“Oh, my beloved, remember your promise that you would always keep a slice of cheese. Please do wait until midnight; and, at breakfast time, I promise you, you shall have all you want of the best; but now, please, please, leave even a small piece over.”
But the hungry and tired man was too obstinate to listen. From a thinking being, he had become a ravening beast. He gobbled up the last fragment.
No sooner had he swallowed the morsel, than his fairy wife cried out, “You’ve broken your promise and the rule of good manners in the fairy world. I cannot live with a glutton and promise-breaker. I must return to my mountains and fellow-fairies.”
Thereupon, all her clothing fell off. Her cap and comb, and her shoes, stockings and her pretty garments, one by one, dropped on the floor. In a moment more, her former filmy blue and pink robes covered her, while, from her back, grew out a pair of wings, like a butterfly’s, but larger, and mist-like. Waving a good-bye, she flew out of the door, which opened of its own accord. Soon, [[220]]on the lofty mountain heights, she rejoined her fairy family, while the hunter-husband was left alone in misery and hunger, and, worse than all, with an accusing conscience. [[221]]
XXI
THE FAIRIES’ PALACE CAR
Once upon a time, the fairies that live up near the mountain tops got together, and one said to another:
“Let us go travelling.”
“We’ll go as far as Geneva,” said another.