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VII.
Notwithstanding the differences between the two girls, which were,
indeed, so many that most people would have said they were not in
the least alike, they were the same in this, that each cared more
for her own fancies and desires than for any thing else in the
world. But I will tell you another difference: the princess was like
several children in one--such was the variety of her moods; and in
one mood she had no recollection or care about any thing whatever
belonging to a previous mood--not even if it had left her but a
moment before, and had been so violent as to make her ready to put
her hand in the fire to get what she wanted. Plainly she was the
mere puppet of her moods, and more than that, any cunning nurse who
knew her well enough could call or send away those moods almost as
she pleased, like a showman pulling strings behind a show. Agnes, on
the contrary, seldom changed her mood, but kept that of calm assured
self-satisfaction. Father nor mother had ever by wise punishment
helped her to gain a victory over herself, and do what she did not
like or choose; and their folly in reasoning with one unreasonable
had fixed her in her conceit. She would actually nod her head to
herself in complacent pride that she had stood out against them.
This, however, was not so difficult as to justify even the pride of
having conquered, seeing she loved them so little, and paid so
little attention to the arguments and persuasions they used.
Neither, when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the
wise woman's cloak, did she behave in the least like the princess,
for she was not afraid. "She'll soon set me down," she said, too
self-important to suppose that any one would dare do her an injury.
Whether it be a good thing or a bad not to be afraid depends on what
the fearlessness is founded upon. Some have no fear, because they
have no knowledge of the danger: there is nothing fine in that. Some
are too stupid to be afraid: there is nothing fine in that. Some who
are not easily frightened would yet turn their backs and run, the
moment they were frightened: such never had more courage than fear.
But the man who will do his work in spite of his fear is a man of
true courage. The fearlessness of Agnes was only ignorance: she did
not know what it was to be hurt; she had never read a single story
of giant, or ogress or wolf; and her mother had never carried out
one of her threats of punishment. If the wise woman had but pinched
her, she would have shown herself an abject little coward, trembling
with fear at every change of motion so long as she carried her.
Nothing such, however, was in the wise woman's plan for the curing
of her. On and on she carried her without a word. She knew that if
she set her down she would never run after her like the princess, at
least not before the evil thing was already upon her. On and on she
went, never halting, never letting the light look in, or Agnes look
out. She walked very fast, and got home to her cottage very soon
after the princess had gone from it.
But she did not set Agnes down either in the cottage or in the great
hall. She had other places, none of them alike. The place she had
chosen for Agnes was a strange one--such a one as is to be found
nowhere else in the wide world.
It was a great hollow sphere, made of a substance similar to that of
the mirror which Rosamond had broken, but differently compounded.
That substance no one could see by itself. It had neither door, nor
window, nor any opening to break its perfect roundness.
The wise woman carried Agnes into a dark room, there undressed her,
took from her hand her knitting-needles, and put her, naked as she
was born, into the hollow sphere.
What sort of a place it was she could not tell. She could see
nothing but a faint cold bluish light all about her. She could not
feel that any thing supported her, and yet she did not sink. She
stood for a while, perfectly calm, then sat down. Nothing bad could
happen to HER--she was so important! And, indeed, it was but this:
she had cared only for Somebody, and now she was going to have only
Somebody. Her own choice was going to be carried a good deal farther
for her than she would have knowingly carried it for herself.
After sitting a while, she wished she had something to do, but
nothing came. A little longer, and it grew wearisome. She would see
whether she could not walk out of the strange luminous dusk that
surrounded her.
Walk she found she could, well enough, but walk out she could not.
On and on she went, keeping as much in a straight line as she might,
but after walking until she was thoroughly tired, she found herself
no nearer out of her prison than before. She had not, indeed,
advanced a single step; for, in whatever direction she tried to go,
the sphere turned round and round, answering her feet accordingly.
Like a squirrel in his cage she but kept placing another spot of the
cunningly suspended sphere under her feet, and she would have been
still only at its lowest point after walking for ages.
At length she cried aloud; but there was no answer. It grew dreary
and drearier--in her, that is: outside there was no change. Nothing
was overhead, nothing under foot, nothing on either hand, but the
same pale, faint, bluish glimmer. She wept at last, then grew very
angry, and then sullen; but nobody heeded whether she cried or
laughed. It was all the same to the cold unmoving twilight that
rounded her. On and on went the dreary hours--or did they go at
all?--"no change, no pause, no hope;"--on and on till she FELT she
was forgotten, and then she grew strangely still and fell asleep.
The moment she was asleep, the wise woman came, lifted her out, and
laid her in her bosom; fed her with a wonderful milk, which she
received without knowing it; nursed her all the night long, and,
just ere she woke, laid her back in the blue sphere again.
When first she came to herself, she thought the horrors of the
preceding day had been all a dream of the night. But they soon
asserted themselves as facts, for here they were!--nothing to see
but a cold blue light, and nothing to do but see it. Oh, how slowly
the hours went by! She lost all notion of time. If she had been told
that she had been there twenty years, she would have believed it--or
twenty minutes--it would have been all the same: except for
weariness, time was for her no more.
Another night came, and another still, during both of which the wise
woman nursed and fed her. But she knew nothing of that, and the same
one dreary day seemed ever brooding over her.
All at once, on the third day, she was aware that a naked child was
seated beside her. But there was something about the child that made
her shudder. She never looked at Agnes, but sat with her chin sunk
on her chest, and her eyes staring at her own toes. She was the
color of pale earth, with a pinched nose, and a mere slit in her
face for a mouth.
"How ugly she is!" thought Agnes. "What business has she beside me!"
But it was so lonely that she would have been glad to play with a
serpent, and put out her hand to touch her. She touched nothing. The
child, also, put out her hand--but in the direction away from Agnes.
And that was well, for if she had touched Agnes it would have killed
her. Then Agnes said, "Who are you?" And the little girl said, "Who
are you?" "I am Agnes," said Agnes; and the little girl said, "I am
Agnes." Then Agnes thought she was mocking her, and said, "You are
ugly;" and the little girl said, "You are ugly."
Then Agnes lost her temper, and put out her hands to seize the
little girl; but lo! the little girl was gone, and she found herself
tugging at her own hair. She let go; and there was the little girl
again! Agnes was furious now, and flew at her to bite her. But she
found her teeth in her own arm, and the little girl was gone--only
to return again; and each time she came back she was tenfold uglier
than before. And now Agnes hated her with her whole heart.
The moment she hated her, it flashed upon her with a sickening
disgust that the child was not another, but her Self, her Somebody,
and that she was now shut up with her for ever and ever--no more for
one moment ever to be alone. In her agony of despair, sleep
descended, and she slept.
When she woke, there was the little girl, heedless, ugly, miserable,
staring at her own toes. All at once, the creature began to smile,
but with such an odious, self-satisfied expression, that Agnes felt
ashamed of seeing her. Then she began to pat her own cheeks, to
stroke her own body, and examine her finger-ends, nodding her head
with satisfaction. Agnes felt that there could not be such another
hateful, ape-like creature, and at the same time was perfectly aware
she was only doing outside of her what she herself had been doing,
as long as she could remember, inside of her.
She turned sick at herself, and would gladly have been put out of
existence, but for three days the odious companionship went on. By
the third day, Agnes was not merely sick but ashamed of the life she
had hitherto led, was despicable in her own eyes, and astonished
that she had never seen the truth concerning herself before.
The next morning she woke in the arms of the wise woman; the horror
had vanished from her sight, and two heavenly eyes were gazing upon
her. She wept and clung to her, and the more she clung, the more
tenderly did the great strong arms close around her.
When she had lain thus for a while, the wise woman carried her into
her cottage, and washed her in the little well; then dressed her in
clean garments, and gave her bread and milk. When she had eaten it,
she called her to her, and said very solemnly,--
"Agnes, you must not imagine you are cured. That you are ashamed of
yourself now is no sign that the cause for such shame has ceased. In
new circumstances, especially after you have done well for a while,
you will be in danger of thinking just as much of yourself as
before. So beware of yourself. I am going from home, and leave you
in charge of the house. Do just as I tell you till my return."
She then gave her the same directions she had formerly given
Rosamond--with this difference, that she told her to go into the
picture-hall when she pleased, showing her the entrance, against
which the clock no longer stood--and went away, closing the door
behind her.
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