noticeable. We turned down a mean street toward the
city wall, and came out upon a common, strewn with refuse of all kinds,
and bounded on the further side by the wall. A shelter of canvas leaned
against the wall, and beneath this shelter, on a pallet of straw, lay a
man in rags. He raised himself on his elbow and looked up at us.
“The King’s brother,” said our guide, and I started back in surprise.
_They Come Upon the King’s Brother in Rags_
He was a young man, and very ugly, but not unpleasant to look at;
indeed, his ugliness had something honest and winning in it; and if he
had not been so ragged, he might have made a passable appearance. As it
was, I laughed to myself at the thought of such a fellow in connection
with my beautiful sister.
The ugly young man stood up and bowed politely.
“Is it the first stranger?” said he to the Guardian of the Gate.
“It is,” said the Guardian.
“I am content,” said the young man, casting on my sister a look of
admiration.
“Fair lady,” he went on, dropping on one knee and taking her hand, “if
you are not pledged elsewhere, I beseech you to accept me as a suitor
for your hand. Stay; do not repulse me at my first word, but hear me
further, and take time to consider. I am the King’s younger brother;
and because I would not marry a lady of his choosing, he has cast me
out, swearing that I shall remain in this misery unless I shall marry
the first stranger who shall come to our gates. Oh, fortunate hour that
brought you here the first of all! I am poor; I do not possess a single
leaf; but I will devote myself to you loyally, and I do not think you
will regret it. I know, having seen you, that I cannot live without
you. Do not refuse me now, but at the end of a week give me your
answer.”
He kissed her hand fervently, and arose. I confess that I liked this
young man, but of course I could not think of marrying my sister to one
so utterly forlorn. I answered for her.
“In a week I will let you know,” said I, and drew my sister away.
“Before you go,” said he, “let me give you a warning. Look at my hands.”
He held out his palms, and I saw that they were covered with a rash,
red and angry-looking. He rubbed his palms together, as if to soothe an
irritation.
“The itching palms!” said he. “I have handled the dead leaves all my
life; and because I have handled them my palms itch, itch, all day and
night, without ever a moment’s peace. I warn you not to touch the dead
leaves. The dead leaves of the orange tree; do not touch them.”
“Very well,” said I, and with these words we left him.
The Guardian of the Gate, leading us back into the city streets, turned
and said:
“You have just had your first chance to gain the best thing in the
world. I will now give you your second. Be careful how you choose.”
We entered a street of shops; and I now noticed that the people
were, each of them, rubbing their palms together, as if to soothe an
intolerable itching.
I paused to look into one of the shops as we passed. The customers
within were handing over to the dealer, in return for his goods,
leaves, dead leaves, of the sort we had seen in the glass showrooms;
and whenever these dead leaves passed from hand to hand, I remarked
that the itching of the palm they touched became more exasperating, so
that the people were quite beside themselves, and could not keep quiet
on their feet; but the dealer nevertheless received the dead leaves
eagerly, and the others gave them up with reluctance.
“These people are mad,” said I.
We joined a great rout of people, all rubbing their hands, who were
pouring down a street in the direction of an open square; and when we
reached it, we saw in the center, on a platform above the heads of the
crowd, a man in a robe, who was evidently about to read from a paper
held in his hand.
“Your second chance,” said the Guardian of the Gate. “I will leave you
to your choice. Be careful how you choose.”
He turned away, and disappeared in the crowd.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” cried the man on the platform. “A message from
the King! Whereas the affliction of the itching palm has now become
so grievous that it can no longer be endured, the King now offers, to
such person as shall cure him, one-half of all the dead leaves in his
treasury! And to him also he promises one-half of all the dead leaves
belonging to each person whom he shall cure! The offer is open to all!
Be diligent! Thus saith the King!”
The messenger got down, and immediately there arose near the platform a
commotion, with much laughter, and those in that neighborhood began to
cry out:
“Way for the Lord Buffo! Make way for the wise Lord Buffo!”
_A Dwarf Clad in Motley Stands up to Speak_
A singular figure now mounted the platform, facing in our direction.
He was a dwarf, hunchbacked and thickset, with a very large head set
deep in his shoulders, and arms which hung to his knees. His clothing
was of squares of yellow and blue and green and orange, and on his head
he wore a paper crown, rimmed around at the top with little bells.
With his right hand he pulled up by a cord a small monkey, dressed in
all respects like himself; and in his other hand he held the long tail
feather of a cock.
“The King’s Fool,” said one of the bystanders in my ear.
The Fool waved the feather, and the crowd settled itself to listen.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” he cried, in a loud, harsh voice.
At this the people shouted, “Go on, go on!”
The monkey leaped up on to the dwarf’s shoulder, and the dwarf
proceeded, with the greatest gravity.
“I, Buffo, chief counselor to his most gracious majesty, King Fatchaps,
do call upon you to hearken to the voice of Wisdom!”
“Wisdom! That’s good!” laughed the crowd,--never ceasing to rub their
palms and dance up and down the while.
“First I must tell you, my loyal subjects, that you are all mad. Do you
believe it?”
“Yes! yes! Of course!” shouted the crowd, still laughing.
“Give ear, and I will prove it to you! Thus! Answer me! Isn’t there
enough in our city for all, to feed you and clothe you and shelter you
and amuse you? Answer!”
“True!” cried many persons in the throng.
“Then why are there some among you who starve, and others who cast out
of their abundance to the dogs? Tell me that!”
No one replied.
“Because you are mad! With the itching palm! Look at you! You can’t
stand still on your feet! Rub, rub! Want in the midst of plenty!
Scratch, scratch! Some with too little and some with too much! Rub,
rub! And enough for everybody in reason! Scratch, scratch! All mad, all
mad! Rub, rub! Look at me--have I itching palms?” He held up his hands,
palms outward.
“No!” exclaimed several in the crowd.
“Tell me why! Tell me why! Because I touch not the dead leaves! Isn’t
it so?”
No one answered.
“Give ear, madmen, and I will reveal to you how to cure the itching
palm! Bring the dead orange leaves here to the square! Pile them up!
Burn them, burn them, burn them, every one! That’s it! Will you give up
the dead leaves?”
“No!” roared the people as if with one voice.
“Then farewell, madmen!” cried the Fool, and he jerked the monkey from
his shoulder and descended from the platform.
The people, still rubbing their hands together and dancing, but
laughing withal, rapidly left the square, and my sister and myself
started to go; and as we started, the dwarf appeared before us with his
monkey, and cocked his eye up at us waggishly.
“What, ho!” said the Fool. “Strangers, by the ears of a donkey!
Greeting, strangers, what do you among my mad subjects?”
“To tell you the truth, my lord,” said I, making up my mind on the spur
of the moment, “I have come here with my sister from a distant land, to
cure the people and their King of the itching palm.”
“How so?” said the hunchback, sharply.
“With a little remedy of my own,” said I, tapping my pouch.
“Bah!” said the Fool, jerking the monkey’s cord. “Go home, madman, you
are wasting your time.”
“One moment!” I said. “Conduct me to the King, I beg you. You shall see
me prove my boast.”
He looked up at me sidewise. “Pouf!” said he, snapping his fingers.
“Old Fatchaps is as big a fool as you are. Here; I’ll give you a
chance; there’s nobody here to help me. I ask you, will you help me? I
have a plan to gather the leaves together and burn them. With your help
I can do it, and we will save the people together. Will you help?”
“Not I,” said I, laughing again. “The people would tear us both to
pieces.”
“What does that matter?” said the Fool.
“It matters to me,” said I.
“Is that your choice?” said the Fool. “You have made your choice? Done,
then. Come with me. I will take you to the King; and you will wish that
I hadn’t. Oh, these fools! The time is coming when I must take the case
in hand myself, all alone; for I will tell you a secret; lend me your
ear.” He pulled my head down, and whispered fiercely in my ear. “I love
this people, and I will save them; whether they will or no. D’ye hear?
They are my people, and they must be saved! Whether they will or no!
And then what a bonfire! What a bonfire!”
He jerked the monkey’s cord again, and made off swiftly. We followed
him, and my sister said to me, in a low voice, “Do you think he is mad?”
“That,” said I, “is precisely what I do not know.”
_Buffo the Fool Leads Them to the Palace_
In a few moments we entered and crossed the grounds of an immense
palace, and Buffo the Fool opened the palace door without ceremony and
preceded us into a great hall, where he stopped and said:
“I must have a good look at you first. Buffino, my mirror!”
The monkey darted off down the hall and up the staircase. While he was
gone the Fool said to me:
“You have seen the orange tree and the panther?”
“Yes,” said I.
“Do they worship the orange tree in your country?”
“No, no,” said I. “Orange trees are the commonest of our possessions.
We have them by thousands. Their leaves are of no account.”
“So?” said he, with a look which said that he did not believe it. “We
have no tree in all this city, nor anywhere in all this land, but a
single orange tree. No one knows how the seed came here. We worship
that tree; nothing else.”
“A very pretty sentiment,” said I. “Nothing could be prettier.”
“Hideous!” said he. “The leaves that drop from that tree and die are
the cause of all our evil. We fight over them, we steal them, we waste
our lives in getting them, and we suffer the agony of the itching palm
when they are ours. Will you help me destroy the panther that guards
the tree?”
“Certainly not,” said I with a shiver.
“You have made your choice,” said the Fool. “Buffino, give me the
mirror.”
The monkey, who had now returned, handed to the dwarf a large mirror,
and the Fool held it up before my sister.
Instead of the beautiful person of my sister appeared in the glass the
face and figure of an old woman, bent, ugly, and wrinkled. My sister
started back in dismay, and the dwarf held up the mirror before myself.
It showed me a gross, puffy face with three chins and pig’s eyes,
horribly repulsive. I shuddered.
“Just as I thought,” said the Fool. “Tell me now, have you seen the
King’s brother?”
“Yes,” said I.
“Will you marry him?” said he to my sister.
“Oh!” said she. “How could I? I can’t say. I’m--”
“Just as I thought,” said the dwarf. “And you won’t help me cure my
people. What is it you came here to seek?”
“We are seeking the best thing in the world,” said I.
“And what is that?”
“I don’t know; but we’ll certainly recognize it when we find it.”
“Not you,” said the dwarf; “not until my mirror shows you fair and
comely; _then_ you’ll know it.”
“How are we to get it to show us fair and comely?” said I.
“One of you by saving a miserable outcast, and the other by saving a
whole people; then you’ll be fair and comely, inside and out, but not
until then.”
“You talk in riddles, master Buffo,” said I. “Let us go to the King.”
“Madman!” said the dwarf, and gave the mirror back to the monkey, who
scampered off with it and disappeared.
We followed the Fool up the great staircase and into a distant wing
of the palace, and stopped at a door, on which the hunchback knocked.
Receiving no answer, he opened the door and led us in. “Your majesty!”
he cried.
_They Find the King in a Terrible State_
The King was pacing the floor, grinding and scratching his palms
together, and muttering angrily to himself. He was an enormous man with
a puffy, red face, a snub nose, and three chins, and he wheezed as he
walked. His hair stood up on end all over his head as if it was trying
to fly off. His fat legs went back and forth in a kind of tripping run,
and his fat hands rubbed and scratched and slapped each other in a
perfect frenzy.
“What, what!” he cried, never halting for an instant. “What’s the
matter, what’s the matter?”
“Stop a minute, King Fatchaps!” said the Fool. “Here’s a madman come to
cure your itching palms! Ha, ha!”
“What do you say? What do you say?” said the King, dancing along, back
and forth.
“It is true, your majesty,” said I.
“You can cure me? What do you say? You’re an impostor! They’re all
impostors! Can you cure me? Why don’t you do it then?”
“I understand,” said I, “that a reward is offered--”
“Well, well? What of it?” said the King, wheezing and puffing. “Half of
my dead leaves! What of it?”
“The fact is,” said I, “we should prefer gold or silver.”
“Impudence!” cried the King. “Gold? Silver? What do you mean? I never
heard of them.”
“He’ll take the leaves, never fear,” said the dwarf. “Oh, yes.”
“Take ’em!” cried the King. “Who is the beautiful lady? Take ’em? Dead
leaves or nothing! Take ’em or leave ’em!”
It was plain that a fortune of dead leaves was as good as any other,
if you only thought it so, and if these people thought it so, as they
evidently did, I might as well take it.