And she answered, ‘As much as salt!’
Then the king said, ‘What a contemptible comparison! She only loves me as much as the cheapest and commonest thing that comes to table. This is as much as to say, she doesn’t love me at all. I always thought it was so. I will never see her again.’
Then he ordered that a wing of the palace should be shut up from the rest, where she should be served with everything belonging to her condition in life, but where she should live by herself apart, and never come near him.
Here she lived, then, all alone. But though her father fancied she did not care for him, she pined so much at being kept away from him, that at last she was worn out,[2] and could bear it no longer.
The room that had been given her had no windows on to the street, that she might not have the amusement of seeing what was going on in the town, but they looked upon an inner court-yard. Here she sometimes saw the cook come out and wash vegetables at the fountain.
‘Cook! cook!’ she called one day, as she saw him pass thus under the window.
The cook looked up with a good-natured face, which gave her encouragement.
‘Don’t you think, cook, I must be very lonely and miserable up here all alone?’
‘Yes, Signorina!’ he replied; ‘I often think I should like to help you to get out; but I dare not think of it, the king would be so angry.’
‘No, I don’t want you to do anything to disobey the king,’ answered the princess; ‘but would you really do me a favour, which would make me very grateful indeed?’