THE PRINCE WITH THE NOSE
THERE was once a king who was passionately in love with a beautifulprincess, but she could not be married because a magician hadenchanted her. The king went to a good fairy to inquire what he shoulddo. Said the fairy, after receiving him graciously: "Sir, I will tellyou a great secret. The princess has a great cat whom she loves so wellthat she cares for nothing and nobody else; but she will be obliged tomarry any person who is adroit enough to walk upon the cat's tail."
"That will not be very difficult," thought the king to himself, anddeparted, resolving to trample the cat's tail to pieces rather than notsucceed in walking upon it. He went immediately to the palace of hisfair mistress and the cat; the animal came in front of him, archingits back in anger as it was wont to do. The king lifted up his foot,thinking nothing would be so easy as to tread on the tail, but he foundhimself mistaken. Minon--that was the creature's name--twisted itselfround so sharply that the king only hurt his own foot by stamping on thefloor. For eight days did he pursue the cat everywhere: up and downthe palace he was after it from morning till night, but with no bettersuccess; the tail seemed made of quicksilver, so very lively was it. Atlast the king had the good fortune to catch Minon sleeping, when tramp!tramp! he trod on the tail with all his force.
Minon woke up, mewed horribly, and immediately changed from a cat into alarge, fierce-looking man, who regarded the king with flashing eyes.
"You must marry the princess," cried he, "because you have broken theenchantment in which I held her; but I will be revenged on you. Youshall have a son with a nose as long as--that;" he made in the air acurve of half a foot; "yet he shall believe it is just like all othernoses, and shall be always unfortunate till he has found out it is not.And if you ever tell anybody of this threat of mine, you shall die onthe spot." So saying the magician disappeared.
The king, who was at first much terrified, soon began to laugh at thisadventure. "My son might have a worse misfortune than too long a nose,"thought he. "At least it will hinder him neither in seeing nor hearing.I will go and find the princess and marry her at once."
He did so, but he only lived a few months after, and died before hislittle son was born, so that nobody knew anything about the secret ofthe nose.
The little prince was so much wished for that when he came into theworld they agreed to call him Prince Wish. He had beautiful blue eyesand a sweet little mouth, but his nose was so big that it covered halfhis face. The queen, his mother, was inconsolable; but her ladies triedto satisfy her by telling her that the nose was not nearly so large asit seemed, that it would grow smaller as the prince grew bigger, andthat if it did not a large nose was indispensable to a hero. All greatsoldiers, they said, had great noses, as everybody knew. The queen wasso very fond of her son that she listened eagerly to all this comfort.Shortly she grew so used to the princes's nose that it did not seem toher any larger than ordinary noses of the court; where, in processof time, everybody with a long nose was very much admired, and theunfortunate people who had only snubs were taken very little notice of.
Great care was observed in the education of the prince; and as soon ashe could speak they told him all sorts of amusing tales, in which allthe bad people had short noses, and all the good people had long ones.No person was suffered to come near him who had not a nose of more thanordinary length; nay, to such an extent did the countries carry theirfancy, that the noses of all the little babies were ordered to be pulledout as far as possible several times a day, in order to make them grow.But grow as they would, they never could grow as long as that of PrinceWish. When he was old enough his tutor taught him history; and wheneverany great king or lovely princess was referred to, the tutor always tookcare to mention that he or she had a long nose. All the royal apartmentswere filled with pictures and portraits having this peculiarity, sothat at last Prince Wish began to regard the length of his nose as hisgreatest perfection, and would not have had it an inch less even to savehis crown.
When he was twenty years old his mother and his people wished him tomarry. They procured for him the likenesses of many princesses, but theone he preferred was Princess Darling, daughter of a powerful monarchand heiress to several kingdoms. Alas! with all her beauty, thisprincess had one great misfortune, a little turned-up nose, which,every one else said made her only the more bewitching. But here, in thekingdom of Prince Wish, the courtiers were thrown by it into the utmostperplexity. They were in the habit of laughing at all small noses; buthow dared they make fun of the nose of Princess Darling? Two unfortunategentlemen, whom Prince Wish had overheard doing so, were ignominiouslybanished from the court and capital.
After this, the courtiers became alarmed, and tried to correct theirhabit of speech; but they would have found themselves in constantdifficulties, had not one clever person struck out a bright idea. Hesaid that though it was indispensably necessary for a man to havea great nose, women were very different; and that a learned man haddiscovered in a very old manuscript that the celebrated Cleopatra, Queenof Egypt, the beauty of the ancient world, had a turned-up nose. At thisinformation Prince Wish was so delighted that he made the courtier avery handsome present, and immediately sent off ambassadors to demandPrincess Darling in marriage.
She accepted his offer at once, and returned with the ambassadors. Hemade all haste to meet and welcome her, but when she was only threeleagues distant from his capital, before he had time even to kiss herhand, the magician who had once assumed the shape of his mother's cat,Minon, appeared in the air and carried her off before the lover's veryeyes.
Prince Wish, almost beside himself with grief, declared that nothingshould induce him to return to his throne and kingdom till he had foundDarling. He would suffer none of his courtiers or attendants to followhim; but bidding them all adieu, mounted a good horse, laid the reins onthe animal's neck, and let him take him wherever he would.
The horse entered a wide-extended plain, and trotted on steadily thewhole day without finding a single house. Master and beast began almostto faint with hunger; and Prince Wish might have wished himself at homeagain, had he not discovered, just at dusk, a cavern, where there sat,beside a bright lantern, a little woman who might have been more than ahundred years old.
She put on her spectacles the better to look at the stranger, and henoticed that her nose was so small that the spectacles would hardlystay on; then the prince and the fairy--for she was a fairy--burst intolaughter.
"What a funny nose!" cried the one.
"Not so funny as yours, madam," returned the other. "But pray let usleave our noses alone, and be good enough to give me something to eat,for I am dying with hunger, and so is my poor horse."
"With all my heart," answered the fairy. "Although your nose isridiculously long, you are no less the son of one of my best friends. Iloved your father like a brother; he had a very handsome nose."
"What is wanting to my nose?" asked Wish rather savagely.
"Oh! nothing at all. On the contrary, there is a great deal too much ofit; but never mind, one may be a very honest man, and yet have too big anose. As I said, I was a great friend of your father's; he came often tosee me. I was very pretty then, and oftentimes he used to say to me, 'Mysister----'"
"I will hear the rest, madam, with pleasure, when I have supped; butwill you condescend to remember that I have tasted nothing all day?"
"Poor boy," said the fairy, "I will give you some supper directly; andwhile you eat it I will tell you my history in six words, for I hatemuch talking. A long tongue is as insupportable as a long nose; and Iremember when I was young how much I used to be admired because I wasnot a talker; indeed, some one said to the queen my mother--for poor asyou see me now, I am the daughter of a great king, who always----"
"Ate when he was hungry, I hope," interrupted the prince, whose patiencewas fast departing.
"You are right," said the imperturbable old fairy; "and I will bringyou your supper directly, only I wish first just to say that the king myfather----"
"H
ang the king your father!" Prince Wish was about to exclaim, but hestopped himself, and only observed that however the pleasure of herconversation might make him forget his hunger, it could not have thesame effect upon his horse, who was really starving.
The fairy, pleased at his civility, called her servants and bade themsupply him at once with all he needed. "And," added she, "I must say youare very polite and very good-tempered, in spite of your nose."
"What has the old woman to do with my nose?" thought the prince. "If Iwere not so very hungry, I would soon show her what she is--a regularold gossip and chatterbox. She to fancy she talks little, indeed! Onemust be very foolish not to know one's own defects. This comes of beingborn a princess. Flatterers have spoiled her and persuaded her that shetalks little. Little, indeed! I never knew anybody chatter so much."
While the prince thus meditated, the servants were laying the table,the fairy asking them a hundred unnecessary questions, simply for thepleasure of hearing herself talk. "Well," thought Wish, "I am delightedthat I came hither, if only to learn how wise I have been in neverlistening to flatterers, who hide from us our faults, or make us believethey are perfections. But they could never deceive me. I know all my ownweak points, I trust." As truly he believed he did.
So he went on eating contentedly, nor stopped till the old fairy beganto address him.
"Prince," said she, "will you be kind enough to turn a little? Your nosecasts such a shadow that I cannot see what is on my plate. And, as I wassaying, your father admired me and always made me welcome at court. Whatis the court etiquette there now? Do the ladies still go to assemblies,promenades, balls?--I beg your pardon for laughing, but how very longyour nose is."
"I wish you would cease to speak of my nose," said the prince, becomingannoyed. "It is what it is, and I do not desire it any shorter."
"Oh! I see that I have vexed you," returned the fairy. "Nevertheless,I am one of your best friends, and so I shall take the liberty ofalways----" She would doubtless have gone on talking till midnight; butthe prince, unable to bear it any longer, here interrupted her, thankedher for her hospitality, bade her a hasty adieu, and rode away.
He traveled for a long time, half over the world, but he heard no newsof Princess Darling. However, in each place he went to, he heard oneremarkable fact--the great length of his own nose. The little boys inthe streets jeered at him, the peasants stared at him, and the morepolite ladies and gentlemen whom he met in society used to try in vainto keep from laughing, and to get out of his way as soon as they could.So the poor prince became gradually quite forlorn and solitary; hethought all the world was mad, but still he never thought of there beinganything queer about his own nose. At last the old fairy, who, thoughshe was a chatterbox, was very good-natured; saw that he was almostbreaking his heart. She felt sorry for him and wished to help him inspite of himself, for she knew the enchantment which hid from him thePrincess Darling could never be broken till he had discovered his owndefect. So she went in search of the princess, and being more powerfulthan the magician, since she was a good fairy and he was an evilmagician, she got her away from him and shut her up in a palace ofcrystal, which she placed on the road which Prince Wish had to pass.
He was riding along, very melancholy, when he saw the palace; and at itsentrance was a room, made of the purest glass, in which sat his belovedprincess, smiling and beautiful as ever. He leaped from his horse andran toward her. She held out her hand for him to kiss, but he couldnot get at it for the glass. Transported with eagerness and delight, hedashed his sword through the crystal and succeeded in breaking a smallopening, to which she put up her beautiful rosy mouth. But it was invain; Prince Wish could not approach it. He twisted his neck about, andturned his head on all sides, till at length, putting up his hand to hisface, he discovered the impediment.
"It must be confessed," exclaimed he, "that my nose is too long."
That moment the glass walls all split asunder, and the old fairyappeared, leading Princess Darling.
"Avow, prince," said she, "that you are very much obliged to me, for nowthe enchantment is ended. You may marry the object of your choice. But,"added she, smiling, "I fear I might have talked to you forever on thesubject of your nose, and you would not have believed me in its length,till it became an obstacle to your own inclinations. Now behold it!" andshe held up a crystal mirror. "Are you satisfied to be no different fromother people?"
"Perfectly," said Prince Wish, who found his nose had shrunk to anordinary length. And taking the Princess Darling by the hand, he kissedher courteously, affectionately, and satisfactorily. Then they departedto their own country, and lived very happily all their days.