THE PRINCESS LOSES HERSELF
I HAVE said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story
begins. And this is how it begins.
One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was
constantly gathering itself together into rain-drops, and pouring down
on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of water
from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of course go
out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer
amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one
half of the toys she had. But then you wouldn't have the toys
themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't get tired of a
thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing--the
princess sitting in the nursery with the sky-ceiling over her head, at a
great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw
this, I should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of
attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw
them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can't, but I
don't think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the
princess herself than he could, though--leaning with her back bowed into
the back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap,
very miserable as she would say herself, not even knowing what she would
like, except to go out and get very wet, catch a particularly nice
cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you
see her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room.
[Illustration: She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then
began to be afraid.]
Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks
about her. Then she tumbles off her chair, and runs out of the door, not
the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot of
a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never any one
had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps, and that
was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out what was at
the top of it.
Up and up she ran--such a long way it seemed to her! until she came to
the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end of
a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side.
There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on to the
end, where she turned into another passage, also full of doors. When she
had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors about her, she
began to get frightened. It was so silent! And all those doors must hide
rooms with nobody in them! That was dreadful. Also the rain made a great
trampling noise on the roof. She turned and started at full speed, her
little footsteps echoing through the sounds of the rain--back for the
stairs and her safe nursery. So she thought, but she had lost herself
long ago. It doesn't follow that she _was_ lost, because she had lost
herself though.
She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be
afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms
everywhere, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little
feet ran, and a lump of tears was growing in her throat. But she was too
eager and perhaps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her hope
failed her. Nothing but passages and doors everywhere! She threw herself
on the floor, and began to wail and cry.
She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected
of a princess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and brushed the
dust from her frock. Oh what old dust it was! Then she wiped her eyes
with her hands, for princesses don't always have their handkerchiefs in
their pockets any more than some other little girls I know of. Next,
like a true princess, she resolved on going wisely to work to find her
way back: she would walk through the passages, and look in every
direction for the stair. This she did, but without success. She went
over the same ground again and again without knowing it, for the
passages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner, through a
half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the wrong way:
instead of going down, it went up. Frightened as she was, however, she
could not help wishing to see where yet further the stair could lead. It
was very narrow, and so steep that she went up like a four-legged
creature on her hands and feet.