“Alas,” she cried, “my father is ill. Oh, dear, kind Beast let me go to him I pray, and I will love you for ever after.”
The Beast looked very grave. “Very well, Beauty,” he said, “I will let you go, for I can refuse you nothing. But promise me you will return at the end of a week, for if you do not some great misfortune will happen to me.”
Beauty was very willing to promise this. The Beast then gave her a ring set with a large ruby. “When you go to bed to-night,” he said, “turn the ruby in toward the palm of your hand and wish you were in your father’s house, and in the morning you will find you are there. When you are ready to return do the same thing, and you will find yourself back in the castle again. And do not forget that by the end of a week, to an hour, you must return or you will bring suffering upon me.”
Beauty did as the Beast told her. That night when she lay down she turned the ruby of the ring in toward the palm of her hand and wished she were in her father’s house, and what was her joy, when she awakened the next morning, to find herself in her own bed at home. She arose and ran to her father’s room, and the merchant was so delighted to see her that from that hour he began to get better, and in a few days he was as well as ever again.
Beauty’s sisters asked her a great many questions about the castle where she lived, and when they heard how fine it was, and how happy she was there, they were filled with envy. “Beauty always gets the best of everything,” they said to each other. “She is younger than either of us, and see how finely she lives; much better than we do.” They then planned together as to how they could keep Beauty from going back to the castle at the end of the week. “If we can only make her break her promise to the Beast,” said they, “he might be so angry with her that he would send her away and take one of us to live at his castle instead.”
The day before Beauty was to return to the Beast they put a sleeping-powder in the goblet that she drank from.
As soon as Beauty had swallowed this powder she became very sleepy. Her eyelids weighed like lead, and presently she fell into a deep slumber, and she did not awaken for two days and nights. At the end of that time Beauty had a dream, and in her dream she walked in the castle gardens. She came to the rose-bush beside the fountain, and there lay the poor Beast stretched out on the ground, and he was almost dead. He opened his eyes and looked at her sadly. “Ah, Beauty, Beauty,” he said, “why did you break your promise to return at the end of a week? See what suffering you have brought on me.”
Beauty awoke, sobbing bitterly. “Alas, alas!” she cried. “I must go at once. I feel some harm has come to the Beast, and that it is my fault, though how I do not know.” For she did not know she had been asleep for two days and nights.
She turned the ruby ring with the ruby toward the palm of her hand, and wished herself back in the castle and then lay down and went to sleep.
When she awoke she was in the castle again, and it was early morning. She ran out into the garden, and straight to the rose-bush. There, as in her dream, she saw the Beast stretched out on the ground, and he seemed to be without life or breath. Beauty threw herself down on the ground and took his head in her lap, and her tears ran down and fell upon him, and it seemed to her she did not love even her father as dearly as she loved the Beast. “Oh, Beast—dear, dear Beast,” she cried, “can you not hear me? Are you quite, quite dead?”