The princess asked for three days to consider her answer; during which time she consulted all her clever books and all the wise men of the kingdom, but she was unable to arrive at any answer which had a chance of proving to be the right one.
The third day came, and with it Rathgeb and the prince. The princess was obliged to acknowledge herself vanquished, but found an over-payment for her vexation in having to marry the handsome prince, who, however, had, by Rathgeb’s advice, not told her that he was a prince, and they passed for two travelling pedlars.
At first all went well enough. In the happiness of living with a husband she loved, the Princess forgot many of her haughty ways, and as the prince governed the kingdom wisely, under Rathgeb’s advice, every body was content.
This happy state of things was not destined to last. By degrees the princess’s old habits of self-sufficiency, haughtiness, and bad temper came back, and Radpot found he had hard lines to keep peace with her. From day to day this grew worse; and at last he found it hardly possible to endure her continual reproaches and causeless vituperation.
In the meantime Rathgeb received the intelligence from the council of regency that the queen, Radpot’s stepmother, was dead, and that all the people were impatient that he should return and place himself at the head of the nation.
In communicating this news to the prince, the old counsellor propounded a scheme for reducing his wife to a better frame of mind which pleased him well. In accordance with it, Radpot absented himself from the palace for several days. At the end of that time he returned; but instead of waiting to listen to the fierce invectives with which the princess met him on his return, he interrupted her at the beginning of the discourse by informing her that he had been engaged on important affairs which did not concern her. Before she had time to recover from her surprise at his audacity in treating her thus, he went on to say that this absence was only the prelude to a much longer one, as he was now called home by his mother, who was a very old woman, and who entreated him to remain with her during the rest of her days; that he was about to set out, therefore, to go to her, and he could not say if he should be able ever to come back again—so he must bid her adieu.
The princess could not for a long time be induced to believe that he was serious; but when she really found him making preparations for his departure, without any allusion to the idea of her accompanying him, she was so softened and distressed that, but for a sign from Rathgeb, he would have forgiven her at once, and told her all.
By Rathgeb’s advice, he determined to put her change of demeanour to the test before giving in, and he told her it was impossible to take her with him.
At this, her pleading to accompany him became still more earnest.
“But if you came with me, you would not have a palace-full of servants to wait upon you; you would have to live in a poor hut with a cross old woman, to whom I could not bear that you should answer a cross word, however peevish she might be; you would have to live on the poorest fare, and to earn something towards the support of your life.”