With these words, puffing and wheezing, he trotted on his fat legs out of the room.
“No marriage yet,” said the Fool, looking at me queerly, and he ran after the King, pulling his monkey along with him.
He Finds Himself Rubbing His Palms Together
That night, as I stood before my mirror, undressing, and comforting myself with the thought of all the magnificence I had acquired and would acquire with my dead orange leaves, I found myself rubbing the palm of my right hand with the fingers of my left. I was aware of a slight itching in the palm.
At breakfast in the morning, I noticed that my sister, who was very sober, would now and then scratch the palm of her right hand; but I said nothing, and in the afternoon, without questioning her on the subject of her love for the King’s brother, I prepared to visit the King, to try if I could not bring him back to reason. I was ready to leave, when my sister broke into my room, crying out frantically:
“I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it! The itching in my palms! It won’t stop for a moment! I can’t sit still! It’s growing worse and worse! Oh, brother, cure it, cure it, or I shall go mad!”
She walked up and down the room in a frenzy, rubbing her palms together. I tried in vain to pacify her, and at length I left her and betook myself to the King.
On my way the itching of the night before returned, and this time I felt it in both my hands. I knew that my sister and myself, in common with the King and all his subjects, had been handling the dead leaves freely since I had worked the cure, and I began to be uneasy.
When I knocked at the King’s door the voice of the Fool said “Come in,” and I found the King running with his tripping step up and down the room, rubbing his hands, and beside him trotted the Fool and the monkey.
“Imbecile!” cried the King, without stopping for an instant. “You shall die the death! A trick, a trick! And half of my dead leaves gone for nothing! A death in boiling oil! What do you say? Don’t answer me! My hands, my hands! Worse than before! You shall suffer, you shall suffer! A slow death! Why don’t you speak? What are you going to do?”