A FABLE
Edith Wyatt
Once upon a time there was a beggar-maid named Anitra, who lived in a cellar in the largest city of a wealthy and fabulous nation.
In spite of the fact that the country was passing through an era of great commercial prosperity, it contained such large numbers of beggars, and the competition among them was so keen, that on Christmas Eve at midnight, Anitra found herself without a single cent.
She turned away from the street-corner, where she had been standing with her little stack of fortune-cards, and hurried through the alleys to the shelter of her cellar. These fortune-cards of hers were printed in all languages; and, had the public but known, it could not go wrong among them, for every single card promised good-luck to the chooser. But, in spite of all this tact on Anitra’s part, and her complete dependence upon universal chivalry, qualities which are woman’s surest methods of success in the real world, in the wealthy and fabulous kingdom she now found herself not only hungry, ragged, and penniless, but also without a roof over her head. For when she reached her cellar-door it was nailed shut: and, as she had not paid her rent for a long time, she knew she could not persuade her fabulous landlord to open it for her.
She walked away, holding her little torn shawl fast around her, and shaking her loose black hair around her cheeks to try to keep them warm. But the cold and the damp struck to her very bones. Her little feet in their ragged shoes and stockings were as numb as clubs; and she limped along, scarcely able to direct them, to know where she was going, or to know anything in fact, except that she would freeze to death if she stood still.
Soon she reached a large dark building with a broad flight of steps and a pillared entrance. Nobody seemed to be guarding it, and she managed to creep up the steps and in between the pillars out of the snow.
Behind the pillars rose enormous closed doors. Under the doors shone a chink of light. Anitra stooped down and put her hand against the crack. There was a little warmth in the air sifting through. She laid her whole body close against the opening. That pushed the doors inward slightly, and she slipped inside the entrance.
She was in a tremendous gilded, carven, and pillared hall of great tiers of empty seats and far dark galleries, all dimly lighted and all garlanded with wreaths of mistletoe and holly. For a long time she sat on the floor with her head thrown back against the door, staring quietly about her, without moving a hair for fear of being driven away. But no one came. The whole place was silent.
After about an hour, she rose softly, and stepped without a sound along the dark velvet carpet of the centre aisle and up a flight of steps at the end, to a great gold throne with cushions of purple velvet and ermine. She rested her wrists on the gold ledge of the seat, and with a little vault she jumped up on the cushions. They were warm and soft. She curled up among them, and pulled her little shawl over her, meaning to jump down the instant she heard the least noise. And while she was listening she fell fast asleep.