|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
V.
The wise woman walked straight up to the hearth, looked at the fire,
looked at the bed, glanced round the room, and went up to the table.
When she saw the one streak in the thick dust which the princess had
left there, a smile, half sad, half pleased, like the sun peeping
through a cloud on a rainy day in spring, gleamed over her face. She
went at once to the door, and called in a loud voice,
"Rosamond, come to me."
All the wolves and hyenas, fast asleep in the wood, heard her voice,
and shivered in their dreams. No wonder then that the princess
trembled, and found herself compelled, she could not understand how,
to obey the summons. She rose, like the guilty thing she felt,
forsook of herself the hiding-place she had chosen, and walked
slowly back to the cottage she had left full of the signs of her
shame. When she entered, she saw the wise woman on her knees,
building up the fire with fir-cones. Already the flame was climbing
through the heap in all directions, crackling gently, and sending a
sweet aromatic odor through the dusty cottage.
"That is my part of the work," she said, rising. "Now you do yours.
But first let me remind you that if you had not put it off, you
would have found it not only far easier, but by and by quite
pleasant work, much more pleasant than you can imagine now; nor
would you have found the time go wearily: you would neither have
slept in the day and let the fire out, nor waked at night and heard
the howling of the beast-birds. More than all, you would have been
glad to see me when I came back; and would have leaped into my arms
instead of standing there, looking so ugly and foolish."
As she spoke, suddenly she held up before the princess a tiny
mirror, so clear that nobody looking into it could tell what it was
made of, or even see it at all--only the thing reflected in it.
Rosamond saw a child with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly
eyes--which, not daring to look forward, seemed trying to hide
behind an impertinent nose--stooping shoulders, tangled hair,
tattered clothes, and smears and stains everywhere. That was what
she had made herself. And to tell the truth, she was shocked at the
sight, and immediately began, in her dirty heart, to lay the blame
on the wise woman, because she had taken her away from her nurses
and her fine clothes; while all the time she knew well enough that,
close by the heather-bed, was the loveliest little well, just big
enough to wash in, the water of which was always springing fresh
from the ground, and running away through the wall. Beside it lay
the whitest of linen towels, with a comb made of mother-of-pearl,
and a brush of fir-needles, any one of which she had been far too
lazy to use. She dashed the glass out of the wise woman's hand, and
there it lay, broken into a thousand pieces!
Without a word, the wise woman stooped, and gathered the
fragments--did not leave searching until she had gathered the last
atom, and she laid them all carefully, one by one, in the fire, now
blazing high on the hearth. Then she stood up and looked at the
princess, who had been watching her sulkily.
"Rosamond," she said, with a countenance awful in its sternness,
"until you have cleansed this room--"
"She calls it a room!" sneered the princess to herself.
"You shall have no morsel to eat. You may drink of the well, but
nothing else you shall have. When the work I set you is done, you
will find food in the same place as before. I am going from home
again; and again I warn you not to leave the house."
"She calls it a house!--It's a good thing she's going out of it
anyhow!" said the princess, turning her back for mere rudeness, for
she was one who, even if she liked a thing before, would dislike it
the moment any person in authority over her desired her to do it.
When she looked again, the wise woman had vanished.
Thereupon the princess ran at once to the door, and tried to open
it; but open it would not. She searched on all sides, but could
discover no way of getting out. The windows would not open--at least
she could not open them; and the only outlet seemed the chimney,
which she was afraid to try because of the fire, which looked angry,
she thought, and shot out green flames when she went near it. So she
sat down to consider. One may well wonder what room for
consideration there was--with all her work lying undone behind her.
She sat thus, however, considering, as she called it, until hunger
began to sting her, when she jumped up and put her hand as usual in
the hole of the wall: there was nothing there. She fell straight
into one of her stupid rages; but neither her hunger nor the hole in
the wall heeded her rage. Then, in a burst of self-pity, she fell
a-weeping, but neither the hunger nor the hole cared for her tears.
The darkness began to come on, and her hunger grew and grew, and the
terror of the wild noises of the last night invaded her. Then she
began to feel cold, and saw that the fire was dying. She darted to
the heap of cones, and fed it. It blazed up cheerily, and she was
comforted a little. Then she thought with herself it would surely be
better to give in so far, and do a little work, than die of hunger.
So catching up a duster, she began upon the table. The dust flew
about and nearly choked her. She ran to the well to drink, and was
refreshed and encouraged. Perceiving now that it was a tedious plan
to wipe the dust from the table on to the floor, whence it would
have all to be swept up again, she got a wooden platter, wiped the
dust into that, carried it to the fire, and threw it in. But all the
time she was getting more and more hungry and, although she tried
the hole again and again, it was only to become more and more
certain that work she must if she would eat.
At length all the furniture was dusted, and she began to sweep the
floor, which happily, she thought of sprinkling with water, as from
the window she had seen them do to the marble court of the palace.
That swept, she rushed again to the hole--but still no food! She was
on the verge of another rage, when the thought came that she might
have forgotten something. To her dismay she found that table and
chairs and every thing was again covered with dust--not so badly as
before, however. Again she set to work, driven by hunger, and drawn
by the hope of eating, and yet again, after a second careful wiping,
sought the hole. But no! nothing was there for her! What could it
mean?
Her asking this question was a sign of progress: it showed that she
expected the wise woman to keep her word. Then she bethought her
that she had forgotten the household utensils, and the dishes and
plates, some of which wanted to be washed as well as dusted.
Faint with hunger, she set to work yet again. One thing made her
think of another, until at length she had cleaned every thing she
could think of. Now surely she must find some food in the hole!
When this time also there was nothing, she began once more to abuse
the wise woman as false and treacherous;--but ah! there was the bed
unwatered! That was soon amended.--Still no supper! Ah! there was
the hearth unswept, and the fire wanted making up!--Still no
supper! What else could there be? She was at her wits' end, and in
very weariness, not laziness this time, sat down and gazed into the
fire. There, as she gazed, she spied something brilliant,--shining
even, in the midst of the fire: it was the little mirror all whole
again; but little she knew that the dust which she had thrown into
the fire had helped to heal it. She drew it out carefully, and,
looking into it, saw, not indeed the ugly creature she had seen
there before, but still a very dirty little animal; whereupon she
hurried to the well, took off her clothes, plunged into it, and
washed herself clean. Then she brushed and combed her hair, made her
clothes as tidy as might be, and ran to the hole in the wall: there
was a huge basin of bread and milk!
Never had she eaten any thing with half the relish! Alas! however,
when she had finished, she did not wash the basin, but left it as it
was, revealing how entirely all the rest had been done only from
hunger. Then she threw herself on the heather, and was fast asleep
in a moment. Never an evil bird came near her all that night, nor
had she so much as one troubled dream.
In the morning as she lay awake before getting up, she spied what
seemed a door behind the tall eight-day clock that stood silent in
the corner.
"Ah!" she thought, "that must be the way out!" and got up instantly.
The first thing she did, however, was to go to the hole in the wall.
Nothing was there.
"Well, I am hardly used!" she cried aloud. "All that cleaning for
the cross old woman yesterday, and this for my trouble,--nothing for
breakfast! Not even a crust of bread! Does Mistress Ogress fancy a
princess will bear that?"
The poor foolish creature seemed to think that the work of one day
ought to serve for the next day too! But that is nowhere the way in
the whole universe. How could there be a universe in that case? And
even she never dreamed of applying the same rule to her breakfast.
"How good I was all yesterday!" she said, "and how hungry and ill
used I am to-day!"
But she would NOT be a slave, and do over again to-day what she had
done only last night! SHE didn't care about her breakfast! She might
have it no doubt if she dusted all the wretched place again, but she
was not going to do that--at least, without seeing first what lay
behind the clock!
Off she darted, and putting her hand behind the clock found the
latch of a door. It lifted, and the door opened a little way. By
squeezing hard, she managed to get behind the clock, and so through
the door. But how she stared, when instead of the open heath, she
found herself on the marble floor of a large and stately room,
lighted only from above. Its walls were strengthened by pilasters,
and in every space between was a large picture, from cornice to
floor. She did not know what to make of it. Surely she had run all
round the cottage, and certainly had seen nothing of this size near
it! She forgot that she had also run round what she took for a
hay-mow, a peat-stack, and several other things which looked of no
consequence in the moonlight.
"So, then," she cried, "the old woman IS a cheat! I believe she's an
ogress, after all, and lives in a palace--though she pretends it's
only a cottage, to keep people from suspecting that she eats good
little children like me!"
Had the princess been tolerably tractable, she would, by this time,
have known a good deal about the wise woman's beautiful house,
whereas she had never till now got farther than the porch. Neither
was she at all in its innermost places now.
But, king's daughter as she was, she was not a little daunted when,
stepping forward from the recess of the door, she saw what a great
lordly hall it was. She dared hardly look to the other end, it
seemed so far off: so she began to gaze at the things near her, and
the pictures first of all, for she had a great liking for pictures.
One in particular attracted her attention. She came back to it
several times, and at length stood absorbed in it.
A blue summer sky, with white fleecy clouds floating beneath it,
hung over a hill green to the very top, and alive with streams
darting down its sides toward the valley below. On the face of the
hill strayed a flock of sheep feeding, attended by a shepherd and
two dogs. A little way apart, a girl stood with bare feet in a
brook, building across it a bridge of rough stones. The wind was
blowing her hair back from her rosy face. A lamb was feeding close
beside her; and a sheepdog was trying to reach her hand to lick it.
"Oh, how I wish I were that little girl!" said the princess aloud.
"I wonder how it is that some people are made to be so much happier
than others! If I were that little girl, no one would ever call me
naughty."
She gazed and gazed at the picture. At length she said to herself,
"I do not believe it is a picture. It is the real country, with a
real hill, and a real little girl upon it. I shall soon see whether
this isn't another of the old witch's cheats!"
She went close up to the picture, lifted her foot, and stepped over
the frame.
"I am free, I am free!" she exclaimed; and she felt the wind upon
her cheek.
The sound of a closing door struck on her ear. She turned--and there
was a blank wall, without door or window, behind her. The hill with
the sheep was before her, and she set out at once to reach it.
Now, if I am asked how this could be, I can only answer, that it was
a result of the interaction of things outside and things inside, of
the wise woman's skill, and the silly child's folly. If this does
not satisfy my questioner, I can only add, that the wise woman was
able to do far more wonderful things than this.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|