"But at least you have suppers," said the princess, desperately, and feeling ready to cry again.
"What are you thinking of?" asked the gate-keeper, with an air of surprise.
Then the princess grew angry.
"What am I thinking of?" she cried, at the top of her voice. "I am thinking of something to eat—that's what I'm thinking of, and I'm almost starved."
The little gate-keeper looked up, with a curious smile on his face, and answered:
"Well, then, my dear princess, if that is what makes you unhappy, pray don't think of it any more. No one ever eats anything here. Indeed, I can not imagine anything more absurd."
Then, being at heart a very kind and obliging little person, he came close to the princess, and said:
"I am sorry for you—indeed I am, but don't give way to tears. They won't turn stones into bread. I beseech you, my dear Princess Bébè, to look at our fruit trees and flowers. They are considered very beautiful. I have no doubt but the sight of them will help you to bear this strange feeling which you call hunger." Then, kissing the princess's hand, he added: "I must leave you now and go to the gate. Amuse yourself in the garden, my dear princess, till I return."
It was a wondrously beautiful garden, as any one could see, but somehow the Princess Bébè did not get much comfort from it.
"Oh, if those were only real apples!" she sighed, for there were what seemed to be apple-trees in great abundance. But the apples were of malachite—a hard opaque stone of two shades of green—and when she tried to taste the grapes, she found they were only purple amethysts arranged in graceful clusters. The cherries were all of stone, instead of having a stone in the middle; and the plums were just as bad and just as beautiful—the cherries were deep red rubies, and the plums were made of chrysoprase. Nothing but hard glittering gems wherever she turned her eyes.