The good Mary Jane was sorrowful and anxious, but Flora’s countenance was radiant with delight. She left her home without asking the maternal benediction, and entered the church with a haughty air. Her mother remained on the threshold praying and weeping.
After the ceremony, Flora entered the golden equipage with her husband, and they departed, followed by the two other equipages.
They drove a long, a very long distance. At last they arrived at a rock where there was a large entrance like the gate of a city. They entered through this door, which soon closed with a terrible noise, and they were in midnight darkness. Flora was trembling with fear, but her husband said:
“Reassure yourself; you will soon see the light.” In truth, from every side appeared little creatures in red clothes and green caps—the dwarfs who dwell in the cavities of the mountains. They carried flaming torches, and advanced to meet their master, the King of Metals.
They ranged themselves around, and escorted him through long valleys and subterranean forests. But—a very singular thing—all the trees of these forests were of lead.
At last the cortége reached a magnificent prairie or meadow; in the midst of this meadow was a château of gold studded with diamonds. “This,” said the King of Metals, “is your domain.” Flora was much fatigued and very hungry. The dwarfs prepared dinner, and her husband led her to a table of gold. But all the meats and all the food presented to her were of this metal. Flora, not being able to partake of this food, was reduced to ask humbly for a piece of bread. The waiters brought her bread of copper, of silver, and of gold. She could not bite either of them. “I cannot give you,” her husband said, “the bread that you wish; here we have no other kind of bread.”
The young woman wept, and the king said to her:
“Your tears cannot change your fate. This is the destiny you have yourself chosen.”
The miserable Flora was compelled to remain in this subterranean abode, suffering with hunger, through her passion for wealth. Only once a year, at Easter, she is allowed to ascend for three days to the upper earth, and then she goes from village to village, begging from door to door a morsel of bread.