“Why ever do you look so doleful?” laughed Anselm. “Let us hasten down and feast. My lips thirst for the wines I have bought.”
Trembling, Jasmine pleaded: “Look on my face, husband, the face you have so often called your glory. What think you of my face to-night?”
“Your face? Let me look. It seems all right: two eyes, one nose, one mouth. Yes, it seems just as other faces are.”
It was with a sad heart poor Jasmine sat at the feast that night. Loving her husband, she rejoiced to see him revel, but that he should no longer gaze at her with the admiration which had been her delight was pain past bearing. Anselm enjoyed his feasting, but the wine made jokes rise in his mind, to flutter from his lips, and it vexed him that no smile ever widened his wife’s mouth, set for ever in still solemnity.
Days, weeks, months passed. Anselm and Jasmine now lived in a gorgeous palace. They were clad in the finest raiment and they feasted like emperors, but in their hearts all was becoming as dust and ashes.
“Ah me!” sighed Jasmine. “I know now why it was that I longed for wealth. It was that I might add to my beauty and see even more admiration in my beloved’s eyes. Of what use to me are my gorgeous gowns, my jewels, my flower-like face, since Anselm no longer delights to see me.”
And for Anselm the pleasures of feasting and luxurious living soon palled. His wife could not laugh at his jokes, and in the wide world there was nothing for him to admire. Neither sunsets, nor courage, nor self-sacrifice. He could see no beauty in any face, thought or action. Lost to him were the delights of Poetry and all the loveliness of Nature.
“What is there in life,” he cried, “but feasting and laughter? If only Jasmine could join with me in mocking at the absurdities of Man!”
Desperately he strove to restore laughter to his mirthless wife. He engaged a thousand jesters and promised a fortune to him who should make her laugh. Everything human beings consider funny was shown to her. Orange peel was plentifully scattered outside the palace windows, and aged men encouraged to walk past, that they might step on the orange peel and fall. Then, by means of huge bellows purposely placed, their hats were blown from off their heads, in the hope that Jasmine would smile to see the poor old fellows vainly chasing their own headgear. But all in vain. Nothing amused Jasmine, neither physical misfortune nor the finest wit. Her mouth remained set. Daily Anselm laughed louder and longer, but into his laughter an ugly bitterness had come. It was now the laughter of mockery, no longer softened by admiration.
During that summer a child was born to Jasmine. For years she had longed for a baby, but now that the funny little creature squirmed in her arms, yawning, and making faces, she thought it merely ugly and turned from it in disgust.