After sitting some time the royal visitors returned to the palace, where the queen said to the prince, in great anger: “My son, I gave the box of jewels to the ridiculous young person in question; and, while she was courteous in receiving it from me, it was given at once to her kitchen servants. After that, no matter how I addressed her, there was no answer vouchsafed. She seemed unconscious, absolutely, [[221]]of my presence. I was obliged to return without an answer for you. My son, you are no longer a child. Henceforth you must attend to your own heart troubles.”
The prince retired to his own room and grieved all that day. The next morning he approached his mother again and, after kissing her hand three times, said: “O, my most revered queen mother! You hold my fate in your hands. You are a woman. Can you not find some way to the heart of this other woman for me?”
It was her only son who pleaded before the queen; and she, loving him greatly, turned the matter over in her mind, until thoughts of a very valuable string of pearls—which were her own private property—came to her.
“I will give her the pearls,” she said to the prince. “We will see what she will do with them.”
The grateful young man kissed both of his mother’s hands; after which she laid the pearls out beautifully in their casket, called her minister of state, and again went to the house across the way.
As upon the previous occasion, she was received with grave courtesy by the young princess; to whom she delivered the pearls, along with a more pressing message from the prince.
The young woman received the casket most graciously, [[222]]opened it, turned to her pet parrot—which hung in a cage near at hand—held before it the box in which the beautiful pearls were lying, and waited, silently, while the bird ate every one of them; grinding each, with a crackling sound, in his bill and swallowing it as if priceless pearls made his regular morning repast.
In open-mouthed astonishment the queen looked on; then, without having the ability to utter a word, she arose, swept from the room, and, with her minister of state, returned to the palace, from which the prince came running to meet her, saying:
“Ai, mother, most honored and beloved! Hasten! Tell me what thou hast to tell this time!”
“Ai, my son! Conquer this foolish madness, or no one is wise enough to foretell what will become of us. When I gave the matchless pearls—my most precious possession—into the hands of this mad creature, she received them courteously, but immediately fed them—as if they had been so many kernels of wheat—to her parrot, who swung in a cage near at hand. I could not speak for rage!”