"Don't you know what it was? Did you see it too! Or, have you, too, been asleep, been dreaming?"
Such were the questions the Fairy Aurora asked her attendant fays and herself. She felt as if she had had a different soul ever since she saw this wonder. But no one answered her; every one was dumb with amazement.
The Fairy Aurora noticed the wreath: "What a beautiful garland! Who gathered the flowers for it, who twined them into a coronal, and who brought the wreath here and laid it on my couch?"
And the Fairy Aurora became sad.
She saw the bread on the table. Three mouthfuls were missing, one on the right side, one on the left and one out of the middle. It was the same with the wine of youth; three sips were missing, one from the top, one from the bottom, and one from the middle.
Somebody must have been there. The Fairy Aurora grew still more sorrowful; it seemed to her as if she missed something, yet she did not know what or where.
The water in the fountain was turbid. Water! Somebody has taken water away from here! And the Fairy Aurora was wrathful. How had any one been able to enter unperceived? Where were all the sharp-eyed guards? The giants, the dragons, the iron-shod lions, the fairies, the flowers, and the sun—what had they all been doing? Nobody had watched! Had nobody been at his post? The Fairy Aurora now fell into a perfect rage. "Lions! Dragons! Giants! set forth, pursue, catch, seize and bring him back." Such were the orders of the Fairy Aurora in the fury of her wrath. The command was issued and set her whole realm in commotion, but Petru had fled so swiftly that not even the sunbeams could overtake him. All returned sorrowfully; all brought sad tidings. Petru had crossed the frontiers of the kingdom, had gone where the Fairy Aurora's guards possessed no power.
The fairy queen now forgot her anger in her grief, and sent forth the Sun to make seven days into one, to search, gaze, and bring tidings. During this seven-fold long day the Fairy Aurora did nothing but watch the course of the Sun; she gazed and gazed till the tears began to stream from her eyes, I don't know whether from looking so long or from her great sorrow and yearning.
Lo and behold! On the seventh day the Sun came home,—red, tired, and sad. More bad news. Alas! Petru was where the sunbeams could not penetrate.
When the Fairy Aurora saw that this last trial had also been vain, she gave strict orders throughout her whole country that the fairies should no longer smile, the flowers no longer send forth fragrance, the breezes no longer blow, the springs no more pour forth clear waters, nor the sunbeams shine. Then she commanded that the black veil of darkness should be let down between the world and her empire, a veil so thick that only a single sunbeam should pierce it, to convey the tidings that the sun would not move through the sky until the person who had taken the water from the fountain should come. And this news went through the darkened world. The people agreed that the great light had been solely for the emperor's eye-sight. Nobody in the world saw except the emperor, nobody perceived the annoyances of the darkness except the emperor, and nobody was more unhappy than the emperor. So he advised and commanded his sons, Florea and Costan, to set out and free the world from darkness.