Roman Legends: A collection of the fables and folk-lore of Rome

by Rachel Harriette Busk

‘And what can a sylph-like creature like you have to get up early in the morning for? You are only fit to lie on a bed of roses, with nightingales to sing to you,’ pursued the king.

‘My occupations are very different, I can assure your Majesty,’ said Maria, with a hearty laugh.

‘What can those occupations possibly be?’ inquired the king eagerly; ‘I am dying to know.’

‘Oh, fie! You must not ask a domino such a direct question as that; it is as bad as asking her name, and that is against all rules. But see, the dancers await your Majesty; we are putting them all out.’

Thus she put him off, and she fenced so well that he succeeded no better in searching out the mystery in all his subsequent attempts. Though he had determined, too, never to leave her side all the evening, that he might certainly observe which way she went, she was so alert that she defeated his plans. Kings have a certain etiquette to observe, even at a Carneval ball; and while social exigencies demanded that he should bestow a salute on one and another of the distinguished personages present, Maria contrived to gather her shining raiment round her so as to invert its dazzling folds, and glide away unperceived.

The king was beside himself with vexation when he found she was gone; nor could he sleep all the succeeding night, or rather those hours which must be stolen out of the day to make a night of when the real night has been spent in revels. One thought occupied him, which was that the succeeding night was the last in which he could expect to have the chance of obtaining an explanation from his fair partner of the dance. The next day began the gloom of Lent, and she would disappear from his sight forever. He arranged in his head a dozen forms of conversation by which to entrap her into some admission by which he could find out who she could possibly be; he determined to be more vigilant than ever in observing her movements; and, to provide against every possible chance of failure, he stationed guards at every exit of the ballroom, with strict orders to follow her when she passed.

In the midst of the ball on the third night Maria entered more radiant than ever, having on her dress woven of sunbeams. The masquers put their hands up to shade their eyes as she passed, and the chandeliers and torches were paled by its brilliance. The king was at her side immediately, but though he put in requisition all the devices he had prepared, Maria succeeded in evading them all, and the evening passed away without his being a bit wiser about how to see more of her than he had been at the beginning. The only thing that gave him a little hope that she did not mean absolutely to abandon him, was that in the course of the evening she took out a ring, which she told him had never fitted anyone yet, and begged him, as a matter of curiosity, to try it on his hand; and then when it strangely happened that it fitted him perfectly, she could not altogether conceal the pleasure it seemed to give her. Nevertheless, she put up the ring again, and would give no further explanation about it any more than about herself.

By-and-by, choosing her moment as dexterously as before, she made her escape without exciting the king’s attention. The guards, however, were all expectation, and notwithstanding that she had taken the precaution of turning the sunbeams inwards, they recognised her, and followed softly after her as they had been bidden. Maria, however, did not fail to perceive they were following her, and, to divert their attention, took off a string of precious pearls she wore round her throat, and, unthreading them on the ground, escaped swiftly to her loft while the guards were occupied in gathering up the treasure.

The king was disconsolate beyond measure when he found that all his schemes were foiled, and that his radiant maiden had passed away like the rays in which she was clothed, leaving only darkness and weariness for him. So disconsolate he grew that nothing could distract him. He would no more occupy himself with the affairs of the state, still less with any minor occupations. He could not bear the light of the sun because its beams reminded him of his loss, and he dreaded similarly the sight of the moon or the stars, but, shut up in a dark room almost hopeless, he wept the weary days away.

So remarkable a change in the habits of the young king became the subject of general comment, and could not fail to reach the ears of even so insignificant a menial as Maria. She, indeed, had every reason to hear of it, for scarcely could the afflicted king be induced to take the simplest food, and the attendants of the kitchen were reduced to complete inactivity. Maria was no longer called hither and thither at everyone’s pleasure, and as long as this inactivity lasted she knew the king was still of the same mind about herself. But at last the talk of the kitchen took a more alarming character; it was reported that physicians had been called in, and had pronounced that unless means were found to distract him his state of despondency would prove fatal, but that nothing which had been tried had the least effect in rousing him from his melancholy.