But one day after dinner it happened exactly as the white bear had said; her mother wanted to speak with her alone in her chamber. But she recollected what the bear had told her, and would not go with her. "What we have got to talk about, we can do at some other time," she said.
But somehow or other her mother talked her round at last, and so she had to tell her everything. She told her how a man came into her room every night as soon as she had put out the light, and how she never saw him, for he was always gone before the day dawned. She was sorrowful at this, for she thought she would so like to see him; and in the day-time she walked about there all alone and felt very lonely and sad.
"Oh, dear me!" said her mother, "it may be a troll for all we know! But I will tell you how you can get a sight of him. You shall have a piece of candle from me, and this you must take with you home in your bosom. When he is asleep, light that candle, but take care not to drop any of the tallow on him."—Yes, she took the candle and hid it in her bosom, and in the evening the white bear came and fetched her.
When they had gone some distance of the way the bear asked her if everything hadn't happened as he had said. Yes, she couldn't deny that.—Well, if you have listened to your mother's advice you will make us both unhappy and all will be over between us," said the bear.—No, that she hadn't!
When she came home and had gone to bed, the same thing occurred as before. Some one came into the room and sat in the arm-chair by her bedside, but in the middle of the night when she heard that he was asleep, she got up and struck a light, lit the candle, and let the light fall on him. She then saw that he was the loveliest prince anyone could wish to see, and she fell at once in love with him; she thought that if she could not kiss him there and then she would not be able to live. And so she did, but she dropped three hot drops of tallow on him and he woke up.
"What have you done?" he said, "you have now made us both unhappy for ever, for if you had only held out one year I should have been saved. I have a stepmother who has bewitched me, and I am now a white bear by day and a man by night. But now all is over between us, and I must leave you and go back to her; she lives in a castle which lies east of the sun and west of the moon, and in the same castle there is a princess with a nose two yards long, and now I must marry her."
She wept and cried, but there was no help for it; he must go and leave her. So she asked him if she might not go with him. No, that was impossible!—"But if you will tell me the way, I will try and find you," she said. "I suppose I may have leave to do that!"—Yes, she could do that, he said, but there was no road to that place; it lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and she could never find her way there.
Next morning when she awoke, both the prince and the castle were gone; she lay on a little green field far in the middle of the dark, thick forest, and by her side lay the same bundle with her old rags, which she had brought with her from home. When she had rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and wept till she was tired, she set out on her way and walked for many, many a day, till she at last came to a big mountain.
Close to it an old woman sat and played with a golden apple. She asked her if she knew the way to the prince who lived with his stepmother in a castle that lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and who was going to marry a princess with a nose two yards long.