“THE STORY OF ALB THE UNICORN.”
You must know (said the young man to me) that I am called Alb the Fortunate. I was born in the Island Kingdom, far out in the Great Sea, the only son of a rich goldsmith. I lived with my parents, by whom I was tenderly loved, in the principal city of that kingdom, in which city, on a height overlooking the island, stood the castle of the King.
Alb the Fortunate and the Princess Hyla
My father, whose skill in his art had caused him to be valued highly by the King, was a familiar figure at the castle, and I had there, in company with my mother, become acquainted with the young Princess Hyla, the King’s only child, a beautiful and amiable girl some two years younger than myself. We were even permitted to play together in the gardens of the castle, for the King was in no wise proud, but on the contrary made a point of treating his subjects with a friendliness which endeared him to them all. I need hardly tell you that from the earliest moment I knew that I loved the little Princess.
I grew thus in time to be twelve years old. Although my parents had done for me all that love could devise and money could effect, I had caused them much uneasiness. My disposition was unnaturally gloomy; I scarcely ever smiled; my mind was filled with terrors, I knew not why; I would sit for hours in moody silence; the games of other boys did not amuse me; and I would find myself at times weeping bitterly, for no reason whatever.
All that my parents could do to divert me availed nothing; I continued to be a misery to myself and to them. They feared for my health; their wealth no longer gave them any pleasure; and an atmosphere of gloom settled down upon their house. Sometimes my mother would look mournfully into my eyes while she smoothed back the yellow hair from my forehead; and I knew that she would willingly have given all that she had to make me happy.
On my twelfth birthday it chanced that I was in my father’s shop, alone. My mother had gone into the back room, and my father was absent, for the day, at the residence of a distant client. I had been trying all that morning to find some occupation to amuse me, but without success; I had finally given myself up to a restless and discontented idleness; and at the moment I was examining in my hand, without much interest, a long chain, of extremely fine gold and delicate workmanship, which I had picked up from one of the cabinets in the shop. I was in the act of placing it back in its case, wondering what I should do next, when a strange figure entered the door from the street, and approached me.
A Tattered Old Beggar Comes to the Goldsmith’s Shop
It was an old man, evidently a beggar, a huge man, fat and heavy, his face covered by a gray beard which hung to his waist, and his eyes, which were very bright, almost hidden by shaggy eyebrows,—the longest eyebrows I had ever seen on any human being. A ragged tunic of brown, belted around the middle, hung scantily to his knees; a battered felt hat flapped over his forehead; and in his hand he carried, for a staff, what seemed to be a yardstick, such as tailors use. From his belt hung a pair of large shears, also of the sort used by tailors. A queer tailor! thought I.
“Good morning, master Melancholy,” said he, “have you a mind for trade this morning?”
The idea of this poor creature’s pretending to be a customer at such a shop as ours was too absurd. I could not restrain a little toss of the head.
“There is something here,” said the old beggar, “which I wish to buy”
“So?” said the old man. “Is that what you think? Nevertheless, there is something here which I wish to buy.” He looked around the shop. “I wish to buy a chain, a gold one; and I see none that pleases me so much as the one you are holding behind your back. Will you sell it?”
I was astonished that he should have discovered the chain, which I could have sworn was hidden from his eyes. I drew it forth and held it up.
“Be so good as to let me see it,” said the old man; and at the same time he took it from me, before I could snatch it away.
“What may the price be, my young merchant?” said he.
I was trembling with anxiety, but I thought it best to end the whole matter by naming the price, which I found on the card which remained in the cabinet.
While I hesitated, the horrid creature gazed at me with his glittering eyes through his tangled eyebrows, and ran his fingers down his beard like a comb.
“The price,” I said, “is four thousand gold florins. Now please give me back the chain.”
“The price is high,” said the old man, “but I will take it.”
“Then give me the money,” said I.
“Money?” said he, with an air of great surprise. “Money? But I have no money.”
“Then how are you going to buy the chain?” said I. “Give it back to me.”
“I will buy it, nevertheless,” said he. “I will give you what is better than money.”
“What is that?” said I, suspiciously.
“I will give you,” said he, “whatever you would like best in the world.”
“Then give me back the chain.”
“Think!” said he. “What would you like best in all the world, for your very self?”
“Nothing,” I said, ready to cry. “I want the chain back. If you don’t give it to me,” I said, angrily, “I will call my mother.”
“With all the pleasure in the world,” said the impudent old rascal.
I was now ready to cry in good earnest.
The Old Man Proposes a Strange Bargain
“But I advise you to listen to me, my young friend,” went on the dreadful creature. “You may make a wish, if you will; and if you don’t, I will. If I keep the chain, you shall make the wish; if you keep the chain, I will make it; but I warn you, if I make the wish, I shall wish you harm! Such harm that you would rather be dead than alive! Come now, will you sell me the chain for a wish?”
“I can’t,” I said, “I can’t.” And I began to cry.
“Then you would like to be crippled all your life? To find vipers in your bed every night? To see the Princess run away from the sight of you? To suffer a sharp pain in your ears, to have all your drink turn to—”
“No, no!” I cried. “Please don’t, please don’t!”
“Then you had better sell me the chain. What would you like best in the world?”
“Oh, I want to be happy! I want to be happy! I’m so miserable!”
“You really wish to be happy?”
“Oh, yes! If I could only be happy, always happy!”
“Think well. I can grant you that wish, if you really wish it.”
“I wish I could be happy, always happy!”
“The wish is granted. You shall be happy; after this day you shall be nothing but happy, always. It is done. The chain is mine.”
“Oh, please! If you will only wait one moment! Just one! I must call my mother!”
I ran to the door of the back room, and called my mother. She came at once, alarmed by my outcry. Together we turned back into the shop, toward the spot where I had left the old man. He was gone.
I dragged my mother to the shop door, and we looked up and down the street. There was no sign of him. I ran from one corner to the other. He was nowhere in sight. I returned to my mother and threw myself on her breast and wept.
“The chain!” I sobbed. “It is gone!”
While she tried to comfort me I told her the story. She wrung her hands. “What will your father say?”
That evening, when my father heard what had happened, he was very angry. He was a kind man, but he scolded me so severely that I crept up to bed weeping, without any supper. I had never been so miserable. I cried myself to sleep.
When I awoke in the morning, sunshine was streaming in through the window. I sprang out of bed. A fat sparrow was hopping on the window sill, and when he saw me he cocked his head at me in the jolliest manner possible. I whistled to him, and laughed after him as he flew away.
While I was dressing, and humming a tune the while, I suddenly remembered that I had gone to bed in tears for the loss of my father’s golden chain; but I laughed as I thought of it, for the loss seemed pitifully small, and my father’s anger over it was quite ridiculous. I went on with my tune, and stood before the mirror with a hairbrush in my hand. I began to brush my hair; and I cannot deny that as I looked at its yellow and somewhat curly abundance I thought of the Princess with complacency.
Now it happened that the most serious work of my life, on which I had then been engaged for more than six months, had been the training of my hair to lie in a flat sweep backward from my forehead. I had devoted much patient labor to this work; it required that I should wear on my head all day a tight skullcap, and I even suffered to the extent of wearing it in bed at night, when I could do so without my mother’s knowledge. I now shook my hair from my forehead with a quick backward toss of the head, in a manner which always made my father look at me in alarm, and proceeded to brush it straight back with vigorous strokes of the brush.
The Three Black Hairs in the Yellow Head
I was in the act of applying a small quantity of dry soap, when I looked at my yellow head in the mirror a trifle more attentively. My gaze became fixed; and as I held my head close to the glass I was astonished to see there, among the yellow strands, three coarse black hairs, very distinct, one in the middle and one on either side.
They did not suit me very well, and I accordingly, with some trouble, plucked each of them out by the root.
Before leaving the room, I gave a final glance of satisfaction at myself in the mirror, and a final touch of the brush to my hair. I stopped suddenly, fixed with astonishment; the three long, coarse black hairs, which I had but a few moments before plucked away, lay there as before, one in the middle of my head and one on either side.
I could not understand it in the least, but after all, what did it matter? I could not allow myself to be bothered by such a trifle. I ran downstairs singing merrily.
At breakfast, I found myself prattling of a thousand things, and I was surprised to remark the confusion with which my parents received my sallies. In the midst of my talk, my mother whispered with sudden excitement into my father’s ear; I did not hear what she said, but I saw his eyebrows rise and heard him blow out his lips in a long-drawn “O-oh!” as if a light had dawned on him. And after that they responded gayly to my chatter, and we had altogether the merriest meal we had ever had in our lives.
After breakfast I accompanied my father to the castle, where I sought out the Princess Hyla, and found her weeping beside one of the fountains in the garden, because her ball had fallen into the water which filled the wide marble basin. I laughed at her, for she did seem comical enough. She stamped her foot angrily at me, but this only made me laugh the more. I jumped into the pool and brought back the ball. She looked at me as if in bewilderment, and cried, “What are you laughing at? Are you crazy?” Far from being offended, I laughed more merrily than before.
The King was much pleased with my little service to the Princess, and after our departure my father assured me that I had advanced markedly in the King’s regard. Everything, in short, was going well.
From that day, my unfailing spirits rejoiced my parents more and more as time went by; their house rang with my merriment; my mother became more youthful in appearance; and as I grew older I became known throughout our city for the brightness of my face and the liveliness of my talk, and I was everywhere in demand. It is true that the three long black hairs continued in their places on my head, and my mother looked at them at times, as it seemed to me, with uneasiness; but I laughed at her; and although I sometimes plucked these hairs from my head, I did so only for the amusement of seeing them reappear in their places as before.
Alb Wins the Promise of the Princess’s Hand
When I was sixteen years of age, a circumstance befell which I was able to turn to good account. The Princess Hyla one night unaccountably disappeared. The King was strangely disturbed by this incident, and though I could not quite understand the reason for so much perturbation, I resolved to rescue the Princess and restore her to her father’s arms, if I could. This I was able to do, in the course of a very singular adventure, and in reward the King promised me her hand in marriage. I will now relate to you, if you wish it, the adventure by which I rescued the Princess from the strange fate which involved her; it is the adventure, as I may call it, of
THE RAGPICKER AND THE PRINCESS
It happened (said Alb the Fortunate) that the King, with his daughter, sojourned for a time at his castle of Ventamere, beside the Great Sea; and my father and myself, being lodged in the town hard by,—
“On second thoughts,” said Solario, interrupting himself, “I will not relate this tale just now. It is too long. It will be better to go on with—”
“But we’d like to hear it now,” said Bojohn.
“No,” said Solario, firmly, “it will be much better to tell it some other time.”
Thus (said Alb, when he had finished the story of his adventure), I restored the Princess, with the assistance of the One-Armed Sorcerer whom I have mentioned, and in gratitude the King took the One-Armed Sorcerer to dwell with him in his castle in our own city, and promised to me the hand of the Princess in marriage when I should come of age. Truly things were going well with me.
A Trifling Incident Disturbs Alb’s Mother
Some two years later, when I was just past my eighteenth birthday, an incident occurred in our household which caused my mother much disturbance. My father died. He had left the house on horseback in the morning, for a journey to the country on a matter pertaining to his business. In the evening, after the shop was closed, a loud knock brought my mother and myself to the door in haste. A crowd was gathered at the entrance, and on a litter carried by two men lay my father’s body; and in this manner he was borne into the shop. His horse had thrown him and his neck was broken.
My mother threw herself upon him and wailed. She tried to arouse him; she talked to him as if he were alive; she even went so far as to try to call him back to life. I was at first greatly astonished at her behavior, and then it struck me as being excessively ridiculous. To think of trying to call back the dead to life! It was highly amusing. I felt a tide of merriment rising within me. I laughed.
I have never seen on any human being’s face the look of horror which my mother turned on me when she heard my laugh. She crouched away from me in fear. Her sobbing ceased, and her eyes remained fixed on me; they grew wider and wider; I began to wonder how long they could stare so without winking. I glanced at the others in the room, and was surprised to see that no one else even so much as smiled. It was useless to remain longer in a company so dead to the brighter things of life. I controlled my good humor and composed my features, and patted my mother affectionately on the shoulder; but she recoiled from my touch; and without appearing to take her inconsiderate behavior in ill part in the least, I left the room.
Unreasonable Conduct of the Goldsmith’s Widow
It astonished me afterward to observe that my mother met my customary gayety with coldness, for she had always seemed to take great pleasure in it. She grew very gloomy indeed. I could not discover any reason for it, but I did what I could to cheer her by my own liveliness. For some reason or other, my father’s death appeared to have a depressing effect on her. I made my jokes and sang my songs as usual, but she reached such a state in a few months that she would scarcely speak to me, but on the contrary spent most of her time in her room, alone.
I noticed, in the course of time, a slight change in the manner of my customers and friends. The former transacted their business briefly, without an unnecessary word; and the latter appeared to avoid me, as if they scarcely wished to know me any longer. It was very amusing.
In less than a year after my father’s death, my mother died. It was thought by some that my father’s death had something to do with her decline, but how that could be I never could understand.
The Merrymakers Are Suddenly Sobered
The night of the day on which she died was the night fixed for a feast at the house of one of my friends. After looking for a moment into the room where she lay, I dressed myself carefully for the occasion, and found myself thrilled with pleasant anticipation.
A large and merry company met at table at my friend’s house; I talked in my best manner; and whatever coldness I might have observed before was dispelled in the general gayety. Toward the close of the banquet, I chanced to remark across the table that my mother had that day died. The effect of this remark was astonishing. As it passed from one to another, silence fell upon the company.
I wondered if I had made some blunder. I endeavored in vain to relieve the awkwardness of the moment by changing the subject and commencing a story with which I had never failed to provoke a laugh; but in this case it provoked not so much as a smile; I was absolutely perplexed. The party soon broke up in what appeared to be confusion, and I went home to enjoy in my own room the recollection of those lugubrious faces.
When I was twenty-one, I was married to the Princess, and thenceforth the castle was my home. I sold the business which my father had left me, and settled down to a life of unbounded bliss with my dear Hyla, whom as a wife I found even more adorable than I had dreamed.
I became the life of the castle. The faces of my new acquaintances always brightened in my company; I was the only one in that glittering society who never knew a dull or uneasy moment; my presence was like a ray of sunshine in the court.
I noticed after a while that the Princess, my wife, began to respond to my constant gayety more carelessly; at times she would sit and look at me wonderingly, I knew not why.
One day she asked me to accompany her on a little excursion in the city. She did not tell me where she meant to go, but I asked nothing; it was enough to be with her. I could not conceal my surprise, however, when she stopped our carriage at the entrance to the city’s poorest quarter; but I had no doubt she had planned some pleasant diversion, and I followed her, talking in my liveliest manner all the while. She herself was quite silent.
She led me from one hovel to another, for more than an hour. In one we saw a sick child lying on a pallet of straw on a dirt floor, and around him his mother and sisters and brothers, all weeping absurdly; I rallied the mother on it in the pleasantest way possible, but she did not take it in very good part. In another we found an old man, blind and alone, without food and without wife or child, talking to himself in a gibberish which was truly laughable; I tried, for sport, to talk to him in the same sort of gibberish, but though it was excellent sport, I saw that for some reason or other it did not amuse my wife, so I led her away. In another place we saw a man who was evidently overcome by wine, and who appeared to be in terror of certain vipers and spiders which, as I ascertained, existed nowhere but in his own imagination. This man was the prize of the whole collection; I amused myself with him for a long time; and I was altogether so greatly diverted that the Princess had some difficulty in dragging me away.
On the way home, I commented on what we had seen with a drollery which I had thought sufficient to draw a smile from a stone; but the Princess was unmoved; she sat in stony silence, and when we reached the castle she went at once to her room, and I saw her no more that day.
Not long afterward, a beautiful boy was born to us; and in course of time he grew to be the finest child of his age in the Island Kingdom; there were many who said so, even to his mother.
He was two years of age, when on a certain day in summer his mother sent him into the gardens with a nurse, while she remained with me in conversation in her room. Some half hour later, I was telling her an amusing story, which I had recently heard, when the door burst open, and a man-servant rushed into the room carrying our boy, dripping wet, in his arms, and laid him in his mother’s lap. The child was dead. The nurse had left him beside the same fountain pool from which years before I had rescued his mother’s ball, and in her absence he had fallen into the water. The Princess turned pale and screamed; she clasped the child to her breast and rocked him back and forth; she spoke to him as if he were still alive, and even tried to call him back to life.
I smiled at her delusion. I put my hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. She looked up at me with streaming eyes, and saw the bright and smiling look on my own face.
“Come, my dear,” I said kindly, laughing quietly as I spoke, “there is no use talking to him like that, you know. You must be reasonable. The dear little fellow is dead, that is all. Surely there is nothing in that to disturb you? Look at me. I’m not disturbed. I can’t understand what you find in this to bother you. Come, let the good man take him away to another room, and I will go on with the story I was telling when we were interrupted.”
She rose slowly, never taking her eyes from me, and hugging the child closer backed away from me, and suddenly turned and fled from the room. I smiled to myself at the whimsical nature of women.
It was a long time before she would speak to me; and although I did not permit this to ruffle me, I waited with some impatience for her explanation. I was of course reluctant to blame her too much without giving her an opportunity of explaining her conduct. I was accordingly pleased when she took me aside one day and asked to speak with me in private. She sat down before me in her room and looked me steadily in the eyes.
The Princess Finds Her Husband Bewitched
“Alb,” said she, “this can go on no longer. You are bewitched.”
I smiled indulgently. “I am not aware of it,” I said.
“Tell me,” she said, earnestly, “what are those three black hairs in your head?”
“Oh, those! They are nothing. I found them there after the old beggar had pretended to grant me a wish, long ago.”
“What old beggar? Now I am learning something! Tell me about the old beggar and the wish!”
“What does it matter? He was a ragged old fellow, with shaggy eyebrows, carrying a yardstick and tailor’s shears, and I sold him a fine gold chain for a wish, and right angry my father was, too. But I was only twelve years old, you know.”
“Why have you never told me this before? What was the wish?”
“The wish? Oh, I wished—I wished I might be perfectly happy, always;—always happy;—a pretty good wish, I think.”
“A terrible wish! A frightful wish! Tell me—tell me—have you ever wept since you were twelve years old?”
“Of course not. How absurd. There has never been anything for me to weep about.”
“That’s it! That’s it! That’s the curse! You can’t weep! You’ve got to be cured of happiness! Cured of happiness!”
This idea was so preposterous that I laughed loud and long; but while I was still laughing she took me by the hand and led me into a distant part of the castle, where I had never been before, until we came to the foot of a narrow, winding stair in a tall tower.
We climbed the stairs, and stopped at last, panting, on a little landing before a door. The Princess knocked, and without waiting for an answer opened the door and drew me in after her. We were in a small, circular room, evidently at the very top of the tower, from the windows of which I could see far across the city and beyond the distant mountains to the Great Sea.
Alb and the Princess Visit the One-Armed Sorcerer
In the center of this room was a spinning wheel, and before this spinning wheel was the One-Armed Sorcerer whom I had met in the adventure which had gained me the Princess for my wife; a spare old man, with bright blue eyes in a rosy face and long white hair and beard, and clothed in a blue gown spangled with silver stars. He rose, smiling at us kindly, and motioning us with his only hand (his left) to sit down; and when we were seated, the Princess told him the story of the old vagabond who had granted me a wish.
He nodded understandingly, and the Princess said: “We have come to you for help. Will you help him get rid of his curse?”
I laughed merrily. “I’m pretty well satisfied as I am,” I said. “I don’t wish to be cured of anything.”
“And yet,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “you ought to want to be cured. Your trouble is, that you can’t weep. Let me tell you something. When people can weep, it’s because there’s some good in them. When they can’t weep, it’s because all the good in them is frozen up hard. Nobody can weep all the time, any more than anybody can be happy all the time, unless it’s a bewitched creature like yourself. I’m not sure which would be worse, to weep all the time or to be happy all the time; but one thing I’m sure of, and that is that it’s best for us all to have a little weeping and a little happiness, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, woven together in all shades of light and dark; and if you want to come out in a beautiful pattern at last, there’s no other way to do it. Laugh and weep; weep and laugh; that’s the whole story, and a fine story it is too, and well worth having a part in.”
“Oh!” cried the Princess, who was now weeping softly, “will you help him to have a part in it like the rest of us?”
“I’m very comfortable as I am,” said I, smiling.
“Do you know,” said the Princess, “how to cure him?”
“I can tell him how to cure himself,” said the sorcerer.
“Then please tell us at once!” said the Princess.
“There is danger in it,” said the sorcerer.
“Danger doesn’t bother me,” said I, beginning to take an interest.
“Good,” said the sorcerer. “Then I will tell you. Have you ever heard of the half-moon pasture of Korbi, by the river Tarn?”
Neither of us had ever heard of it.
“It lies far beyond the Great Sea. Would you like to make a journey there?”
“That would be jolly!” I cried.
“The half-moon pasture of Korbi is the end of your journey, where you will get rid of the third black hair, and be cured.”
“What?” I cried in astonishment.
“Yes, the third of the three black hairs in your head.”
I had forgotten all about them. Certainly this was a knowing old sorcerer.
The Old Man of Ice, the Laughing Nymph, and the Great Horned Owl
“I will tell you,” he went on, “what those three black hairs are. The one on the left side of your head is the Old Man of Ice, who lives in the Great Cave near the top of Thunder Mountain, in this very island. The one on the right side of your head is the Laughing Nymph who lives in the Three-Spire Rock on the farther shore of the Great Sea. The one in the middle of your head is the Great Horned Owl, whose feathers are scales so hard that no spear can pierce them, and who lives at the top of the cliff at the far side of the half-moon pasture of Korbi. You must not touch the Old Man of Ice. You must not laugh with the Laughing Nymph. And you must not speak when you see the Great Horned Owl.”
“I don’t like this very much,” said the Princess.
“Nonsense, my dear,” said I. “It sounds very exciting.”
“Do you know what a burning glass is?” went on the sorcerer.
“Yes,” said I.
He went to a chest beside the wall, and took from it a small, round, thick piece of glass, and placed it in my left hand.
“There is only one thing that can destroy the Old Man of Ice, and that is a hot beam from the sun. Before you go into his cave, hold this burning glass with your left hand up to the sun. The rays it catches will remain in it for seven minutes, and no longer; and if you can then within those seven minutes, holding the glass in your left hand, fix those rays on the Old Man of Ice, he will be destroyed, and you will get rid of the black hair on the left side of your head.”
He went to his chest again, and returning put into my left hand a sharp brass pin, some three inches in length.
“With this pin,” he said, “you must make the Laughing Nymph weep. You must plunge it, with your left hand, deep into her left arm, and while she is weeping you must flee away; and thus you will get rid of the black hair on the right side of your head. But if you laugh with her, or remain until she stops weeping, you will never return.”
He took from his spinning wheel a thread some yard and a half long, and holding it in his teeth made fast a large loop at one end. He then placed the thread in my left hand.
“This loop,” he said, “you must throw over the head of the Great Horned Owl with your left hand. When you have done so, he will follow you; you must lead him into the river Tarn, and hold him there until he drowns; and thus you will get rid of the black hair in the middle of your head, and be cured forever. But the owl, though he is blind by day, has very sharp ears. You must not let him hear your voice.”
The Burning Glass, the Brass Pin, and the Loop of Thread
He then gave me the most minute directions how to reach the Great Cave, the Three-Spire Rock, and the half-moon pasture of Korbi; and I thereupon placed in my pocket the burning glass, the pin, and the thread, and drew the Princess after me to the door and down to my room, where I immediately began my preparations for departure.
That night I left. The Princess wept on my shoulder, but I laughed gayly, and ridiculed her fears.
“Don’t you feel sorry,” she said, “to leave me?”
“Come, dearest,” I said, “you mustn’t begrudge me a little adventure. Don’t be selfish.”
She straightened herself up. “Yes,” she said, “I think you had better go.”
I did not understand this sudden change, but I kissed her and said:
“Did you pack my white leather suit?”
“Yes, it is in the saddlebag, and extra shoes. Be sure to change if you get your feet wet.”
I kissed my hand to her from the saddle and gave my horse the rein. I was off upon my adventure.
At the end of two days I came to the village which lies at the foot of Thunder Mountain. It was a bright day, and the sun was hot. As I trotted briskly through the village street, a child of three or four years ran from the door of a house directly to the front of my horse and under its feet; and in an instant the horse had knocked him down and trampled over his body. I looked round, and heard the child cry out in pain; but I was intent on what lay before me, and too happy in my new career to be bothered with trifles, and I sped on rapidly, and was soon well up the mountainside.
I came to a place among the rocks and bushes where there was no longer any trail, and there I tied my horse and left him. I kept in view, as I climbed higher and higher, a great, gray rock, shaped like a dome and as big as a house, which projected from the very top of the mountain. Under this rock, as I knew, lay the cave of the Man of Ice.
The higher I climbed, the steeper grew the ascent; trees became fewer and at length there were none; I looked abroad and saw, beyond the intervening mountains, the Great Sea afar off, wrinkling in the sunshine. I came at last to a point so high that I was quite dizzy when I looked down. Around me were only bowlders; there were not even any bushes, nor birds nor squirrels; nothing but rocks and sunshine.
He Hears Thunder in a Clear Sky
I stopped suddenly and listened. A distant rumble of thunder came from the top of the mountain. I was, as I may say, thunderstruck; for there was not a cloud in the sky. As I mounted higher, the rolling of thunder became louder and louder; and when I reached, as I did at last after hours of toil, the dome-shaped rock at the top, thunder crashed all about me with a deafening roar, although the sky remained as clear as before.
I halted at the foot of the great rock, and commenced the task of finding the entrance to the cave. The surface of the rock seemed quite unbroken; but I found at length, near the ground, a single crack, about an inch in width. I inserted my fingers, but I could not budge it; and remembering the directions given me by the sorcerer, I cried out, “In the name of the sun! I command you, open!”
The rock beneath the crack began to move, and before my astonished eyes it fell slowly inward, leaving a gaping hole, just wide enough to admit my body.
I did not delay. I took the burning glass from my pocket and held it up in my left hand to the sun, and when I thought it well filled with the sun’s rays I crawled in through the hole. When I was inside, the opening closed behind me, and I was in utter darkness. It was very cold, and the noise of thunder was louder than before. I was surprised to see at a little distance a single spot of light, which flickered here and there as I crept on; but I soon observed that it came from the burning glass which I was still holding in my left hand.
He Goes Down into the Cave in Thunder Mountain
I was aware that I was going downward. The farther I went, the louder became the thunder. I must have descended thus for a minute or two, when a gust of cold air swept my face, and, finding the floor level, I stood up. The sound of thunder was now deafening, beyond anything I had yet heard.
As I stood there, a great mass of what appeared to be ice, larger than my body, rolled past me and disappeared in the darkness. I jumped aside, and walked on. In another moment a mass of ice like the first fell at my side and rolled away; a rush of the bitterest cold air accompanied it; and as it struck the ground a crash of thunder shook the place, and its sound, as it rolled away into the dark, was the sound of thunder rumbling afar off among the mountains.
I now understood the origin of the thunder I had heard in the clear sunlight outside. I pointed my burning glass upward, and I was able to make out dimly, in the ceiling, great numbers of these bodies of ice, hanging there like stalactites, but rounded at the bottom and very slender at the top, so that they appeared to hang by little more than a thread. As I stumbled on, one after another of these fell to the ground with a crash and rolled away with a decreasing rumble. There was no telling when one of them might fall on me, and I could only trust to luck. There was nothing to do but to get forward as quickly as possible; time was flying, and even if I should escape these thunder stones, I had only three or four minutes of my seven left. I darted blindly on, and the ice came crashing about me faster and faster, until I thought my head would split with the noise. Once or twice I was nearly struck. How I escaped I do not know, for it became certain that the thunder stones were dropping closer and closer around me, as if they were trying to halt me. And all the time the cold was becoming so bitter that my feet and legs were already numb.
I suddenly found myself walking on a slippery film of ice, and at that moment I knew that I had cleared the chamber of thunder, and had left that danger behind me; the noise abated to a distant rumbling.
The ice on which I walked was very thin, and at every step it crackled under me; and I could just make out the sound of the rushing beneath it of a torrent of water. I stepped lightly and quickly, seeing nothing but the blackness of night before me. I ran. The ice swayed and crackled and ripped; and just as it gave way under me and my foot plunged in the freezing water, I found myself again on the solid floor of the cavern, and ran with all my might. I could see nothing of walls or ceiling. I was lost in the dark.
In another moment I was aware of a kind of vague paleness afar off before me, and I ran in that direction. As I did so, the paleness, whatever it was, moved swiftly to the right, and I changed my course accordingly. It then moved to the left, and as fast as I changed my course it moved also; evidently it was trying to avoid me. I gained on it, and it seemed then to try to pass me on one side and get in my rear; but I was too quick for it, and came up with it before it had quite passed me. I came within ten feet of it, and saw what it was.
He Pursues the Man of Ice with the Burning Glass
It was the Man of Ice. He was running about like a cornered rat: a perfectly formed old man, his face and head hairless, and his whole body of solid ice. He ran jerkily; I could hear his joints crackle as he ran; and he was almost transparent, and of a pale, greenish brightness. His fingers were stiff and pointed, like icicles; and his eyes were like little white marbles.
When he found that he could not pass me, he ran back into the cave; but we were evidently near its rear wall, and in a moment he was darting back and forth against this wall, for all the world like a cornered rat. I kept after him, and flashing the burning glass constantly in his direction forced him at last into a corner. He turned upon me there, and stretched out his long stiff fingers and made as if to spring upon me. I knew that if he should touch me I should be lost; it must be now or never; I turned the burning glass full upon him, and before he could spring its little spot of light flickered upon the center of his breast.
The change which came over him nearly caused me to drop the glass. The top of his head melted away before my eyes and dripped down over his ears; his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, his chin, turned one after another to water and flowed down over his shoulders, and as I moved the beam of sunlight lower and lower he slowly melted away from shoulder to foot, and was no more than a wet spot on the floor.
He Commences to Make His Escape from the Cave
I turned swiftly to make my way out of the cave. As I did so the light from my burning glass went out, and the cave was suddenly flooded with pure sunlight, from what source I could not make out. I was in a vast, vaulted chamber, which I did not remain to examine. I sped to a wide opening which I saw before me, and passing through it came to the side of a little brook bordered with golden-yellow flowers. I waded across the brook; its water was as warm as milk. On the other side I entered the thunder chamber, now well lit with sunshine, and there I paused in amazement. It was in perfect silence. The air was mild and balmy. In place of the terrible stones of ice, thick green vines clung to the ceiling. I gave a shout of joy, and ran to a little opening which I saw on the farther side. Through this I crawled, and on my hands and knees ascended the passage down which I had first come, and arrived at the entrance to the cave, now closed. “Open!” I shouted. “In the name of the sun, I command you, open!” The rock fell outward, and I crawled through into the light of day.
I had gone quite a mile down the mountainside before I realized that there was no sound of thunder; I looked up at the top of the mountain and paused to listen; all was silent, sunny, and peaceful. I had accomplished my first adventure with complete success.
When I reached the village at the foot of the mountain, my first thought was of the child whom my horse had injured earlier in the day. I dismounted, and after a few moments’ inquiry found where he lived. I was admitted to the house by his mother, who led me to an inner room, where I beheld on a chair by a window an unusually charming little fellow, with his left arm in a splint. I sat down before him and took him on my lap and held him carefully in my arms. He took to me at once; and I was pleased to feel, as his warm little body pressed close to me, a decided warmth creep slowly and gently into my own heart. I forced the mother, who was poor, to accept from me the only amends I could make: a purse of gold from my belt, bestowed with a warm shake of the hand. As I said good-by, I glanced at the mirror which hung upon the wall. I went up to it, and looked more intently. The black hair which had been on the left side of my head was gone.
I pressed on the same night, and arrived in due time at the town of Ventamere, on the shore of the Great Sea. I bought a boat, not too large to be handled by a single man, and rigged with a single sail of a charming orange color, somewhat patched with blue.
Like all the islanders, I knew well how to manage a boat, and I could see that my little bark was entirely sea-worthy. I provisioned her for a long voyage, being mindful, of course, of the return. With a light and favorable wind above and an ebbing tide, I set sail.
He Sails Across the Great Sea
As I cleared the bay and encountered the long, smooth roll of the Great Sea, I thought, sitting with my hand on the tiller, of the dear Princess whom I had left behind me. I remembered that I had charged her with selfishness, and I began to doubt whether I had been altogether just. For the first time within my memory, I felt a little uneasy on the subject of my own conduct. However, this shadow lasted only a moment. I sang as I sailed.
The weather was superb, and the sea, under moderate winds, never rose above a long and quiet swell. During the entire voyage there was nothing more exciting than an occasional gull on easy wing circling about the peak of my mast, and the flying fish now and then skimming low across the surface of the sea.
As I neared the far shore of the Great Sea, the green of the water became a deep indigo, and I could not but rejoice in the lovely effect amidst that expanse of rich color of the orange of my sail. I had held the course prescribed by the sorcerer, and I knew that I should pick up the Three-Spire Rock on sighting land.
It came to pass as I expected. My faithful boat slipped, early of a luminous evening, into the placid waters of a little bay. On either hand a promontory of noble height jutted out into the sea, and from the shallow water near the shore, against the inmost curve of the beach, rose in three pinnacles a great, black rock, washed by a gentle and surfless tide, and towering above as tall as the masts of a ship: the Three-Spire Rock, beyond a doubt.
I ran my boat almost up to the beach, the tide being at flood, and anchored there. I put on my fine white leather suit, as being suitable for the visit I had now to make, and waded ashore with a line which for further security I made fast to a log partly imbedded in the sand. I then climbed upon the shoreward side of the Three-Spire Rock, and began my search for the Laughing Nymph.
I examined every inch of that side of the rock as far as I could climb, without finding any sign of an opening. I made my way slowly around the rock to the seaward side, examining it carefully as I went, still without success. I reached the outer side of the rock in despair.
The light of day was fast waning, and I would soon be forced to give up my search for the night. The water, which swelled and receded noiselessly about the rock, became black and unfriendly. It was very lonesome. Not a gull nor curlew nor sandpiper could be seen anywhere. The place was too silent altogether. I pressed along the seaward face of the rock.
Before me, at a little distance, the tide had filled to the brim a sort of bowl in the rock, open toward the bay, in which the water stood some five or six feet deep. I came to this bowl and paused to select the best way for clambering round it. I looked down into the still water which filled it, and saw there a sight which almost made my heart stop beating.
He Finds a Child in a Pool of the Rock
Floating there was the body of a drowned child. I gave a cry of pity and stooped down to look at him. It was a naked boy of some two years, exceedingly beautiful. I stooped lower and gazed into his upturned face. It was the face of my own child.
It could not be; I had myself seen him, with my own eyes, far from here, in his mother’s arms, many months ago,—and yet, the longer I gazed upon him, the more certainly I knew that it was my own child. I could not be deceived. I leaned down closer and put my arms under him and drew him up and folded him to my breast. He was cold and wet, but beautiful beyond anything I had ever dreamed of him. I stood up, and held his cheek against my own. It seemed to me I had never known until this moment how dear he had been to me. I leaned, almost fainting, against the face of the rock, and rested his fair round body in my arm for a moment against a smooth shelf in the wall. His little shoulder lightly touched the rock; and where it touched, a slight depression seemed to appear, as if the rock had been a cushion. As I looked, the depression grew deeper and wider; it deepened and widened until it became a hollow vault, in which I could see nothing but darkness.
Holding the fair boy close to my breast, I stepped into the dark vault, and walked carefully forward toward the interior of the rock. In a moment the passage made a turn to the right, and I found myself in a brightly lighted room with a peaked ceiling, very lofty, whose floor and walls were all of mother-of-pearl. In sconces on the walls were hundreds of burning candles, and divans and chairs covered with the richest silks were ranged beneath them. A door in the opposite wall stood open, and I entered through this another room of the same kind, with peaked ceiling, candles, mother-of-pearl, and all. As I stood in this room I heard the tinkling of a musical instrument and the singing of a voice. A door stood open opposite me as before, and through this I entered a third room, precisely like the others, and stopped in amazement. There, on a divan against the wall, under a blaze of candles, sat my wife.
The Laughing Nymph in the Three-Spired Rock
She was singing gayly and accompanying her song upon a lute. When she saw me she laughed merrily and bade me sit down beside her. I remained standing where I was, doubting whether I had lost my senses, and hugging the beautiful child to my breast. There was no mistake. It was my wife indeed. I forgot for the moment the strangeness of the encounter, and went to her and held out the child.
“See!” I cried. “Have done with laughing! Your child! He is drowned! I have brought him to you! See!”
She looked at me with such merriment in her face as I had never seen there before. She laughed again and again. I thought she would never have done laughing. I was petrified with horror.
“Stop!” I cried. “I must make you understand me! It is your child! Do you understand? Can you look at him and laugh? For shame, for shame!”
She calmed her laughter somewhat.
“Why, what is there in that,” she said, “to make me weep? If you only knew how ridiculous you look! Oh, dear!” And she went off into a peal of laughter gayer than before.
“Take him!” I said. “Look down at that little face, and smile again if you dare!” And I laid him in her lap.
She took him up carelessly and placed him out of her way on the divan.
“Really,” she said, “you mustn’t expect to disturb me with these things. I was singing a lovely new song when you came in. Listen!” And she took the lute in her hands and began to sing a stave of her song.
I felt a wave of anger rise within me. I rushed upon her blindly and tore the lute from her hands and dashed it on the floor. I seized her shoulders and shook her violently; and the more violently I shook her the more she laughed. I bethought me of the pin which lay in my pocket, and at the same time there flashed into my mind what the sorcerer had said about the Laughing Nymph; I had quite forgotten them both. I snatched the pin forth from my pocket with my left hand, and closing my eyes plunged it deep into the left arm of the Laughing Nymph.
She did not scream with pain, but her laughter instantly ceased. She looked at me with surprise, as if she were now seeing me for the first time. An expression of reproachful sorrow came over her face; tears started into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; and suddenly she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. She arose, and threw herself on her knees beside the child and called to him wildly, sobbing as if her heart would break.
I looked on for a moment with my brain in a whirl. A strong impulse of love and pity moved me to put my arm around her and comfort her; but I restrained myself, and in that moment I saw what it all meant; I left the Laughing Nymph still weeping beside the child, and fled.
The Second Black Hair Is Gone
Outside, on the beach, under the stars, I collected my disordered wits. I went to the little cabin in my boat, and gazed at myself in the mirror which hung upon its wall. My eyes were unnaturally large and hollow; my cheeks were pale; and the black hair which had been on the right side of my head was gone.
I gathered together such provisions as I could carry, and seeing that the boat was well secured, I departed upon my third and last adventure.
Many days I traveled. The sorcerer had given me my course with much particularity, and there was no question of losing my way. My thoughts were sad company, and yet I felt a kind of elation. I began to look back on myself with horror, and to remember the sweetness of my Princess with admiration and love.
One morning I ascended a long wooded hill and stood upon its top. Below me, at no great distance, lay a river, curved at this point outward like a crescent. On its farther side stretched a field some two miles deep, grown high with grass and flowers, and bounded at its rear by a high cliff whose walls at either end met the river, enclosing the field so that its shape, between them and the river, was roughly that of a half-moon. It was, without a doubt, the pasture of Korbi, beside the river Tarn. The time for my last adventure had arrived.
I descended rapidly to the river, first leaving my pack in a safe place, and waded across the stream; it came to my shoulders, but I had no difficulty in reaching the other side. I pressed forward through the tall grass to the foot of the cliff. I walked along its base until I found above me on its face, somewhat higher than my reach, a circle of white stones; and by this I knew that it was at this point that I must climb.
The ascent was excessively difficult. I mounted, with great pain, to a point so high that I no longer dared look below; I fixed my eyes on each crevice and cranny as they appeared above me, and tried to think of nothing but my next step upward. I was nearing the top. I looked up, and saw directly overhead a great bowlder which projected from the face of the cliff, evidently at its very summit. This was the bowlder of which the sorcerer had spoken as the abode of the Great Horned Owl. A dozen more painful steps brought me to the under side of the bowlder. I clung to the cliff with both hands, and without a sound crept along its face until I was out from under the bowlder on its left side, and then climbed noiselessly upward until I stood beside the bowlder so as to look across its top. There I saw, at my right, the object of my search.
The Great Horned Owl Stands Ready for the Loop of Thread
The Great Horned Owl was standing motionless, his wide eyes staring across the valley of the Tarn. I was thankful that in that bright light of the sun he was blind. He did not turn his head in my direction, and he was evidently unaware of my presence. His feathers, as I could see, were flakes or scales of some shining metal. He looked harmless enough, and I felt myself full of confidence.
The hand which was nearest him was my right. Holding on to the cliff with my left, I took from my pocket, with my right, the thread which the sorcerer had given me, and cleared the loop so that I could drop it over the creature’s head without tangling. I leaned across the bowlder toward him, keeping very quiet, and brought my right hand with the loop so close to him that I could have touched him. With that hand I held the loop above his head and began to lower it. It came down closer and closer; it reached the top of his head; I held my breath; my eyes were fixed on his; I lowered the loop another inch or two, until it came to his curved beak, without touching him; and I was about to drop it over his neck,—when suddenly he flapped his wings and fluttered his feathers all together; and all the little metal plates on his body striking one another gave off a rattling discharge of sharp reports, so violent that I thought the cliff was being blown to pieces. I jumped with fright, and scarcely refrained from uttering a cry; but I held my tongue, and dropped the loop around his neck.
Instantly the metal feathers were still and the noise ceased, and the owl turned his head slowly toward me and stared straight into my face; and as he gazed at me, all at once it came to me that I had dropped the noose with my right hand instead of my left. I was aghast at my mistake. I tugged at the thread frantically, but the owl did not budge. I began to grow dizzy. My arm tingled and grew numb. Everything turned black before my eyes. I could not remember where I was. I swayed and lost my balance; I felt myself falling; I clutched wildly for support, but touched nothing; I felt myself falling through space, falling, falling, as a person falls in a dream, for hours as it seemed, sick and dizzy. Only once did I touch anything, and then I felt in my knee a sharp pain, and was conscious that I was bleeding from a cut; and then I knew no more.
When I came to myself, I was standing at the foot of the cliff, where I had commenced my ascent. I looked upward, and wondered that I was alive after such a fall. As my eye traveled downward and rested on the circle of white stones above me I noticed in their center a little splotch of blood, evidently from my knee where it had been cut in my fall; and as I continued to look, the splotch grew into a blood-red flower, waving on a long stem. I felt a strange desire to take the flower in my teeth and tear it.
Alb Sees in the River the Reflection of a Unicorn
I wondered whether anything had happened to the hair in the middle of my head. I went to the river, and looked down at myself in a clear pool near the bank. I was surprised to see there the reflection of a small white horse’s head. I turned round, to see the animal which must have been looking over my shoulder. No animal was there. I could not understand it. I looked again at the surface of the water; the same head met my gaze; a small white horse’s head, and in the center of it a sharp, white horn. I looked behind me again, and again into the river. I stood in the water, and saw there the full image of the little white horse. It was myself.
Thus (said the young man, sitting in the half-moon pasture of Korbi, by the river Tarn), you know my story. I have kept count of the days since my enchantment, and they now amount to two years; the age of my little son when he was drowned. You have taken from me the third black hair, and I shall now fly back to my beloved Princess, cured of the curse of perpetual happiness, to spend with her the remainder of my days in blessed light and shadow, peace and storm, laughter and tears.
“I wonder,” said Bojohn thoughtfully, after a moment’s silence, “who the old man was who gave him the curse in the first place.”
“Did Alb tell you,” said Bodkin, “who the old man was?”
“No,” said Solario; “I don’t believe he ever knew. But I happen to know, myself, because it was revealed to me in the course of the story which was told me by—”
“Tell us! Tell us!” cried the two boys.
“No,” said Solario, “it is much too late, and I must now, if you will permit me, bid you good night.”
THE THIRD NIGHT
THE SON OF THE TAILOR OF OOGH
THE King was engaged with the Master of the Wardrobe in a game of chess in the throne room, and the Princess Dorobel (the King’s daughter) and her husband Prince Bilbo were looking on.
In the next room the Queen was at dominoes with the Second Lady in Waiting, and Prince Bojohn (her grandson) and his friend Bodkin came and stood behind their chairs.
“Grandmother,” said Bojohn, “wouldn’t you like to hear a story?”
“Not now, my dear,” said the Queen, and she put down a double five, smiling at the Lady in Waiting.
“Come along, then,” said Bojohn to Bodkin. They went into the throne room, and stood behind the King’s chair.
“Grandfather,” said Bojohn, “wouldn’t you like to hear a story?”
“You made a fatal mistake in moving your knight,” said The King. “I will now move my bishop and put you in check. So!”
“Grandfather!” said Bojohn. “Wouldn’t you like to—”
“Take your time, take your time,” said the King. “If you move out of check, I’ll have you in three moves. See if I don’t!”
“Grandfather!” said Bojohn.
“Ah!” said the King. “That’s different. Hum. Ha. I didn’t think you’d do that. Plague take it, now I’ve got to think up something else.”
The Princess Dorobel placed her arm around the shoulder of Bojohn her son. She was radiant in a white evening gown, and she wore pearls in her hair.
“Never mind, my dear,” said she, “I’d like to hear a story.”
“And father too!” said Bojohn. “Come along, both of you!”
The Princess Dorobel put her arm in her husband’s, and hurried him away after the two boys, who were already going out at the door.
They followed the boys through dark halls and up a staircase into the northeast tower, and stopped, all four, before the door of Solario’s room. Prince Bojohn knocked, and a voice from within bade them enter.
Mortimer the Executioner was being measured by Solario for a suit
Mortimer the Executioner, seven feet tall and vast as a hogshead around the middle, was standing in his shirt sleeves beside the table, and before him stood Solario on a chair, measuring him with a tape. On the table lay a pile of cloth, with shears, chalk, needles, thread, and wax.
Solario jumped down from his chair and bowed. He was plainly in high good humor.
“Be seated, be seated, I pray you,” he cried, bringing up chairs in a hurry. “This is a great honor; a very great honor indeed. You see me in the midst of my— Pray be seated. Will you excuse me while I note down the shoulder measurement?” He bent over the table, and jotted down some figures in a book. “Mortimer,” said he, “you may go now. We will continue our labors in the morning.”
Mortimer, in confusion, hastily put on his coat, which caused a couple of white mice to jump from his pockets and run up his sleeves.
“Don’t go,” said the Princess Dorobel. “We are about to ask our good friend Solario for a story, and I am sure you would like to hear it.”
“Yes,” said Prince Bilbo, “we have come to hear another story, if you will be good enough to—”
“The story of Montesango’s Cave!” cried both boys, together.
“Or the Roving Griffin!” cried Bojohn.
“Or the Blind Giant!” cried Bodkin.
“If you will pardon me,” said Solario, “I think that it would please Prince Bilbo and the Princess better, perhaps, to hear the story told me by the Black Prince on the memorable night when—”
“Don’t forget,” said Bodkin, “we want to hear about the old man with the shaggy eyebrows, who got the golden chain away from the goldsmith’s son.”
“I will tell you,” said Solario, “about the old man and about the Black Prince at the same time.”
“We know nothing,” said Prince Bilbo, “about any old man with shaggy eyebrows.”
“I’ll tell you, father!” said Bojohn; and he told what he knew. “Now then!” he said to Solario. “Please go on!”
Solario the tailor seated himself cross-legged on his table, and the others drew up their chairs before him in a row.
“Has the old man with the shaggy eyebrows,” said Prince Bilbo, “something to do with the Black Prince?”
“Precisely, sir,” said Solario. “If you are ready, I will relate to you the story which the Black Prince told me on the memorable night when— However. Are you ready?”
“Dear me!” said the Princess Dorobel. “This is very cozy, indeed.”
“Go on!” cried Bojohn; and Solario, picking up his shears and gazing at them thoughtfully for a moment, began, in the following words,