"I cannot do it," replied the barber; "your royal highness has been grossly deceived. I have the honour of shaving the first lords of the court, and I know many of them whose ears are equally red and ten times as long as those of your royal highness. These very lords are amongst the most distinguished favourites of the king."
"I have summoned thee," replied the prince, "to operate and not to prate; obey my orders, and inflame not my ears still further by thy discourse."
"Alas!" said the barber, "since your royal highness means to sacrifice them to an unreasonable caprice, what signifies it whether they are inflamed or not?"
At these words the prince made a threatening gesture; and Queséca, no longer daring to resist, took his razor, and with a trembling hand separated two of the handsomest ears from one of the finest heads in the world: for be it known, that the princess only made a pretext of this assertion, because she had taken a fancy for somebody else.
The wound bled profusely: the prince applied healing balm; and when in a condition to appear before her, enclosed his two ears in a little box, rare and precious, and presented it to Papillette, his heart once more filled with hope and love.
The princess eagerly opened the beautiful little casket, then dashed it with horror to the ground. "Prince!" she cried, "what can have induced you to mutilate yourself so cruelly? Could you imagine that I would ever wed a man who submitted to lose his ears?"
"Madam," said the prince, in consternation, "it was by my own order that—"
"What a fool you were then!" cried Papillette. "If you are not willing to become the ridicule of the court, I advise you to quit it with the greatest expedition imaginable."
The prince dared not call her cruel and ungrateful: he retired to the thickest retreats of a forest, and soon after entirely lost his reason.
The princess, once more free, confessed that amongst her numerous suitors there was one whom she preferred; this was Prince Malabar, whose martial mien announced the soul of a hero. The queen did not deny that Malabar had sought her daughter's hand, even before Favourite aspired to that honour, and King Merinous could now no longer insist on a marriage with this unfortunate prince, since he was quite insane, ran naked through the woods, sometimes believing himself a hind, sometimes a wolf, and never stopping until exhausted by grief and despair. But in consenting to the marriage of his daughter with Prince Malabar, the king declared that, should she again change her mind, he would never forgive her.