At that moment the ground opened, and she saw under her feet a great kitchen full of cooks, scullions, and all sorts of servants and people necessary to prepare a magnificent feast. There came forward a company of twenty or thirty cooks, with larding needles in their hands and foxtails in their caps, who took their places in one avenue of the wood about a very long table, and went to work busily, keeping time with a tuneful song.
The Princess, in astonishment at the sight, asked them for whom they were working. [[125]]
“For Prince Riquet with the Tuft, madam, whose wedding takes place to-morrow,” replied their chief.
The Princess, more surprised than ever, remembered all at once that it was that day twelvemonth on which she had promised to marry Prince Riquet. At the thought she was ready to sink into the ground. What made her forget was that when she made the promise she was very silly; and when she took the new sense that the Prince bestowed on her, she forgot all that she had done in the days of her stupidity. She walked on, but had not taken thirty steps before Riquet with the Tuft presented himself before her, magnificently attired like a man who was going to be married.
“You see, madam,” said he, “that I am exact in keeping my word; and I do not doubt that you are come to fulfill yours, and to make me, by giving me your hand, the happiest man in the world.”
“I will confess frankly to you,” replied the Princess, “that I have not yet made up [[126]]my mind in this matter, and that I do not believe that I shall ever be able to consent to what you desire.”
“You astonish me, madam,” said Riquet with the Tuft.
“That I can well believe,” said the Princess; “and assuredly if I had to do with a clown or a man of no sense, I should find myself very much at a loss. ‘A Princess always keeps her word,’ he would say to me, ‘and you must marry me, since you have promised to do so.’ But as he to whom I speak is the man of all others in the world who has the most sense, I am sure he will hear reason. You know that when I was only a fool I could hardly make up my mind to marry you. Now that I have the sense which you gave me, which makes me much harder to please, how can you expect me to come to a decision to-day which I could not agree to before? If you thought seriously of marrying me, you made a great mistake in removing my stupidity and making me see things more plainly than I did before.” [[127]]
“If a man without wit or sense,” replied Riquet, “would be justified in reproaching you for breaking your word, why do you wish, madam, that I should not make use of the same right in a matter where the happiness of my whole life is at stake? Is it reasonable that persons of wit and sense should be worse off than those who have none? Can you pretend this,—you who are so wise and who wished so much to be? But come to the point, if you please. Except for my ugliness is there anything in me which displeases you? Do you object to my birth, my sense, my temper, or my manners?”