In a single instant her skin became wrinkled, her hair turned gray, her teeth dropped out, her back was bent double, and she felt herself become helpless, and crippled, and ill-natured; she was already a hundred years old. The fairy touched a bell, and a crowd of officers and courtiers trooped in, all richly dressed, to do homage to the Queen and fulfill her will. A sumptuous repast was set before her, but she had not the least appetite, and, besides, she could eat nothing but soups and gruels; she did not know what to say, or how to behave, and was ashamed of the figure she must be making, especially as she sat where she could see herself in a looking-glass, and know all the time how very ugly she was.
In the meanwhile the real Queen stood in a corner, smiling all the time to see how fresh and comely she had become. Her hair was beautiful, her skin was soft and rosy, her teeth were white and firm, and her figure was strong and tall. She could skip about as nimbly as a deer; but she was dressed [[146]]in a coarse, rough, short petticoat, and her cap and apron were poor and torn. She scarcely dared move in such clothes as these, and the guards, who never allowed such countrified, ragged-looking people within the palace gates, pushed her about with the greatest rudeness. Peronella, who was watching her, now said: “I see it is quite dreadful to you not to be queen, and it is still more so to me to be one. Pray, take your crown again, and give me my ragged petticoat.”
The change was immediately made: the Queen grew old again, and Peronella was as young and blooming as she had been before. Hardly had this taken place when each began to repent of her haste and to wish she had tried a little longer. But it was now too late; the fairy required them to remain forever in their own conditions. The Queen cried all day long over her aches and pains, saying: “Alas, if I were but Peronella! I should, it is true, sleep in a poor cottage and live on potatoes, but I should dance with the shepherds under a shady elm to the music [[147]]of a flute. Of what use is a bed of down to me, since it gains me neither sleep nor ease; or so many attendants, since they cannot make me comfortable?”
So the Queen’s fretfulness increased her pain; nor could the twelve physicians, who constantly attended her, be of the least service. She died about two months later.
Peronella was dancing with her companions on the fresh grass by the side of a flowing stream when the news of the Queen’s death reached her. She said to them, “How fortunate I was in preferring my own humble lot to that of the Queen!”
Shortly after, Peronella was wooed by three suitors, who wanted to marry her. One was an old man, peevish and cross, a man of high distinction but so jealous that he would never let her out of his sight. The second was handsome and of good family, but improvident and wasteful; he would be careless of his wife’s comfort. The third was a young shepherd of her own rank, who loved her dearly and could give her a good, simple [[148]]home in her own pretty village. Peronella was tempted by the riches of the first and the good looks and promises of the second, but she remembered how miserable she had been as queen. She married the shepherd, and they lived a simple, happy life for many, many long years.
[[149]]
