.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 53771
   :PG.Title: Bee: The Princess of the Dwarfs
   :PG.Released: 2016-12-19
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Anatole France
   :MARCREL.trl: Peter Wright
   :DC.Title: Bee: The Princess of the Dwarfs
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1920
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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BEE: THE PRINCESS OF THE DWARFS
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   .. _`Anatole France`:

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      Anatole France

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      BEE:

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      THE PRINCESS
      OF THE
      DWARFS

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      BY ANATOLE FRANCE

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      DONE
      INTO ENGLISH BY
      PETER WRIGHT

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      NEW YORK \E. \P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
      \J. \M. DENT & SONS LTD - LONDON & TORONTO
      1920

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   .. _`Title page`:

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      Title page

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      SOLE AGENT FOR SCOTLAND
      THE GRANT EDUCATIONAL CO. LTD.
      GLASGOW

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      *All rights reserved*

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   Contents headpiece

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   Contents

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Chap.

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\I. `Tells of the News that a White Rose
brings to the Countess of the White Moor`_

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\II. `How the Loves of Bee of the Clarides
and George of the White Moor began`_

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\III. `Which deals with Education in General,
and that of George in Particular`_

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\IV. `Tells how the Duchess took Bee and
George to the Hermitage and of Their
Meeting an Hideous Old Woman there`_

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\V. `Is concerned with what you see from the
Keep of the Clarides`_

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\VI. `Tells how Bee and George went off to the Lake`_

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\VII. `Shows the Penalty George of the White
Moor paid for having gone near to
the Lake where live the Sylphs`_

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\VIII. `Shows how Bee was taken to the Land
of the Dwarfs`_

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\IX. `Tells faithfully the Welcome given by
King Loc to Bee of the Clarides`_

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\X. `In which the Wonders of the Kingdom
of the Dwarfs are thoroughly described,
as well as the Dolls which
were given to Bee`_

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\XI. `In which the Treasure of King Loc is
described as well as possible`_

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\XII. `In which King Loc proposes`_

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\XIII. `Tells how Bee saw her Mother and
could not kiss Her`_

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\XIV. `In which the Great Grief that overtook
King Loc is seen`_

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\XV. `Relates the Words of the Learned Nur
which gave an Extraordinary Pleasure
to little King Loc`_

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\XVI. `Tells the Marvellous Adventure of
George of the White Moor`_

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\XVII. `In which King Loc makes a Terrible Journey`_

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\XVIII. `Tells the Marvellous Meeting that
occurred to John, the Master Tailor,
and of the Good Song sung by the
Birds of the Grove to the Duchess`_

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\XIX. `Tells of a little Satin Slipper`_

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\XX. `In which a Dangerous Adventure is related`_

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\XXI. `In which All ends well`_

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`Looking backward`_

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`The Sorrow of Demeter`_.  By Sir G. W. Cox

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`The King of the Golden Mountain`_.  By the Brothers Grimm

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`Persephone`_.  By Jean Ingelow

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`The Writer of the Story of Bee`_

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.. _`Princess`:

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   :alt: Princess Bee

   Princess Bee

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   Chapter I headpiece

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.. _`TELLS OF THE NEWS THAT A WHITE ROSE BRINGS TO THE COUNTESS OF THE WHITE MOOR`:

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   BEE

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   PRINCESS OF THE DWARFS

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   CHAPTER I

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   TELLS OF THE NEWS THAT A WHITE ROSE BRINGS
   TO THE COUNTESS OF THE WHITE MOOR

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Setting on her golden hair a hood spread with
pearls and tying round her waist the widow's
girdle, the Countess of the White Moor entered
the chapel where she prayed each day for the
soul of her husband, killed by an Irish giant
in single combat.

That day she saw, on the cushion of her
praying-stool, a white rose.  At the sight of it she
turned pale and her eyes grew dim; she threw
her head back and wrung her hands.  For she
knew that when a Countess of the White Moor
must die she finds a white rose on her stool.

Knowing that the time had come for her to
leave this world, where she had been within
such a short space of time a wife, a mother, and
a widow, she went to her room, where slept her
son George, guarded by waiting women.  He was
three years old; his long eyelashes threw a
pretty shade on his cheeks, and his mouth was
like a flower.  Seeing how small he was and how
young, she began to cry.

"My little boy," she said in a faint voice,
"my dear little boy, you will never have known
me, and I shall never again see myself in your
sweet eyes.  Yet I nursed you myself,
so as to be really your mother, and
I have refused to marry the greatest
knights for your sake."

She kissed a locket in which was a
portrait of herself and a lock of her
hair, and put it round her son's neck.
Then a mother's tear fell on his cheek,
and he began to move in his cradle and
rub his eyes with his little fists.  But
the Countess turned her head away
and fled from the room.  Her own eyes were
soon to close for ever; how could they bear to
look into those two adorable eyes where the
light of understanding had just begun to dawn?

She had a horse saddled and rode to the castle
of the Clarides, followed by her squire, Freeheart.

The Duchess of the Clarides kissed the Countess
of the White Moor:

"What good chance has brought you here, my dear?"

"It is an evil chance that has brought me;
listen, dearest.  We were married within a few
years of each other, and we became widows by
a similar misfortune.  In these times of chivalry
the best die soonest, and only monks live long.
When you became a mother I had already been
one for two years.  Your daughter Bee is as
beautiful as day, and nothing can be said against
my son George.  I like you and you like me.  For
I must tell you I have found a white rose on the
cushion of my stool.  I am going to die.  I leave
my son to you."

The Duchess was aware of the news that the
white rose brings to the ladies of the House of
White Moor.  She began to cry, and promised
in her tears to bring up Bee and George as sister
and brother, and not to give anything to one
without giving half to the other.  Then the two
ladies put their arms round each other, and
went to the cradle where little Bee slept under
light blue curtains, as blue as the sky.  Without
opening her eyes she moved her little arms,
and as she opened her fingers five small pink
beams appeared to come out of each sleeve.

"He will defend her," said the mother of
George.  "And she will love him," the mother
of Bee answered.  "She will love him," a small,
clear voice repeated.

The Duchess recognised it as that of a spirit
that had long lived under the hearthstone.

On her return to her manor the Lady of the
White Moor divided her jewels among her maids,
and, having anointed herself with odorous
essences and put on her most beautiful clothes
to honour that body which will rise again on
the Day of Judgment, she laid herself down on
the bed and went to sleep for ever.





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.. _`HOW THE LOVES OF BEE OF THE CLARIDES AND GEORGE OF THE WHITE MOOR BEGAN`:

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   CHAPTER II

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   HOW THE LOVES OF BEE OF THE CLARIDES AND
   GEORGE OF THE WHITE MOOR BEGAN

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The ordinary lot of women is to be more good
than beautiful or more beautiful than good.
But the Duchess of Clarides was as good as she
was beautiful, and she was so beautiful that
the princes who had only seen her picture had
wished to marry her.  To all their proposals
she answered:

"As I have but one soul I will never have
but one husband."

Yet she only wore mourning for five years.
Then she put off her long veil and her black
clothes, for she did not like to depress those
around her or to prevent them smiling or being
merry in her presence.  Her Duchy included
large tracts of land, and lonely moors covered
in all their vast extent with heather; also lakes
where fishermen caught fish, some of which were
magical, and mountains, terrible and lonely,
beneath which the dwarfs lived in their
underground kingdom.

In the government of the Clarides she followed
the advice of an old monk who had escaped
from Constantinople.  His belief in the wisdom
of men was small, for he had seen how brutal
and perfidious they are.  He lived shut up in a
tower with his birds and his books, and there he
performed his duties as counsellor, acting
according to a very few principles.  His rules were:
"Not to revive old laws; to give way to the
wishes of the people for fear of rebellion, but to
give way as slowly as possible, because, when
one reform is carried out, the public immediately
demand another.  Princes are deposed for
giving way too quickly, just as they are for
resisting too long."

The Duchess, understanding nothing at all
about politics, let him do as he pleased.  She was
charitable, and, as she could not like all men,
she was sorry for those unfortunate enough to
be wicked.  She helped the unhappy in every
possible way, visited the sick, consoled widows,
and provided for orphans.

She brought up her daughter Bee with the
most charming wisdom.  She taught this child
only to take pleasure in doing good, consequently
she could indulge her to any extent.

This amiable lady kept her promise made to
the poor Countess of the White Moor.  She acted
as a mother to George and made no distinction
between Bee and him.  They grew up together
and George found Bee to his taste, though rather
small.  One day, when they were still in their
earliest childhood, he came to her and said:

"Will you play with me?"

"I would like to," said Bee.

"We will find some sand and make sand pies,"
said George.

So they made pies, but as Bee did not make
hers very well, George hit her on the fingers
with his spade.  Bee uttered the most piercing
shrieks, and the squire, Freeheart, who was
walking in the gardens, said to his young Lord:

"It is not a deed worthy of a Count of the
White Moor to beat young ladies, your Highness."

George's first impulse was to thrust his spade
right through the body of the squire.  But as the
difficulties of this enterprise seemed insuperable,
he fell back upon an easier course of action,
which was to turn his face against a big tree and
weep copiously.

In the meanwhile, Bee took good care to
keep her tears flowing by digging her fists into
her eyes; and, in her despair, she flattened her
nose against the trunk of a neighbouring tree.
When night began to cover the earth, George and
Bee were still weeping, each in front of their
tree.  The Duchess of the Clarides had to take
her daughter with one hand and George with the
other to bring them back to the castle.  Their
eyes were red, their noses were red, their cheeks
were shiny; their sobs and snuffles were
heart-rending.  They ate their supper with a good
appetite; then each was put to bed.  But as
soon as the candle was blown out they slipped
out of bed like little ghosts and kissed each
other shouting with laughter.  So the loves of
Bee of the Clarides and George of the White
Moor began.





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.. _`WHICH DEALS WITH EDUCATION IN GENERAL, AND THAT OF GEORGE IN PARTICULAR`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   WHICH DEALS WITH EDUCATION IN GENERAL,
   AND THAT OF GEORGE IN PARTICULAR

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George grew up in this castle next to Bee,
whom he called sister in the way of friendship,
though he knew she was not so.

He had masters to teach him fencing, riding,
swimming, gymnastics, dancing, hunting, falconry,
tennis and generally all the arts.  He even
had a writing master, an old clerk, humble in
his ways, but inwardly proud, who taught him
various styles of handwriting.  The more beautiful
the style was, the more difficult it was to
read.  George found little pleasure, and
consequently little benefit, either in the lessons of
this old clerk or in those of an old monk who
gave grammatical instruction, using the most
barbarous terminology.  George could not make
out why he should take the trouble to learn a
tongue he could talk by nature, which is called
the mother tongue.

The only person he liked being with was the
squire, Freeheart, who, having sought
adventures all over the world, knew the customs of
men and of beasts, described all sorts of
countries, and composed songs he did not know how
to write down.  Freeheart was the only master
who taught George anything, because he was the
only one who liked him, and affectionate lessons
are the only good lessons.  But the two pedants,
the writing master and the grammatical master,
who hated each other with all their heart, united
in a common hatred of the old squire, whom they
accused of inebriety.

It was true that Freeheart was rather too fond
of going to the tavern called the Tin-jug.  There
he forgot his cares and composed his songs.  He
was certainly in the wrong.

Homer composed songs even better than
Freeheart, and Homer only drank spring water.
As to troubles, everybody has them, and it is
not drinking wine but giving happiness to others
that effaces them.

But Freeheart was an old man grown grey in the
wars, loyal and meritorious, and the two masters
ought to have hidden his weakness instead of
reporting them with exaggeration to the Duchess.

"Freeheart is a drunkard," said the writing
master, "and when he comes back from the
tavern called the Tin-jug, he describes in the road
large S's as he walks.  I may say that this is
the only letter he has ever shaped, for this
drunkard is an ignoramus, your Grace."

The grammatical master added:

"As he staggers along he sings songs that
offend against every rule and follow no received
form; he is totally ignorant of synecdoche,
your Grace."

The Duchess had a natural dislike of meanness
and tale-bearing.  She did what all of us would
have done in the same situation: she disregarded
them at first, but as they kept on repeating their
reports she ended by believing them and
determined to remove Freeheart.  However, to make
his exile honourable she sent him to Rome to get
the blessing of the Pope.  What made this
journey so long to the Squire Freeheart was the
large number of taverns, haunted by musicians,
which lay between the Duchy of the Clarides
and the papal city.  The story will show how
soon the Duchess was to regret she had deprived
the two children of their most reliable protector.





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.. _`TELLS HOW THE DUCHESS TOOK BEE AND GEORGE TO THE HERMITAGE AND OF THEIR MEETING AN HIDEOUS OLD WOMAN THERE`:

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   CHAPTER IV

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   TELLS HOW THE DUCHESS TOOK BEE AND GEORGE
   TO THE HERMITAGE AND OF THEIR MEETING
   AN HIDEOUS OLD WOMAN THERE

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One morning, that of the first Sunday after
Easter, the Duchess issued from the castle on
her big chestnut horse, having on her left George
of the White Moor, riding a jet-black pony who
had a white star in the middle of his forehead,
and, on her right, Bee, who had a pink bridle
to govern a pony with a cream-coloured coat.
They were going to hear Mass at the Hermitage.
Soldiers carrying lances escorted them, and
there was a press of people on the way to admire
them.  And really each of the three was very
beautiful.  The Duchess looked stately and
sweet under her veil spangled with silver flowers
and her loose cloak: the mild splendour of
the pearls which embroidered her headdress
was becoming to the face and to the soul of
this beautiful person.  Next to her George, with
his waving hair and bright eye, looked quite
handsome, and the soft, clear colour of Bee's
face, who was riding on her other side, was a
delicious pleasure to the eye; but nothing was
more wonderful than the flow of her
fair hair, bound in a ribbon embroidered
with three golden lilies.  It fell
down her shoulders like the splendid
mantle of youth and beauty.  The
good folk looked at her and each said
to the other, "What a pretty young lady!"

The master tailor, old John, lifted his grandson
Peter in his arms to show him Bee, and Peter
asked whether she was alive, or whether she
was not really a piece of waxwork.  He could
not understand that a creature so white and
delicate could belong to the same species as he,
little Peter, did, with his chubby, sunburnt
cheeks and drab rustic smock laced at the back.

While the Duchess received these marks of
respect with kindness, the two children showed
the contentment of pride, George in his flush,
Bee in her smile.  This is why the Duchess said
to them:

"These good people greet us very cheerfully.
George, what do you think of it?  And what do you, Bee?"

"That they do well," said Bee.

"And that it is their duty," said George.

"And for what reason is it their duty?" the
Duchess asked.  Seeing they gave no answer,
she continued:

"I am going to tell you.  From father to son,
for more than three hundred years, the dukes of
the Clarides, lance in rest, protected these poor
people, who owe it to them that they can reap
the harvest they have sown.  For more than
three hundred years every Duchess of the
Clarides has spun wool for the poor, visited the
sick, and held their babies over the baptismal
font.  That is why, children, you are greeted."

George thought: "The ploughman will have
to be protected," and Bee: "I will have to spin
wool for the poor."

So, conversing and reflecting, they made their
way through meadows enamelled with flowers.
A range of blue hills ran its indented line along
the horizon.  George stretched out his hand
towards the East.

"Is not that a large shield of steel that I see
over there?"

"It is rather a silver buckle as large as the
moon," said Bee.

"It is neither a shield of steel nor a silver
buckle, children," the Duchess answered, "but a
lake shining in the sun.  The face of the water,
that from a distance looks as smooth as a mirror,
is broken into innumerable waves.  The banks of
this lake that seem to you as clean as if they were
cut out of metal are really covered with reeds,
waving their light plumes, and with irises, whose
flower is like a human eye among drawn swords.
Each morning white mists cover the lake, which
shines like armour under the midday sun.  But
you must not go near it, for the
Sylphs live there who draw travellers
down into their crystal manor."

And now they heard the tinkle of the Hermitage bell.

"Let us get off," said the Duchess, "and go
on foot to the chapel.  It was neither on their
elephants nor their camels that the Wise Men
of the East approached the Manger."

They heard the Hermit's Mass.  An old woman,
hideous and in rags, knelt next to the Duchess,
who offered her holy water as they went out of
church, and said:

"Take some, my good woman."

George was astonished.

"Do you not know," said the Duchess, "that
you must honour the poor as the favourites of
Jesus Christ?  A beggar woman just like this one
held you over the baptismal font with the good
Duke of the Black Rocks, and similarly your
little sister Bee had a beggar as a godfather."

The old woman, who had guessed the feelings
of the little boy, leaned towards him, leering, and
said:

"I wish you the conquest of as many kingdoms
as I have lost, my prince.  I have been
Queen of the Island of Pearls and of the Mountains
of Gold; every day I had fourteen different
kinds of fish served at my table, and a little
blackamoor to carry my train."

"And by what misfortune did you lose your
islands and your mountains, my good woman?"
asked the Duchess.

"I offended the dwarfs, who have carried me
off from my States."

"Have the dwarfs so much power?" asked George.

"Living under the earth," the old woman said,
"they know the virtue of stones, fashion metal,
and discover springs."

The Duchess:

"And what did you do to vex them, good mother?"

The old woman:

"On a night of December one of them came to
me to ask my permission to prepare a great New
Year's supper in the kitchens of the castle,
which were larger than a capitular hall, and
furnished with stew and preserving and frying
pans, pipkins, caldrons, boilers, ovens, gridirons,
porringers, dripping-pans, meat screens,
fish-kettles, pastry-moulds, jugs, goblets
of gold and silver and of grained
woods, not to speak of the turnspit
skilfully wrought of iron, and the
huge black kettle hanging to the
pothook.  He promised that nothing
should be lost or damaged.  I refused
his request, and he withdrew muttering dark
threats.  Three nights after, which was that of
Christmas, the same dwarf returned to the
room in which I was sleeping; he was accompanied
by a multitude of others, who pulled me
from my bed, and carried me off in my
nightshirt to an unknown land.

"This," they said to me on leaving, "this is
the punishment of rich people who will not
grant a portion of their treasures to the
industrious and gentle nation of Dwarfs, who fashion
gold and cause the springs to flow."

So spoke the toothless old woman, and the
Duchess, having comforted her with words and
money, again took the road to the Castle with
her two children.





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.. _`IS CONCERNED WITH WHAT YOU SEE FROM THE KEEP OF THE CLARIDES`:

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   CHAPTER V

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   IS CONCERNED WITH WHAT YOU SEE FROM THE
   KEEP OF THE CLARIDES

.. vspace:: 2

One day, not long after this, Bee and George,
without being seen, climbed up the stairs of
the Keep which rises in the middle of the castle.
On reaching the platform they shouted loudly
and clapped their hands.  The view stretched
over rolling downs, cultivated and cut up into
small green and brown squares.  On the horizon
they could see hills and woods--blue in the
distance.

"Little sister," cried George, "little sister,
look at the whole earth."

"It is very big," said Bee.

"My professor," said George, "had taught me
that it was big, but as Gertrude our governess
says, seeing is believing."

They walked round the platform.

"Here is a marvellous thing, little brother,"
said Bee.  "The castle is in the middle of the
whole earth, and we, who are on the Keep,
which is in the middle of the castle, are now in
the middle of the whole world.  Ha! ha! ha!"

And really the skyline was around the children
like a circle of which the Keep was the centre.

"We are in the middle of the world.  Ha! ha! ha!"
George repeated.

Then both began to think.

"What a pity it is that the world is so big!"
said Bee.  "You can lose yourself in it and be
separated from your friends."

George shrugged his shoulders.

"How nice it is that the world is so big!  You
can look for adventures in it.  Bee, when I am
grown up I mean to conquer those mountains
which are right at the end of the earth.  It is
there that the moon rises.  I will catch it as I go
along and give it to you, my Bee."

"That's it," said Bee; "you will give it to me
and I will set it in my hair."

Then they began to look for the places they
knew as if on a map.

"I know perfectly where we are," said Bee
(who knew nothing of the sort), "but I cannot
guess what all those little square stones sown
on the side of the hill are."

"Houses!" answered George; "those are
houses!  Don't you recognise, little sister, the
capital of the Duchy of the Clarides?  It is quite
a big town; it has three streets, of which one is
paved.  We passed through it last week to go
to the Hermitage.  Don't you remember it?"

"And that winding stream?"

"That's the river.  Look at
the old stone bridge over there."

"The bridge under which
we fished for lobsters?"

"The very one, which has in the recess the
statue of the 'Headless Woman,' but you cannot
see her from here because she is too small."

"I remember.  Why has she no head?"

"Probably because she has lost it."

Without saying whether the explanation
satisfied her, Bee kept her eyes fixed on the
distance.

"Little brother, little brother, do you see
what is shining near the blue mountains?  It is
the lake."

"It's the lake!"

They now remembered what the Duchess had
told them of the lovely and dangerous waters,
where the Sylphs had their manor.

"Let us go there," said Bee.

This decision overwhelmed George, who gaped
and said:

"The Duchess has forbidden us to go out
alone, and how can we get to this lake, which
is at the end of the world?"

"How to get there I really don't know, but
you ought to, who are a man and have a grammar
master."

George was stung, and answered that it is
possible to be a man, and even a fine man,
without knowing all the roads in the world.  Bee
gave him a mincing, disdainful look, made him
blush to the tips of his ears, and said to him primly:

"I am not the one who promised to conquer
the blue mountains and to unhook the moon.
I do not know the road to the lake, but I will
find it; you see!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" said George, trying to laugh.

"You laugh like a booby, sir."

"Bee, boobies neither laugh nor cry."

"If they did they would laugh like you.  I
will go to the lake alone.  And while I discover
the lovely waters where the Sylphs live, you
can stay at the castle all by yourself like a little
girl.  I will leave you my tapestry frame and
my doll.  Please take great care of them, George;
please take great care of them."

George had pride.  He felt the shame which
Bee put upon him.  With his head down, darkly,
he cried in a muffled voice:

"All right! we will go to the lake!"





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.. _`TELLS HOW BEE AND GEORGE WENT OFF TO THE LAKE`:

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   CHAPTER VI

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   TELLS HOW BEE AND GEORGE WENT OFF TO
   THE LAKE

.. vspace:: 2

Next day, after lunch, when the Duchess had
retired to her room, George took Bee by the
hand.

"Come along," he said to her.

"Where?"

"Hush!"

They went down the stairs and crossed the
courts.  When they had passed the gate Bee
asked a second time where they were going.

"To the lake," George answered decisively.

The mouth of the stupefied Miss Bee gaped.
Was it sensible to go that distance, and in satin
slippers?  For her slippers were of satin.

"We must go there, and we need not be sensible."

Such was the lofty answer given by George
to Bee.  She had put him to shame, and now she
pretended to be astonished.  It was now his turn
to refer her disdainfully to her doll.  Girls goad
a man into adventures, and then draw back.
Her behaviour was disgraceful.  She might stay
behind, but he would go himself.

She took him by the arm.  He pushed her
away.  She flung herself round the neck of her
brother.

"Little brother!" she said sobbing, "I will
follow you."

Her repentance was complete, and it moved him.

"Come along," he said, "but do not let us
go by the town, we might be seen.  We had
better follow the ramparts and reach the high
road by a short cut."

They went holding each other by the hand.
George explained the scheme he had drawn up.

"We will follow the road we took to go to the
Hermitage; we are certain to see it as we saw it
last time, and then we will go straight to it
across the field in a bee-line."

In a bee-line is a pretty country way of saying
a straight line, but the name of the little maid
occurring quaintly in the idiom made them laugh.

Bee picked flowers growing by the ditch:
flowers of the mallow and the mullein, asters
and oxeyes, making a posy of them; the flowers
faded visibly in her little hands, and they looked
pitiful when Bee crossed the stone bridge.  As
she did not know what to do with her posy, the
idea occurred to her of throwing them in the
water to refresh them, but she preferred to give
them to the "Headless Woman."

She asked George to lift her in his arms to
make her tall enough, and she placed her handful
of country flowers in the folded hands of the
old stone figure.

At a distance she turned her head and saw a
dove on the shoulder of the statue.

They walked some time, and Bee said:

"I am thirsty."

"So am I," said George, "but the river is far
behind us, and I can see neither stream nor
spring."

"The sun is so hot, it must have drunk them
all up; what shall we do?"

Thus they talked and complained, when they
saw a countrywoman with a basket full of fruit.

"Cherries," cried George.  "What a pity it is
that I have no money to buy any!"

"I have some money," said Bee.

She drew out of her pocket a purse with five
pieces of gold in it, and addressed the country-woman.

"Good woman," she said, "will you give me
as many cherries as my dress can carry."

As she spoke she held out the skirt of her
frock with both hands.  The countrywoman
threw two or three handfuls of cherries into it.
Bee took the fold of her skirt in one hand and
with the other held out a piece of gold to the
woman and said:

"Is that enough, that?"

The countrywoman seized the piece of gold,
which would have been a high price for all the
cherries in the basket, with the tree on which
they had grown, and the orchard in which the
tree was planted, and she cunningly answered:

"That will do to oblige you, my little Princess."

"Then," replied Bee, "put some more cherries
in my brother's hat, and I will give you another
gold piece."

This was done and the countrywoman pursued
her way, thinking of the old stocking under the
mattress in which she was to hide her two pieces
of gold.  And the two children went on their
road eating the cherries, and throwing the stones
to the right and the left.  George looked for
cherries held together in pairs by the stalk to
make earrings of them for his sister, and he
laughed to see the beautiful vermeil-coloured
twin fruit swinging on the cheek of Bee.

A pebble checked their joyful progress.  It
had stuck in the slipper of Bee, who began to
limp.  At each hop she took her gold curls waved
on her cheeks, and limping thus, she went and
sat down.  There her brother, kneeling at her
feet, took off her satin slipper; he shook it, and
a little white pebble rolled out.

Then looking at her feet, she said:

"Little brother, when we go again to the lake,
we will put on boots."

The sun had by now declined in the radiant
sky.  A breath of wind fanned the necks and
the cheeks of the young travellers who boldly,
and with fresh alacrity, pursued their travels.
To walk more easily, they held each other by
the hand and sang, and they laughed to see their
two black shadows, likewise united, moving in
front of them.  They sang:

   |    Marian the maid,
   |    Demure and staid,
   |  Went riding to the mill,
   |    She placed her load
   |    Of corn, and rode
   |  Upon her donkey Bill.
   |

But Bee stops.  She cries:

"I have lost my slipper, my satin slipper."

And it was as she said.  The silk bows of the
little slipper had got loose as she walked, and it
lay all dusty in the road.

Then she looked behind her, and seeing the
towers of the castle swimming in the distant
mist, she felt a pang, and tears came into her
eyes.

"The wolves will eat us," she said, "and our
mother will never see us again, and she will
die of grief."

But George brought her slipper to her and
said:

"When the castle bell rings for supper, we
will be back at the Clarides.  Forward!"

   |    The miller tight,
   |    With flour white,
   |  Stood close under the mill,
   |    And fair and free.
   |    Cried, "To that tree
   |  Tie up your donkey Bill."
   |

"The lake, Bee, look: the lake, the lake, the lake."

"Yes, George, the lake!"

George cried hurrah! and threw his hat in the
air.  Bee was too well behaved to throw up her
coif in the same fashion.  But taking off her
slipper which barely held, she threw it over her
head to show her joy.  There it was, the lake,
at the bottom of the valley the slopes of which
ran round the silvery waters, holding them as
in a cup of foliage and flowers.  There it was,
calm and clear, and a shiver still ran over the
ruffled grasses of its banks.  But the two children
could not discover any road in the thickets to
take them to this lovely mere.  As they searched,
their legs were bitten by geese, who were followed
by a little girl, dressed in a sheepskin, with a
switch in her hand.  George asked her what
she was called.

"Gill."

"Well, Gill, how do you go to the lake?"

"I don't go."

"Why?"

"Because."

"But if you did go?"

"If I did go, there would be a road, and I
would take the road."

There was no answer to be given to the goose-girl.

"All right," said George, "we will certainly
find a path in the wood further on."

"We will pick nuts there," said Bee, "and eat
them, for I am hungry.  We must, when we come
again to the lake, bring a bag full of things good
to eat."

George:

"We will do as you say, little sister.  I now
approve the plan of the squire Freeheart, who,
when he set out for Rome, took with him a ham
for hunger and a demijohn for thirst.  But we
must hurry, for it seems to me it is getting late,
though I do not know the time."

"Shepherdesses know it by looking at the
sun," said Bee; "but I am not a shepherdess.
Yet it seems to me that this sun, which was above
our heads when we started, is now over there,
far behind the town and the land of the Clarides.
I wish I knew whether this is the case every
day, and what it means."

While they thus observed the sun a cloud of
dust rose on the road, and they saw horsemen,
who moved towards them at full gallop and whose
armour glittered.  The children were very frightened
and went and hid in the underwoods.  They
are robbers, or rather ogres, they thought.
But really they were men-at-arms sent by the
Duchess of Clarides to search for the two little
adventurers.

The two little adventurers found a narrow path
in the underwood which was not a lover's path,
for two could not walk side by side holding each
other by the hand, as lovers do.  Further, the
footprints were not human.  Only a track made
by a multitude of little hoofed feet was visible.

"These are the footprints of elves," said Bee.

"Or roedeer," said George.

The problem is as yet unsolved.  But what is
certain is that the path led by an easy descent to
the edge of the lake, which now unfolded itself to
the children in all its languid and silent beauty.
Willows bent their tender foliage over it.  Reeds,
like pliant swords, swayed their delicate plumes
on the water.  They stood ruffling in islands, and
around them the water-lilies spread their broad
heart-shaped leaves and their pure white flowers.
Over the flowering islands shrill dragon-flies
flew, whirling and darting, with emerald or
sapphire breastplates and wings of flame.

And the two children enjoyed the exquisite
pleasure of dipping their burning feet into the
wet gravel where the thyme grew thick and the
cattail darted its long spikes.  From its lowly
stem the iris yielded them its scent; all around
the ribwort unrolled its lace on the edge of the
sleeping waters which were studded with the
loosestrife's purple flowers.





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.. _`SHOWS THE PENALTY GEORGE OF THE WHITE MOOR PAID FOR HAVING GONE NEAR TO THE LAKE WHERE LIVE THE SYLPHS`:

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   CHAPTER VII

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   SHOWS THE PENALTY GEORGE OF THE WHITE
   MOOR PAID FOR HAVING GONE NEAR TO THE
   LAKE WHERE LIVE THE SYLPHS

.. vspace:: 2

Bee went forward on the gravel between two
clumps of willows, and in front of her the little
genius of the place jumped into the water and
made rings on its surface, which grew larger
and larger till they vanished.  This genius was
a little green frog with a white stomach.  All was
silent: A fresh breath of wind swept over that
clear lake, of which each wave rose in a gracious
and smiling fold.

"This is a pretty lake," said Bee, "but my
feet are bleeding in my little torn slippers, and I
am very hungry.  I wish I was in the castle."

"Little sister," said George, "sit on the grass.
I am going to wrap your feet in leaves to cool
them; then I will go and look for supper for
you.  I saw up there, close to the road, briars
black with berries.  I will bring you the largest
and sweetest in my hat.  Give me your
handkerchief, I will fill it with strawberries, for there
are plants close by the edge of the path, under
the shade of the trees.  And I will fill my pockets
with nuts."

He made a bed of moss for Bee near the side of
the lake, under a willow, and went off.

Bee lay with clasped hands on her bed of moss,
and saw the stars kindle their tremulous lights
in the pale sky; then her eyes half shut; yet she
seemed to see in the air a little dwarf riding on a
crow.  This was not an illusion.  The dwarf drew
the bridle in the mouth of the black bird, stopped
above the little girl, and fixed his round eyes on
her.  Then he struck his spurs, and went off at
full flight.  Bee saw these things confusedly and
went to sleep.

She was sleeping when George came back with
his harvest, which he put next to her.  He then
went down to the edge of the lake to wait till
she woke.  The lake was sleeping under its delicate
crown of leafage.  A light mist softly crept over
it.  All at once the moon showed itself between
the branches and immediately the waters were
strewn with points of light.

George plainly saw that the lights which
glanced on the waters were not all broken
reflections of the moon, for he noticed blue flames
which came whirling nearer, and rose and fell
and swayed as if they were dancing rounds.  He
soon discerned that these flames flickered on
white foreheads, on the foreheads of women.
In a short time lovely heads crowned with weed
and shell, shoulders down which fell blue hair,
bosoms glittering with pearls and from which
veils were sliding, rose above the waves.  The
boy recognised the Sylphs, and tried to fly.  But
already pale, cold arms had seized him, and he
was being carried, in spite of his struggles and
screams, through the waters, in halls of crystal
and porphyry.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SHOWS HOW BEE WAS TAKEN TO THE LAND OF THE DWARFS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII

.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   SHOWS HOW BEE WAS TAKEN TO THE
   LAND OF THE DWARFS

.. vspace:: 2

The moon had risen above the lake, and only
the broken fragments of its orb were reflected
in the water.  Bee still slept.  The dwarf who
had examined her came back on his crow.  This
time he was followed by a troop of little men.
They were very little men.  They had white
beards reaching down to their knees.  They were
the size of children, but they had old faces.
The leather aprons and the hammers which they
carried hanging at their belts made it evident
they were metal-workers.  They moved in a
strange way by jumping to a great height
and turning wonderful somersaults; this
incredible nimbleness made them less like men
than spirits.  But in their wildest antics their
faces remained unalterably grave, so that it
was impossible to make out their real character.

They placed themselves in a circle round the
sleeper.

"Well," said the smallest of the dwarfs from
the height of his feathered mount; "well, I
did not deceive you when I warned you that
the prettiest of princesses was sleeping on the
edge of the lake, and do you not thank me for
having shown her to you?"

"We thank you, Bob," answered one of the
dwarfs, who looked like an old poet; "truly,
there is nothing in the world as pretty as this
maiden.  Her complexion is rosier than the
dawn upon the mountains, and the gold of
our smithies is not as bright as that of her
tresses."

"It is true, Pic; Pic, nothing could be more
true!" answered the dwarfs; "but what shall
we do with this pretty maid?"

Pic, who resembled an old poet, did not
answer this question of the dwarfs, because he
did not know more than they did what to do
with the pretty maid.

A dwarf, named Rug, said to them:

"Let us build a large cage and we will shut
her in it."

Another dwarf, named Dig, opposed this
suggestion of Rug.  According to Dig, only wild
beasts were put in cages, and as yet there was
nothing to indicate that the pretty maiden was
one of them.

But Rug was taken with his own idea, for
want of another to put in its place.  He
ingeniously defended it:

"If this person," he said, "is not wild, she
will doubtlessly become so by being shut in the
cage, which will consequently become useful,
and even indispensable."

This argument displeased the dwarfs, and
one of them, named Tad, denounced it
indignantly.  He was a dwarf of utmost goodness.
He proposed taking back the beautiful girl to
her parents, whom he thought to be powerful
lords.

This view of the good Tad was rejected as
contrary to the custom of the dwarfs.

"Justice should prevail," Tad went on to
say, "and not custom."

He was no longer listened to; the crowd had
fallen into disorder and tumult, when a dwarf,
called Paw, who was simple, but sensible, gave
his views as follows:

"We must first wake the maiden, as she does
not wake of herself.  If she spends the night like
this, to-morrow her eyelids will be swollen and
her beauty will be less, for it is very unhealthy
to sleep in a wood on the edge of a lake."

This opinion met with general approval,
because it was not opposed to any other.

Pic, who resembled an old poet overwhelmed
with misfortune, went near to the
little maid and gazed on her gravely, with the
idea that a single one of his looks would
suffice to rouse the sleeper from the deepest sleep.
But Pic over-estimated the power of his eyes,
and Bee continued to sleep with her hands
clasped.

Seeing this, the good Tad gently pulled her
sleeve.  Then she opened her eyes and raised
herself on her elbow.  Seeing herself on a
moss-couch, surrounded by dwarfs, she thought that
what she saw was a dream, and she rubbed her
eyes to open them and to let in, instead of
this fantastic vision, the bright early
morning light streaming into her blue room, where
she imagined herself to be.  For her mind,
numb with sleep, did not recall the adventure
of the lake.  But rub her eyes as she might,
the dwarfs stayed there; she had to believe
they were real.  Then, looking round anxiously,
she saw the forest, her memory returned, she
cried in agony:

"George! my brother George!"

The dwarfs pressed round her, and, for fear of
seeing them, she hid her face in her hands.

"George!  George! where is my brother
George?" she cried sobbing.

The dwarfs did not tell her, and for this reason,
that they did not know.  So she wept bitterly,
calling on her mother and her brother.

Paw felt inclined to cry like her; but anxious
to console her, he spoke a few vague words.

"Do not alarm yourself," he said.  "It would
be a pity if such a beautiful lady spoilt her eyes
by crying.  But rather tell us your history; it
is certain to be interesting.  It would give us the
very greatest pleasure."

She was not listening.  She rose and tried to
run away.  But her swollen, naked feet gave her
such sharp pain that she fell on her knee and
burst into still more violent sobs.  Tad held her
up in his arms, and Paw gently kissed her hand.
This is why she dared to look and saw that their
faces were compassionate.  Pic seemed to be an
inspired but innocent creature, and noticing
that all the little men looked upon her with
kindliness, she said to them:

"Little men, it is a pity you are so ugly; but
I will like you all the same if you will give me
something to eat, for I am hungry."

"Bob!" all the dwarfs cried at the same time,
"fetch some supper."

And Bob went off on his crow.  Still the dwarfs
felt that this little girl had been guilty of an
injustice in considering them ugly.  Rug was
extremely angry.  Pic said to himself, "She is
only a child, and does not see the fire of genius
burning in my looks so as to give them alternately
masterful strength and fascinating grace."  Paw
thought, "Perhaps it would have been better
not to wake this young lady who considers us
ugly."  But Tad said, smiling:

"You will consider us less ugly, Miss, when
you like us better."

At these words Bob reappeared on his crow.
He brought a roast partridge
on a gold dish, with
a loaf of meal bread and
a bottle of red wine.  He
placed this supper at the
feet of Bee, turning an endless number of
somersaults.

Bee ate and said:

"Little men, your supper is very good.  My
name is Bee; let us look for my brother, and go
together to the Clarides, where Mama is waiting
for us in a state of great anxiety."

But Dig, who was a good dwarf, urged on Bee
that she was incapable of walking; that her
brother was old enough to find himself; that no
accident could happen to him in this country,
where all wild beasts had been destroyed.  He
added:

"We will make a stretcher, we will cover it
with a litter of leaves and mosses, we will place
you on it, we will carry you thus into the
mountain, to introduce you to the King of
the dwarfs, as the custom of our people
requires."

All the dwarfs applauded.  Bee looked at her
sore feet and was silent.

She was relieved to hear there were no wild
beasts in the country.  In all other matters she
relied on the friendship of the dwarfs.

Already they were constructing the stretcher.
Those who had axes were hacking away at the
stems of two young pines.

This revived his idea in the head of Rug.

"If, instead of a stretcher," he said, "we built
a cage?"

But he raised a unanimous protest.  Tad,
looking at him with contempt, exclaimed:

"Rug, you are more like a man than a dwarf.
But this, at least, is to the credit of our race
that the wickedest of the dwarfs is also the
stupidest."

Meanwhile, the work went on.  The dwarfs
leapt in the air to reach branches which they cut
in their flight, and out of which they neatly
built a lattice chair.  Having covered it with
moss and dry leaves, they made Bee sit there;
then, all together, they seized the two poles,
up! hoisted it on their shoulders, and swung off to
the mountain.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TELLS FAITHFULLY THE WELCOME GIVEN BY KING LOC TO BEE OF THE CLARIDES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX

.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   TELLS FAITHFULLY THE WELCOME GIVEN BY
   KING LOC TO BEE OF THE CLARIDES

.. vspace:: 2

They ascended the woody side of the hill by a
tortuous path.  Here and there blocks of granite,
bare and rusty, rose in the grey foliage of the
dwarf oaks, and the rugged landscape was
enclosed by russet hills and their blue-grey
ravines.

The procession, preceded by Bob on his winged
steed, entered a cleft of the rocks hung with
briar.  Bee, with her golden hair scattered on
her shoulders, looked like the dawn risen on the
mountains, if it is true that sometimes the dawn
gets frightened, calls for her mother, and tries
to run away, for these three events occurred
when the little girl dimly saw dwarfs terribly
armed lurking in all crevices of the cliff.

They held themselves motionless with their
bows strung and levelled lances.  Their tunics
of hide and long knives hanging at their belts
gave them a terrible appearance.  Game of fur
and feather lay at their feet.  But these hunters,
as far as their faces went, did not look fierce;
on the contrary, they seemed mild and grave
like the dwarfs of the forest, whom they very
much resembled.

Upright in their midst stood a dwarf of great
majesty.  He wore a cock's feather at his ear, and
on his forehead a diadem studded with enormous
jewels.  His mantle was flung over his shoulder
showing a robust arm, loaded with gold rings.  A
bugle of ivory and carved silver hung at his belt.
He leant his left hand upon his lance in an attitude
of repose and strength, and with the right he
shielded his eye to look towards Bee and the light.

"King Loc," the dwarfs of the forest said to
him, "we bring you the beautiful little girl we
have found: her name is Bee."

"You do right," said King Loc.  "She will
live among us, as the custom of the dwarfs
requires."

Then advancing to Bee,

"Bee," he said to her, "welcome!"

He spoke gently to her, for already his feelings
towards her were friendly.  He stood on tiptoe to
kiss her hand which hung down, and re-assured
her that not only should no kind of harm happen
to her, but that all her wishes should be satisfied,
even if she should ask for necklaces, mirrors,
wool of Cashmere, and silks of China.

"I would very much like some slippers,"
answered Bee.

Then King Loc struck a gong of bronze which
hung to the walls of rock with his lance, and
immediately something was seen coming from the
end of the cavern bounding like a ball.  It grew
bigger till it became a dwarf, the features of
whose face recalled those given by painters to
the illustrious Belisarius, but whose leather
apron showed him to be a bootmaker.

As a matter of fact it was the chief bootmaker.

"True," said the King to him, "choose in our
store the most supple leather, take cloth of gold
and silver, ask the keeper of my treasures for
a thousand pearls of the finest water, and construct
a pair of slippers for little Bee out of the
leather, the tissues and the pearls."

At these words True threw himself at the feet
of Bee and measured them accurately.  But she said:

"Little King Loc, you must give me the
beautiful slippers you have promised me directly,
and, when I have them, I will return to my
mother at the Clarides."

"You will have your slippers, Bee," answered
King Loc: "you will have them to walk about
inside the mountain and not to return to the
Clarides, for you cannot leave this kingdom where
you will learn beautiful secrets that are
unguessed upon the earth.  Dwarfs are superior to
men, and it is for your happiness that you have
been found by them."

"It is for my unhappiness," answered Bee.
"Little King Loc, give me wooden shoes like
those worn by peasants, and let me return to
the Clarides."

But King Loc shook his head to express that it
was not possible.  Then Bee clasped her hands
and sweetened her voice:

"Little King Loc, let me go and I will love you."

"You will forget me, Bee, on the sunny earth."

"Little King Loc, I will not forget you, and I
will love you as much as Breath-of-Wind."

"And who is Breath-of-Wind?"

"My cream-coloured pony; he has a pink
bridle and eats out of my hand.  When he was
small, the squire Freeheart used to bring him up
to my room of a morning, and I used to kiss
him.  But now Freeheart is at Rome and
Breath-of-Wind is too big to go upstairs."

King Loc smiled.

"Bee, will you love me more than Breath-of-Wind?"

"I will."

"That is right."

"I will, but I cannot; I hate you, little King
Loc, because you prevent me seeing my mother
and George again."

"Who is George?"

"George is George, and I like him."

The friendship of King Loc for Bee had largely
increased in a few moments, and, as he already
hoped to marry her when she was of age, and
through her to reconcile men and dwarfs, he
feared that George might at some time become
his rival and disturb his plans.  This is why he
knit his eyebrows and walked off, drooping his
head like a worried man.

Bee, seeing she had vexed him, gently plucked
at the skirt of his coat.

"Little King Loc," she said in a sad and
tender voice, "why do we each of us make the
other unhappy?"

"Bee, it is the fault of circumstances,"
answered King Loc; "I cannot take you back to
your mother, but I will send her a dream which
will inform her of your fate, dear Bee, and
console her."

"Little King Loc," answered Bee, smiling
through her tears, "you have had a good idea,
but I will tell you what you ought to do.  Every
night you ought to send my mother a dream in
which she will see me and send me a dream in
which I will see my mother."

King Loc promised to do so.  And what he said
he did.  Each night Bee saw her mother, and each
night the Duchess saw her daughter.  This
satisfied their affection a little.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN WHICH THE WONDERS OF THE KINGDOM OF THE DWARFS ARE THOROUGHLY DESCRIBED, AS WELL AS THE DOLLS WHICH WERE GIVEN TO BEE`:

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   CHAPTER X

.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   IN WHICH THE WONDERS OF THE KINGDOM OF THE
   DWARFS ARE THOROUGHLY DESCRIBED, AS
   WELL AS THE DOLLS WHICH WERE GIVEN TO BEE

.. vspace:: 2

The kingdom of the dwarfs was deep and stretched
under a great part of the earth.  Though the
sky was only visible here and there through
openings in the rock, the open places, the roads,
the palaces, and hall were not buried in the
thickest night.  Only a few rooms and several
caverns remained in darkness.  The others were
lighted, not by lamps and torches, but by planets
and meteors which shed a wild, fantastic
brightness, and this brightness shone upon strange
marvels.  Enormous buildings had been hewn in
the face of the rock: in certain places palaces
cut out of granite rose to such a height up
under the vaults of the huge caverns that their
stone carvings disappeared in a mist pierced by
the yellowish light of little planets less luminous
than the moon.

There were in those kingdoms fortresses of
stupendous mass, amphitheatres whose stone
tiers formed a semicircle which the eye could
not embrace in its full extent, and vast wells
with sculptured sides in which no plummet
could ever have found a bottom.  All these
structures, apparently unsuited to the stature
of their inhabitants, agreed perfectly with their
quaint fantastic turn of mind.

The dwarfs wrapped in hoods with sprigs of
fern-leaves stuck in them moved about these
buildings with the nimbleness of spirits.  It was
quite common to see one jump from the height
of two or three stories on to the lava pavement
and rebound like a ball.  His face retained in
the act that calm, majestic expression which
sculptors give to the heads of ancient great men.

There was no indolence, and all applied
themselves to their work.  Whole quarters resounded
with the noise of hammers; the shrieks of
machinery echoed against the cavern roofs, and
it was a curious sight to see the crowd of miners,
smiths, goldbeaters, jewellers, diamond polishers,
handle their pickaxes, hammers, pincers, and
files with the dexterity of monkeys.  But there
was a more peaceful quarter.

There, uncouth and huge figures, shapeless
pillars dimly projected from the rough stone;
they seemed to be aged and venerable.  There
rose a squat palace with low doors; it was the
palace of King Loc.  Just opposite was the house
of Bee, house, or rather cottage, with only one
room in it, and this was hung with white muslin;
fir-wood furniture spread its pleasant scent in
the room.  A cleft in the rock let in the light of
the sky, and on fine nights stars were visible.

Bee had no special servants, but the whole
dwarf nation struggled in emulation to supply
all her needs and anticipate all her wishes, except
that of reascending above ground.

The most learned dwarfs who possess great
secrets took pleasure in teaching her, not with
books, for dwarfs do not write, but by showing
her all the plants of the mountains and the
valleys, the different kinds of animals, and the
various stones which are drawn from the bosom
of the earth.  And it was by sights and examples
that they, with their gay simplicity, taught her
the wonders of nature and the methods of art.

They made toys for her such as no rich children
on the earth have ever had, for these dwarfs were
capable and invented marvellous machines.  In
those depths they put together for her dolls that
could move with grace and express themselves
according to the rule of poetry.  When assembled
in a little theatre, of which the scenery
represented the sea shore, the blue sky, palaces, and
temples, these dolls played tragedies of
surpassing interest.  Though they were not much
longer than a man's arm they looked exactly,
some like reverend old men, others like men in
the prime of life, or like lovely maidens dressed
in white robes.  There were also among them
mothers clasping to their bosoms innocent little
children.  And these eloquent dolls spoke and
acted on the stage as if they were moved by
hatred, love, or ambition.  They passed cleverly
from joy to grief, and so well did they imitate
nature that they raised smiles or drew tears.
Bee clapped her hands at the show.  The dolls
who aimed at tyranny made her shudder with
disgust.  On the other hand she poured treasures
of compassion on the doll who, once a princess,
now a widow and a captive, her head crowned
with cypress, has no other means of saving the life
of her child than marrying, alas! the barbarian
who made her a widow.

Bee never grew tired of this game in which
the dolls introduced infinite variety.  The dwarfs
also gave concerts for her and taught her to play
the lute, the viola, the theorbo, the lyre, and
divers other kinds of instruments.  In such a
fashion she became a good musician, and the
plays represented by the dolls gave her an
experience of men and life.  King Loc was present
at these plays and concerts, but he saw and
heard no one else but Bee, and his whole soul
was gradually drawn towards her.

Meanwhile days and months passed, years
made their round, and still Bee stayed among
the dwarfs, incessantly amused and always full
of regret for the earth.  She was growing into a
beautiful young woman.  Her strange fate gave a
touch of strangeness to her face, only adding
to it another charm.





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.. _`IN WHICH THE TREASURE OF KING LOC IS DESCRIBED AS WELL AS POSSIBLE`:

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   CHAPTER XI

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   IN WHICH THE TREASURE OF KING LOC IS
   DESCRIBED AS WELL AS POSSIBLE

.. vspace:: 2

Bee had been among the dwarfs for six years
to a day.  King Loc summoned her to his palace
and ordered his treasurer in her presence to
displace a large stone which seemed fixed in the
wall, but which was, in reality, only inserted
into it.

They all three passed through the opening
left by the removal of the large stone and found
themselves in a crevice of the rock where two
people could not walk abreast.  King Loc went
forward first along the dark path and Bee
followed, holding on to the skirt of the royal
mantle.  They went on walking for a long time.
At times the walls of rock came so close together
that the girl was afraid of being caught between
them, without being able to move forward or
back, and of dying there.  But the mantle of
King Loc sped before her along the dark and
narrow path.  At last King Loc found a bronze
door, which he opened, and there was a flood
of light.

"Little King Loc," cried Bee, "I never knew
before that light was such a beautiful thing."

But King Loc, taking her by the hand, led her
into the hall from which the light came, and
said to her:

"Look!"

Bee, dazzled, at first saw nothing, for this huge
hall, resting on high marble pillars, was from the
floor to the roof all glorious with gold.

At the far end, on a dais made of sparkling
gems, enchased in gold and in silver, and the
steps of which were covered by a carpet of
marvellous embroidery, was set a throne of
ivory and gold with a canopy of translucent
enamels.  At its side two palm-trees, three
thousand years old, rose from two gigantic
vessels carved long ago by the best craftsmen of
the dwarfs.  King Loc sat down on
this throne and made the young girl
stand on his right hand.

"Bee," he said to her, "this is my
treasure; choose whatever you like."

Immense shields of gold, hung to the
pillars, caught the sunbeams and flung
them back in dazzling showers.  Crossed
swords and lances hung flaming their
bright points.  The tables which spread close to
the walls were loaded with bowls, flagons, ewers,
chalices, pyxes, patins, goblets, beakers, with
drinking-horns of ivory ringed with silver, with
enormous bottles of rock crystals, dishes of carved
gold and silver, with coffers, with reliquaries in the
shape of churches, with mirrors, with candelabra
and censers as wonderful for their workmanship
as for their material, and with thuribles in the
shape of monsters, and on one of the tables a game
of chess made of moonstones was spread out.

"Choose, Bee," King Loc repeated.

But raising her eyes above these riches, Bee
saw the blue sky through an opening in the
roof, and as if she had understood that the
light of the sky alone gave these things their
brightness, she only said:

"Little King Loc, I would like to go back to earth."

Then King Loc made a sign to his treasurer,
who, lifting some heavy curtains, showed a huge
coffer barred with plates and patterns of iron.
The coffer being open
there streamed from it a
thousand beams of various
and charming colours;
each of these beams sprang
from a precious stone cunningly
cut.  King Loc dipped his hand in them,
and they saw rolling in luminous confusion the
violet amethyst and the maiden stone; the
emerald of three natures, the one dark green,
the other called the honeyed emerald because
it is of the colour of honey, the third of a
bluish-green called beryl, which bestows beautiful
dreams; the eastern topaz; the ruby beautiful
as the blood of brave men; the dark blue sapphire
called the male sapphire, and the pale blue
sapphire called the female sapphire; the
alexandrite, the hyacinth, the turquoise, the opal,
whose lights are softer than those of the dawn,
the hyalite, and the Syrian garnet.  All the
stones were of the most limpid water and the
most luminous colour.  And big diamonds cast their
dazzling white lights among these coloured fires.

"Bee, choose," said King Loc.

But Bee shook her head and said:

"Little King Loc, I prefer a single one of the
sunbeams which strike the slates of the castle of
the Clarides to all these jewels."

Then King Loc had a second coffer opened
which held nothing but pearls.  But all these
pearls were round and pure; their changing
lights took on all the tints of the sky and the
sea, and their glow was so mild that it seemed
to express a lovely thought.

"Take some," said King Loc.

But Bee answered him:

"Little King Loc, these pearls remind me of
the looks of George of the White Moor; I like
these pearls but I like the eyes of George better."

Hearing these words, King Loc turned away
his head.  Yet he opened a third coffer and showed
the young girl a crystal in which a drop of water
had been a prisoner since the earliest time of the
world, and, when shaken, the crystal showed this
drop of water moving.  He also displayed to her
pieces of yellow amber in which insects more
dazzling than jewels had been taken for millions
of years.  Their delicate legs and frail membranes
were distinguishable, and they would have taken
wing again if some power had melted like ice
their scented prison-house.

"These are great natural curiosities; I give
them to you, Bee."

But Bee answered:

"Little King Loc, keep the amber and the
crystal, for I could not give back their liberty
either to the fly or the drop of water."

King Loc looked at her for a time and said:

"Bee, the richest treasures will be well placed
in your hands.  You will possess them and they
will not possess you.  The greedy are the prey
of their own gold; only those who despise wealth
can possess it with safety; their souls will always
be greater than their fortune."

Having thus spoken, he made a sign to his
treasurer who presented a crown of gold on a
cushion to the young girl.

"Receive this jewel as a sign of the esteem we
have for you, Bee," said King Loc.  "Henceforward
you will be called the Princess of the Dwarfs."

And he himself placed the crown on the brow
of Bee.





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.. _`IN WHICH KING LOC PROPOSES`:

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   CHAPTER XII

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   IN WHICH KING LOC PROPOSES

.. vspace:: 2

The dwarfs celebrated the coronation of their
first princess by festivals and rejoicings.  In their
perfect simplicity they played games at random
in the huge amphitheatre, and the little men,
with a sprig of fern or two oak leaves neatly
fixed in their hood, went leaping joyfully along
the subterranean streets.  The rejoicings lasted
thirty days.  In his intoxication Pic had the
look of an inspired mortal; the good Tad was
enraptured with the general happiness; the
tender Dig gave himself the pleasure of shedding
tears; Rug, in his joy, again proposed that Bee
should be put in a cage that the dwarfs might
not fear losing so delightful a princess; Bob,
riding on his crow, filled the air with such joyful
cries that the bird itself grew merry, and gave
forth wild little croaks.

King Loc alone was sad.

It came to pass that on the thirtieth day,
having entertained the princess and the whole
nation of the dwarfs at a splendid feast, he stood
upon his arm-chair, and his kind face being
thus raised to the level of Bee's ear:

"Princess Bee," he said to her, "I am going to
make a request which you have full liberty to
grant or to refuse.  Bee of the Clarides, princess
of the dwarfs, will you be my wife?"

And, speaking thus, King Loc, grave and
tender, looked as handsome and mild as a majestic
poodle.  Bee pulled his beard and answered him.

"Little King Loc, I am willing to be your
wife for fun; but I will never be your wife
seriously.  When you propose to marry me, you
make me think of Freeheart, who, on the earth,
used to tell me the most incredible tales to amuse me."

At these words King Loc turned away his
head, but too slowly for Bee not to see a tear
caught in the eyelashes of the dwarf.  Then Bee
was sorry she had hurt him.

"Little King Loc," she said to him, "I love
you like a little King Loc that you are, and if
you make me laugh as Freeheart used to, that
ought not to annoy you, for Freeheart sang
very well, and would have been good-looking
without his grey hair and red nose."

King Loc answered her:

"Bee of the Clarides, princess of the dwarfs,
I love you in the hope that you will one day love
me.  But had I not that hope I would love you
just as much.  I request you, in return for my
friendship, always to be sincere with me."

"Little King Loc, I promise you I will."

"Well, Bee, tell me if you love any one enough
to marry him."

"Little King Loc, I love no one as much as that."

Then King Loc smiled, and seizing his golden
goblet he proposed in ringing tones the health
of the princess of the dwarfs.  And a vast
murmur rose from the depths of the earth, for
the table at which they feasted stretched from
one end to the other of the dwarfish empire.





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.. _`TELLS HOW BEE SAW HER MOTHER AND COULD NOT KISS HER`:

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   CHAPTER XIII

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   TELLS HOW BEE SAW HER MOTHER AND
   COULD NOT KISS HER

.. vspace:: 2

Bee, with a crown set on her forehead, was
more pensive and more sad than in those days
when her hair flowed unbound on her shoulders,
and when she went laughing to the smithy of
the dwarfs to pull the beards of her good friends,
Pic, Tad, and Dig, whose faces, reddened by
the glow of the flames, grew merry at her welcome.
The good dwarfs, who once used to dandle her
on their knees and call her their Bee, now bowed
at her approach and kept deferentially silent.
She regretted she was no longer a child, and she
was oppressed by being the princess of the dwarfs.

It no longer gave her any pleasure to see King
Loc since she had seen him cry on her account.
But she liked him; for he was kind, and he was
unhappy.

One day (if it can be said that there are days
in the empire of the dwarfs) she took King Loc
by the hand and drew him to the fissure of the
rock admitting a beam in which golden motes
danced gaily.

"Little King Loc," she said to him, "I am in
pain.  You are also a king, you love me, and I
am in pain."

Hearing these words of the beautiful maiden,
King Loc answered:

"I love you, Bee of the Clarides, princess of
the dwarfs; and this is why I have kept you in
this our world, so as to teach you our secrets
which are more great and wonderful than anything
you can learn on earth among men, for
men are less clever and less learned than dwarfs."

"Yes," said Bee, "but they are more like me
than the dwarfs; that is why I like them better.
Little King Loc, let me see my mother again, if
you do not wish me to die."

King Loc walked away without answering.

Bee, alone and dejected, gazed on the beam of
that light which bathes the whole face of the
earth and pours its radiant floods on all living
men, and even on the beggars that tramp the
roads.  Slowly the beam grew faint and changed
its golden splendour into a pale, blue light.  Night
had come upon earth.  A star glittered through
the fissure in the rock.

Then some one touched her on the shoulder
and she saw King Loc wrapped in a black mantle.
On his arm hung another mantle which he put
round the girl.

"Come," he said to her.

And he led her from underground.  When she
again saw the trees swept by the wind, the clouds
racing over the moon and the whole of the fresh,
blue night, when she smelt the scent of the
grasses, and took to her bosom in a flood the air
she had breathed during her childhood, she gave
a great sigh and thought to die of joy.

King Loc had taken her in his arms; small as
he was, he carried her as easily as a feather, and
the two went gliding over the earth like the
shadow of two birds.

"Bee, you are going to see your mother again.
But listen.  Every night, as you know, I send
your image to your mother.  Every night, she
sees your dear shape.  She smiles and speaks to
it, and kisses it.  To-night I am going to show
you, instead of your ghost.  You will see her;
but do not touch her, do not speak of her, for
then the charm would be broken, and she will
never again see you nor your image, which she
does not distinguish from yourself."

"I will therefore be careful, alas! little King
Loc ... there it is, there it is!"

There was the Keep of the Clarides rising black
on the hill.  Bee hardly had time to send a kiss
to the old, well-beloved stones; now she saw,
blooming with gilliflowers, the ramparts of the
town of the Clarides fly past her; now she was
going up along a slope where glow-worms shone
in the grass to the postern gate, which King Loc
opened easily, for the dwarfs, the metal workers,
are not stopped by locks, padlocks, bolts, chains,
and bars.

She went up the spiral staircase leading to her
mother's room and stopped to put her two hands
to her beating heart.  The door opened slowly,
and, by the light of a lamp hung from
the ceiling, Bee saw, in the brooding,
religious silence, her mother, worn and
pale, her hair silvered at the temples,
but more beautiful thus for her daughter
than in the days gone by of splendid
jewels and fearless rides.  As the mother
saw her daughter in a dream, she opened
her arms to embrace her.  And the
child, laughing and sobbing, tried to
cast herself into these open arms; but
King Loc tore her from this embrace and carried
her off like a straw over the dark champaign,
down into the kingdom of the dwarfs.





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.. _`IN WHICH THE GREAT GRIEF THAT OVERTOOK KING LOC IS SEEN`:

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   CHAPTER XIV

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   IN WHICH THE GREAT GRIEF THAT OVERTOOK
   KING LOC IS SEEN

.. vspace:: 2

Bee, seated on the granite steps of the
subterranean palace, again gazed at the blue sky
through the fissure in the stone.  High above
the elder trees turned their white umbels towards
the light.  Bee began to cry.  King Loc took her
by the hand and said to her:

"Bee, why are you crying and what do you want?"

And, as she had been sad for several
days, the dwarfs seated at her feet
were playing to her very simple tunes
on the flute, the flageolet, the rebec,
and the cymbals.  Other dwarfs turned,
to please her, such somersaults, that
one after the other they stuck in the
ground the tips of their hoods
decorated with a plume of leaves; nothing
could be more diverting to see than the sports
of these little men with their hermit beards.
The good Tad, the romantic Dig, who loved
her from the day they had seen her sleeping
on the edge of the lake, and Pic, the old poet,
took her gently by the arm and begged her
to tell them the secret of her grief.  Paw, who
was simple but sensible, held up to her grapes in
a basket, and all, tugging the edge of her dress,
repeated with King Loc:

"Bee, princess of the dwarfs, why are you weeping?"

Bee answered:

"Little King Loc and you all, little men, my
grief increases your grief because you are kind;
you weep when I weep.  Know that I weep
thinking of George of the White Moor, who must
to-day be a brave knight, and whom I shall never
see again.  I love him and I wish to be his wife."

King Loc drew his hand from the hand he was
pressing and said:

"Bee, why did you deceive me and tell me, at
the feast table, that you loved no one?"

Bee answered:

"Little King Loc, I did not deceive you at the
feast table.  I did not then wish to marry George
of the White Moor, and it is to-day my highest
desire that he should propose to marry me.  But
he will not propose, since I do not know where
he is and he does not know where to find me.
And this is why I cry."

At these words the musicians stopped playing
their instruments; the leapers interrupted their
leaps and remained motionless on their heads or
their seats; Tad and Dig shed silent tears on
Bee's sleeve; the simple Paw let drop the
basket with the bunches of grapes, and all the
little men gave fearful groans.

But the King of the Dwarfs, more dejected
than all of them under his crown of sparkling
stones, walked away without a word, letting his
mantle drag behind him like a torrent of purple.





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.. _`RELATES THE WORDS OF THE LEARNED NUR WHICH GAVE AN EXTRAORDINARY PLEASURE TO LITTLE KING LOC`:

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   CHAPTER XV

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   RELATES THE WORDS OF THE LEARNED NUR
   WHICH GAVE AN EXTRAORDINARY PLEASURE
   TO LITTLE KING LOC

.. vspace:: 2

King Loc had not shown his weakness to the
maiden, but when he was alone, he sat on the
ground, and holding his feet in his hands, he
gave way to grief.

He was jealous, and he said to himself:

"She is in love, and it is not with me!  Yet I
am a king and am full of learning; I have
treasures, I know marvellous secrets; I am
better than all the other dwarfs, who are superior
to men.  She does not love me, and she loves a
young man who has not the learning of the
dwarfs and who, perhaps, has none at all.  Clearly
she does not appreciate merit and is silly.  I
ought to laugh at her want of sense, but I love
her and nothing in the world pleases me because
she does not love me."

For many long days King Loc wandered alone
in the wildest gorges of the mountains, revolving
in his mind sad and sometimes wicked ideas.  He
thought of compelling Bee by captivity and
hunger to become his wife.  But discarding the
idea almost as soon as he had formed it, he
determined to go to the girl and to throw himself
at her feet.  Still he could not make up his mind,
and did not know what to do.  For truly, the
power was not given to him to make Bee love him.

His anger turned all at once against George of
the White Moor; he hoped that this young man
would be carried far away by a magician, or at
least, if he should ever be acquainted with Bee's
love, that he would disdain it.

And the king thought:

"Without being old, I have already lived too
long not to have suffered at times.  But my
suffering, deep as it was, was never so fierce as
what I undergo to-day.  These former pains being
caused by tenderness or by pity had something
of their heavenly gentleness.  On the contrary,
I feel at this hour that my grief has the blackness
and bitterness of a bad passion.  My soul is
arid, and my eyes swim in tears as in a burning
acid."

So thought King Loc.  And, dreading that
jealousy should make him unjust and wicked, he
avoided meeting the young girl for fear of using,
without wishing to, the tone of a weak or violent
man.

One day, being more than ordinarily tortured
by the thought that Bee loved George, he determined
to consult Nur, who was the most learned
of the dwarfs and lived in the bottom of a well
dug in the entrails of the earth.

This well had the advantage of an even, mild
temperature.  It was not dark, for two little
planets, a pale sun and red moon, alternately
gave light to every part of it.  King Loc went
down this well and found Nur in his laboratory.
Nur had the face of a pleasant old little man,
and carried a wisp of wild thyme in his hood.
In spite of his learning, he showed in all matters
the innocence and candour of his race.

"Nur," said the king, embracing him, "I have
come to consult you because you know many things."

"King Loc," answered Nur, "I might know
many things and yet be only a fool.  But I know
the way to learn a few of the innumerable things
I do not know, and this is why I am justly
renowned as a man of learning."

"Well," continued Loc, "do you know where
a boy called George of the White Moor is now?"

"I do not know, and I have never had the
curiosity to learn," answered Nur.  "Knowing
how ignorant, stupid, and wicked men are, I do
not care much what they think or what they do.
Except that, to give some value to the life of the
proud and wretched race, the men have courage,
the women beauty, and the little children
innocence, O King Loc, the whole of mankind is
lamentable or ridiculous.  Subject like the dwarfs
to the necessity of working to live, men have
rebelled against the divine law, and, far from
being like us workmen full of jubilance, they
prefer war to work, and would rather kill than
help each other.  But one must acknowledge, to
be just, that the brevity of their life is the
principal cause of their ignorance and their
ferocity.  They live too short a time for them to
learn how to live.  The Dwarf race, which lives
under the earth, is happier and better.  If we
are not immortal, at least each of us will last as
long as the earth which carries us in its bosom
and pervades us with its inmost, fruitful warmth,
while for the race which is born on its rough
rind, its breath is burning or icy, spreading
death as well as life.  However, men are indebted
to their extreme misery and wretchedness for a
quality which makes the soul of some of them
more beautiful than the soul of the dwarfs.
This quality, as splendid to the mind as the mild
sheen of pearls to the eye, King Loc, is
compassion.  Suffering teaches it, and the dwarfs do
not know it well, because, being wiser than men,
they have fewer sorrows.  So the dwarfs
sometimes leave their deep grottoes and mix with
men on the inclement rind of the earth, in order
to love them, to suffer with them and through
them, and then to taste compassion, which
falls on the soul like a heavenly, refreshing dew.
Such is the truth about men, King Loc; but
did you not ask me for the particular fate of
one of them?"

King Loc having repeated his question, the
old Nur looked into one of the glasses that filled
the room.  For the dwarfs have no books, those
found among them come from man and are used
as toys.  To instruct themselves they
do not refer as we do to signs made
upon paper; they look into the
glasses and see the subject of their
researches.  The only difficulty is
to select the proper glass and direct it rightly.

These glasses are of crystal, also of topaz and
opal; but those which have a big polished
diamond as lens are the most powerful and are
used to see very distant things.

The dwarfs also have lenses of a diaphanous
substance, unknown to men.  These allow the
eye to pierce through walls and rocks as if they
were glass.  Others, more wonderful still,
reproduce as faithfully as a mirror all that time has
carried away in its course, for the dwarfs can
recall, from the infinite vastness of the ether
back into their cavern the light of former days
together with the shapes and colours of vanished
ages.  They enjoy this view of the past by
collecting the showers of light, which, having once
fallen against the forms of men, of beasts, of
plants and of rocks, recoil through the immeasurable
ether for all time.

The old Nur excelled in reviving the shapes of
the past and even those, impossible to imagine,
which existed before the earth had taken upon it
the aspect which we know.  So it was mere play
for him to find George of the White Moor.

Having looked for less than a minute in quite
a simple glass, he said to King Loc:

"King Loc, he whom you seek is now among
the Sylphs, in the manor of crystal from which
none return, and whose iridescent walls march
with your kingdom."

"He is there, is he?  Let him stop there!"
cried King Loc, rubbing his hands.

And having embraced the old Nur, he went
out of the well in peals of laughter.

All along the road he held his sides to laugh at
his ease; his head wagged with mirth; his beard
rose and fell on his chest;
"ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"  The
little men who met him also
began to laugh like him, out of sympathy.
Seeing them laugh, others laughed too; this
laughter spread from one to another till the
whole inside of the earth was shaken with a
jovial great guffaw.





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.. _`TELLS THE MARVELLOUS ADVENTURE OF GEORGE OF THE WHITE MOOR`:

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   CHAPTER XVI

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   TELLS THE MARVELLOUS ADVENTURE OF
   GEORGE OF THE WHITE MOOR

.. vspace:: 2

King Loc did not laugh long; on the contrary,
he hid the face of a very unhappy little man
under his bedclothes.  Thinking of George of
the White Moor, prisoner of the Sylphs, he
could not sleep the whole night.  So, at that
hour of the morning when the dwarfs who have
a dairymaid for a friend go to milk the cows in
her place while she sleeps like a log in her white
bed, little King Loc revisited Nur in his deep well.

"Nur," he said to him, "you did not tell me
what he was doing among the Sylphs."

The old Nur thought that King Loc had gone
out of his mind, and he was not very frightened,
because he was certain that King Loc, if he
became mad, would certainly turn into a
graceful, witty, amiable, and kindly madman.  The
madness of the dwarfs is gentle like their sanity
and delightfully fantastic.  But King Loc was
not mad; at least he was not more so than
lovers usually are.

"I mean George of the White Moor," he said
to the old man, who had forgotten this young
man as completely as possible.

Then the learned Nur arranged the lenses and
the mirrors in a careful pattern, but so intricate
that it had the appearance of disorder, and
showed to King Loc in the mirror the very shape
of George of the White Moor, such as he was
when the Sylphs carried him off.  By properly
choosing and skilfully directing the instruments,
the dwarf showed the lovelorn king the whole
adventure of the son of that countess who was
warned of her end by a white rose.  And here
expressed in words is what the two little men
saw in the reality of form and colour.

When George was carried away in the icy arms
of the daughter of the lake, he felt the water
press his eyes and his breast, and he thought
it was death.  Yet he heard songs that were like
caresses, and he was steeped in a delicious
coolness.  When he opened his eyes again he found
himself in a grotto; it had crystal pillars in
which the delicate tints of the rainbow shone.
At the end of this grotto there was a large shell
of mother-of-pearl, irisated with the softest
colours: it was a canopy spreading over a throne
of coral and weeds where sat the queen of the
Sylphs.  But the aspect of the sovereign of the
waters had lights softer than the sheen of
mother-of-pearl and of crystal.  She smiled at the child
brought to her by her women and let her green
eyes rest on him long.

"Friend," she at length said to him, "welcome
in our world, where you will be spared every
pain.  For you, no dry books or rough exercises,
nothing coarse that recalls the earth and its
labours, but only the songs, the dances, and the
friendship of the Sylphs."

So the blue-haired women taught the child
music, waltzing, and a thousand amusements.
They loved to bind on his forehead the shells
that starred their own locks.  But he, thinking
of his country, gnawed his fists in impatience.

The years went by, and George's wish to see
the earth again was unchanged and fervent, the
hardy earth burnt by the sun, frozen by the
snow, the native earth of sufferings and affections,
the earth where he had seen, where he wished to
see Bee again.  Now he was growing into a big
boy, and a slight golden down ran along his
upper lip.  Boldness came to him with his beard,
and one day he appeared before the queen of
the Sylphs, and having bowed, said to her:

"My lady, I have come, if you deign to permit
it, to take leave of you.  I am going back to the
Clarides."

"Dear friend," the queen answered, smiling,
"I cannot grant you the leave you demand, for
I keep you in my crystal manor to make you
my friend."

"My lady," George replied, "I feel unworthy
of so great an honour."

"This is the effect of your courtesy.  No good
knight ever thinks he has done enough to win the
love of his lady.  Further, you are yet too young
to know all your merits.  Be sure, dear friend,
that nobody wishes you anything but good.  You
only have to obey your lady."

"My lady, I love Bee of the Clarides, and I will
love no other lady but her."

The queen, very pale, but still more beautiful,
cried:

"A mortal woman, a gross daughter of men,
this Bee, how can you love that?"

"I do not know, but I know that I love her."

"Very well, you will recover."

And she detained the young man in the
delights of the crystal manor.

He did not know what a woman was, and was
more like Achilles among the daughters of
Lycomedes than Tannhauser in the magic mountain.
So he wandered gloomily along the walls of
the immense palace, looking for an opening to
run away; but on all sides he saw the floods
enclosing his luminous prison in their mute and
magnificent kingdom.  Through the transparent
walls he watched the anemones bloom and the
coral flowering, while purple, azure, and golden
fish sparkled and sported above the delicate
madrepores and the glistening shells.  These
marvels did not interest him; but lulled by the
delicious songs of the Sylphs, he slowly felt his
will give way, and his whole soul dissolve.

He was all slackness and indifference, when he
found by chance in a gallery of the
palace an old worn book of vellum,
studded with copper nails.  The book,
found in a wreck at the bottom of
the sea, dealt with chivalry and
ladies, and there were told at length
stories of the adventures of heroes
who went through the world fighting
giants, redressing wrongs, protecting
widows, and assisting orphans for
the love of justice and the honour of beauty.
George flushed and grew pale in turn with
admiration, shame, and anger at the tale of these
splendid adventures.  He could not contain
himself:

"I also," he cried, "will be a good knight!  I
also will go through the world punishing the
wicked and helping the unhappy for the good of
men and the name of my lady Bee."

Then his heart grew great with courage.  He
strode with drawn sword through the crystal
mansions.  The white women fled and vanished
before him like the silvery waves of a lake.  Their
queen alone saw him come upon her unmoved.
She fixed on him the cold look of her green eyes.

He rushes to her; he cries:

"Unclasp the charm which you have thrown
on me.  Open me the road to earth.  I wish to
fight in the sun like a knight.  I wish to return
to love, to suffer, and to struggle.  Give me back
the true life and the true light.  Give me action
and achievement; if you do not I will kill you,
wicked woman!"

She shook her head smiling, to say "no."  She
was beautiful and calm.  George struck her
with all his strength.  But his sword broke
against the glittering bosom of the queen of the
Sylphs.

"Child!" she said.

And she had him shut up in a kind of crystal
funnel which formed a cell under the manor;
round it sharks prowled, opening their monstrous
jaws armed with a triple row of sharp teeth.
And it seemed as if at each charge they must
break the thin partition of glass; it was not
possible to sleep in this strange cell.

The point of this submarine funnel rested on a
rocky bottom which was the dome of the furthest
and the least known cavern of the Empire of
the dwarfs.

This is what the two little men saw in the
course of an hour as exactly as if they had followed
George all the days of his life.  The ancient Nur,
after having displayed the cell scene in all its
sadness, spoke to King Loc much in the way of
a showman when he has shown the magic lantern
to little children.

"King Loc," he said to him, "I have shown
you all you wished to see, and, your knowledge
being perfect, I can add nothing to it.  I am not
anxious to know whether what you have seen
has pleased you; it is enough that it is true.
Science takes no account of pleasing or displeasing.
It is inhuman.  It is not science, it is poetry
which charms and consoles.  That is why poetry
is more necessary than science.  King Loc, go and
compose a song."

King Loc went out of the well without speaking
a word.





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.. _`IN WHICH KING LOC MAKES A TERRIBLE JOURNEY`:

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   CHAPTER XVII

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   IN WHICH KING LOC MAKES A TERRIBLE JOURNEY

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On leaving the well of science King Loc went
to his treasure, took a ring from a box of which
he alone had a key, and put it on his finger.  The
bezel of this ring shone brightly, for it was made
of magic stone whose virtues will be discovered
in the course of this story.  King Loc then went
to his palace, where he put on a travelling cloak,
drew on heavy boots, and took a stick.  Then he
set out through the crowded street, the broad
roads, the villages, and the halls of porphyry,
the lakes of petroleum, and the grottos of crystal
which communicated with each other by narrow
openings.

He seemed pensive and spoke words which had
no sense.  But he walked on steadily.  Mountains
blocked the way and he climbed the mountains;
cliffs yawned at his feet and he went down the
cliffs; he crossed fords, he passed through grisly
regions darkened by the fumes of sulphur.  He
walked over burning lava, in which his feet
printed themselves; he seemed to be an extremely
determined traveller.  He entered dark caverns
where the sea water, trickling in drops, fell like
tears along the weeds and made pools in the
uneven soil in which innumerable crustaceans
grew monstrously.  Enormous crabs, giant
crayfish, spiders of the sea, cracked under the
feet of the dwarf and made off, leaving behind
a claw, and waking in their flight hideous hoary
cuttle-fish, who suddenly waved their hundred
arms and spat from their beaks a reeking poison.
King Loc went on all the same.  He reached the
end of these caverns staggering under a load of
monsters armed with stings, double jagged pincers,
claws that curled up to his neck, and sullen
eyes brandished at the end of long branches.
He climbed the side of the cavern clinging to
the roughnesses of the rock, and the armoured
beasts went up with him, and he only stopped
when by groping he found a stone that jutted
out of the vaulted summit.  With his magic ring
he touched this stone, which immediately fell
with a great crash, and immediately a flood
of light poured its lovely streams into the
cavern and put to flight the beasts bred in
darkness.

King Loc put his head through the opening
where the light came from, saw George of the
White Moor thinking of Bee and the earth, and
mourning in his glass prison.  For King Loc had
made this subterranean journey to release the
prisoner of the Sylphs.  But seeing this big head,
all hair, eyebrows, and beard, look at him from
the bottom of the crystal funnel, George thought
a great danger threatened him, and he felt for
the sword at his side, forgetting he had broken
it on the bosom of the green-eyed woman.
Meanwhile King Loc examined him curiously.

"Pooh!" he said to himself, "it is only a child."

Certainly it was a very simple child, and he
owed to his great simplicity his escape from the
delicious and mortal kisses of the queen of the
Sylphs.  Aristotle with all his learning could not
have got out of it so easily.

George, seeing himself defenceless, said:

"What do you want of me, big head?  Why
hurt me, if I have never hurt you?"

King Loc answered in a jovial and gruff tone:

"My dear boy, you do not know if you have
hurt me, for you are ignorant of effect and cause,
of reflex action, and generally of all philosophy.
But do not let us talk of this.  If you are not
reluctant to leave your funnel, come through here."

George immediately insinuated himself into
the cavern, slid down the wall, and, as soon as
he reached the bottom:

"You are a good little man," he said to his
deliverer, "I will like you all my life; but do you
know where Bee of the Clarides is?"

"I know a great many things," answered the
dwarf, "and especially that I do not like
inquisitive people."

George, hearing these words, remained quite
abashed, and he silently followed his guide
through the thick and murky air where
cuttlefish and crabs were moving.  Then King Loc
said to him with a grin:

"The road is rather rough, my young prince."

"Sir," George answered him, "the way to
freedom is always pleasant, and I am not afraid
of being lost by following my benefactor."

Little King Loc bit his lips.  When he reached
the hall of porphyry, he showed the young man a
staircase made in the stone by which the dwarfs
go up above ground.

"Here is your road," he said to him, "good-bye."

"Do not say good-bye," replied George, "tell
me you will see me again.  My life belongs to you
after what you have done for me."

King Loc answered:

"What I have done was not for you, but for
another.  We had better not see each other again,
because we might not like each other."

George replied unaffectedly and seriously:

"I did not think that my release would give
me pain.  And yet it has.  Good-bye, sir."

"I wish you a good journey," King Loc cried
roughly.

Now this staircase ended in a lonely quarry
which lay less than a league from the castle
of the Clarides.

King Loc pursued his way muttering:

"This boy has neither the learning nor the
wealth of the dwarfs.  I do not really know why
he is loved by Bee, unless it is that he is young,
handsome, loyal, and bold."

He returned to the town laughing to himself
like a man who has played a practical joke on
some one.  Passing in front of Bee's house, he
pushed his big head through the window, as he
had done into the glass funnel, and he saw
the young girl embroidering a veil with silver
flowers.

"Rejoice, Bee," he said to her.

"And you," she answered, "little King Loc,
may you never have anything to wish for, or at
least anything to regret."

There was something he wished for, but really
he had nothing to regret.  This thought gave
him a large appetite for supper.  After eating
a great number of truffled pheasants, he called
Bob.

"Bob," he said to him, "get on your crow:
go to the Princess of the Dwarfs and tell her that
George of the White Moor, who was for a long
time a prisoner of the Sylphs, returned to-day
to the Clarides."

He spoke, and Bob flew off on his crow.





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.. _`TELLS THE MARVELLOUS MEETING THAT OCCURRED TO JOHN, THE MASTER TAILOR, AND OF THE GOOD SONG SUNG BY THE BIRDS OF THE GROVE TO THE DUCHESS`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII

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   TELLS THE MARVELLOUS MEETING THAT OCCURRED
   TO JOHN, THE MASTER TAILOR, AND OF THE
   GOOD SONG SUNG BY THE BIRDS OF THE
   GROVE TO THE DUCHESS

.. vspace:: 2

When George found himself on the earth where
he was born, the first person he met was John,
the old master tailor, carrying on his arm a
scarlet suit for the steward of the castle.  The old
fellow gave a great cry at the sight of the young
lord.

"St. James!" he said, "if it is not his Highness
George of the White Moor, who was drowned in
the lake seven years ago, then it is his ghost or
the devil himself!"

"It is not a ghost or a devil, my good John,
but it is that George of the White Moor who used
to slip into your shop and ask you for little bits
of cloth to make dresses for the dolls of my
sister Bee."

But the old fellow exclaimed:

"So you were not drowned, your Highness?  I
am very pleased.  You look quite well.  My
grandson, Peter, who used to climb up into my
arms of a Sunday morning to see you go by on
horseback next to the Duchess, has become a
good workman and a fine, handsome lad.  He
will be glad to know you are not at the bottom
of the water, and that the fish have not eaten
you as he thought.  He is accustomed to say
about this the most amusing things in the world;
for he is full of wit, your Highness.  And it is a
fact that everybody regrets you in the Clarides.
You were such a promising little boy.  I will
remember to my last day how once you asked
me for my needle, and as I would not give it
to you, because you were not old enough to
handle it without danger, you answered me that
you would go into the wood and pick the fine
needles of the pines.  This is what you said, and
it still makes me laugh.  Upon my word this is
what you said.  Our little Peter used also to make
excellent answers.  He is a cooper at present,
at your service, your Highness."

"I will employ none other but him.  But,
Master John, give me some news of Bee and the
Duchess."

"Alas, where have you been, your Highness,
not to know that Princess Bee was carried off,
seven years ago, by the dwarfs of the mountain?
She disappeared the very day you were drowned;
and it can be said that on that day the Clarides
lost their two sweetest flowers.  The Duchess
has mourned greatly ever since.  This always
makes me say that the great people of this world
have their trouble like the poorest workmen, and
this is a sign that we are all children of Adam.
Accordingly a cat may look at a king, as they say.
By the same token the good Duchess saw her
hair grow grey and lost all her gaiety.  And
when, in the spring, she walks about in a black
dress under the grove where the birds sing, the
smallest of these birds is more enviable than the
sovereign of the Clarides.  Her sorrow, however,
is not hopeless, your Highness; for, if she has
no news of you, at least she knows by dreams
that her daughter Bee is alive."

Old John said these things and many others,
too; but George was not listening to him since he
had heard that Bee was a prisoner of the dwarfs.

He reflected:

"The dwarfs detain Bee under the earth; a
dwarf got me out of my crystal prison.  These
little men have not all the same habits; my
deliverer surely does not belong to the tribe of
those who carried off my sister."

He did not know what to think, unless it was
that Bee must be released.

Now they were going through the town, and,
as they passed, the old women standing at their
thresholds asked each other who this young
stranger was, and they agreed his appearance
was handsome.  The more wary, having recognised
the Lord of the White Moor, thought they
saw a ghost, and fled, crossing themselves
vigorously.

"Holy water ought to be cast at him," said an
old woman, "and he would vanish leaving a
disgusting smell of sulphur.  He is carrying off
Master John, the tailor, and quite certainly
he will plunge him all alive into the flames of
hell."

"Gently, old woman," a burgess replied, "the
young lord is alive and a good deal more so than
you and me.  He is as fresh as a rose, and rather
seems to have come from some noble court than
from the other world.  Men come back from far,
my good woman; witness the squire Freeheart,
who came back to us from Rome last Candlemas."

And Mary, the armourer's daughter, having
admired George, went up to her maiden room,
and kneeling then before the image of the Holy
Virgin: "Holy Virgin," she said, "grant me a
husband like this young lord."

Every one spoke in their own way of the
return of George, so much so that the news flew
from mouth to mouth to the ears of the Duchess,
who was then walking in the orchard.  Her heart
beat high, and she heard all the birds in the
grove sing:

   |  Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit,
   |  Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit,
   |  George of the White Moor,
   |  Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit,
   |  Whom you brought up,
   |  Teewhit, teewhit, teewhit,
   |  Is here, here, here, here.
   |

Freeheart respectfully approached her, and
said to her:

"Your Grace, George of the White Moor,
whom you thought to be dead, has returned.  I
am going to make a song about it."

Still the birds sang:

   |  Teewhit, teewhit, twit, twit,
   |  Is here, here, here,
   |  Is here, here, here.
   |

And when she saw the child coming she had
brought up as a son she opened her arms and fell
in a swoon.





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.. _`TELLS OF A LITTLE SATIN SLIPPER`:

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   CHAPTER XIX

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   TELLS OF A LITTLE SATIN SLIPPER

.. vspace:: 2

People were pretty certain in the Clarides
that Bee had been carried off by the dwarfs.
It was also the belief of the Duchess; but her
dreams did not give her any exact information.

"We will find her," said George.

"We will find her," answered Freeheart.

"And we will bring her back to her mother,"
said George.

"And we will bring her back," answered Freeheart.

"And we will marry her," said George.

"And we will marry her," answered Freeheart.

And they inquired among the inhabitants
concerning the habits of the dwarfs and the
mysterious facts of Bee's capture.

This led them to question the nurse Glauce,
who had been the nurse of the Duchess of the
Clarides; but now Glauce was old and fed the
fowls in her farmyard.

There the squire and his master found her.
She was crying "Ss! ss! ss! chick! chick! chick;
ss! ss! ss! ss!"
and throwing grain to the chicks.

"Ss! ss! ss! chick! chick! chick!
It is your Highness!  Ss! ss! ss!
Is it possible that you
have become so big ... ss! and so handsome?
Ss! ss! shoo! shoo! shoo!  Do you see that big
one there eating the share of the small ones?
Shoo! shoo!  So it is everywhere in the world,
your Highness.  All the good goes to the rich.
The lean get leaner, while the fat get fatter.
For there is no justice on this earth.  What can
I do for you, your Highness?  You will surely
each of you take a glass of ale?"

"We will take one with pleasure, Glauce, and
I will kiss you because you nursed the mother
of her whom I love best in the world."

"It is quite true, your Highness; my baby
had its first tooth in six months and fourteen
days, and on that occasion the late Duchess
made me a present.  It is quite true."

"Well, tell us, Glauce, what you know of the
dwarfs who carried off Bee."

"Alas! your Highness, I know nothing of the
dwarfs who carried her off.  And how can an old
woman like me know anything?  I forgot the
little I ever learnt long ago, and I have not
even enough memory to remember where I put
my spectacles.  I often look for them when I
have them on.  Try this ale, it is nice and cool."

"Your health, Glauce; but I am
told your husband knew something
about Bee's carrying off."

"It is quite true, your Highness.
Though he had never got any education,
he knew a great many things that he learnt in
inns and taverns.  He never forgot anything.
If he was still in this world and sitting at this
table with us, he could tell you stories by the
week.  He told me so many and so many of all
kinds that they have made a muddle inside my
head, and I cannot, at this moment, make head
or tail of any of them.  It is quite true, your
Highness."

Yes, it is quite true, and the head of the old
nurse was as useless as an old cracked kettle.
George and Freeheart had all the trouble in the
world to get any good out of her.  At last, by
sifting her, they drew out a story which began
in this style:

"Seven years ago, your Highness, on the very
day you and Bee got into the scrape from which
neither of you came back, my late husband went
into the hills to sell a horse.  It is quite true.  He
gave his beast a good feed of oats with a dash of
cider in it, so that it might have a firm leg and a
bright eye; he took it to the market near the
hills.  His corn and his cider were not lost, for it
made his horse sell better.  It is the same with
beasts as with men; they are judged by appearances.
My late husband was pleased at the good
business he had done; he offered to drink with
his friends, undertaking to drink fair to them.
And I must tell you, your Highness, that there
was not a man in the whole Clarides who could
drink fairer with his friends than my husband.
So much so that, on this day, after a great deal
of good feeling and harmony, he came back
alone in the twilight and took a wrong road, for
want of finding the right one.  Finding himself
near a cavern, he saw as clear as it was possible
in his condition and at that hour a band of little
men carrying a boy or a girl on a stretcher.  He
ran away for fear of a mishap, for wine did not
deprive him of discretion.  But at some distance
from the cavern, having let his pipe fall, he bent
to pick it up and took hold of a little satin slipper
instead.  He made a remark about it which he
liked to repeat when he was in a good temper.
'This is the first time,' he said to himself, 'that a
pipe changes into a slipper.'  Now, as this slipper
was the slipper of a little girl, he thought that
she who had lost it in the wood had been carried
off by the dwarfs, and that it was her capture
he had seen.  He was just on the point of putting
the slipper in his pocket when little men, covered
with hoods, threw themselves upon him and
gave him so many smacks on the head that he
remained on the spot quite dazed."

"Glauce!  Glauce!" cried George, "it is Bee's
slipper!  Give it me that I may kiss it a thousand
times.  It shall lie on my heart for ever, in a bag
of scented silk, and when I die it shall be put in
my coffin."

"As you please, your Highness; but where
will you go to get it?  The dwarfs took it back
from my poor husband, and he even thought
that why he had been so thoroughly beaten was
because he tried to put it in his pocket to show
the magistrates.  He was accustomed to say on
the subject when he was in a good temper..."

"Enough!  Enough!  Only tell me the name of
the cave."

"My lord, it is called the cave of the dwarfs,
and it is well called so.  My late husband..."

"Glauce! not a word more!  But you, Freeheart,
do you know where this cave is?"

"My lord," answered Freeheart, finishing his
mug of ale, "you would be quite certain I do if
you knew my songs better.  I have composed at
least a dozen on this cave, and I have described
it without forgetting the smallest sprig of moss.
I venture to say, my lord, that of these twelve
songs, six are really worth something.  But the
six others are not to be disdained.  I will just
sing you one or two..."

"Freeheart," cried George, "we will seize the
cave of the dwarfs, and we will deliver Bee!"

"Nothing could be more certain," answered
Freeheart.





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.. _`IN WHICH A DANGEROUS ADVENTURE IS RELATED`:

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   CHAPTER XX

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   IN WHICH A DANGEROUS ADVENTURE IS RELATED

.. vspace:: 2

As soon as night came, and the whole castle
was asleep, George and Freeheart slipped into
the low hall to get arms.  There, under the smoky
joists, gleamed lances, swords, dirks, espadons,
hunting knives, daggers, all that is required to
kill man and wolf.  Under each rafter, a complete
suit of armour stood upright, holding itself
so sternly and proudly that it seemed as
if it was still filled by the soul of the brave
man who had arrayed himself in it in bygone
days to go on great adventures.  And the glove
clasped the lance in ten iron fingers, while the
shield rested on the tassets of the thigh, as
if to teach that prudence is necessary to courage
and that the good soldier is armed for defence
as well as for attack.  George selected amid so
ample a choice the suit of armour which the
father of Bee had carried as far as the isles of
Avalon and of Thule.  He put it on with the
help of Freeheart, and he did not forget the
shield on which was blazoned proper the golden
sun of the Clarides.  Freeheart, on the other
hand, arrayed himself in the good old steel coat
of his grandfather and crowned himself with an
obsolete headpiece, to which he added a kind of
moth-eaten and ragged plume, feather, or brush.
He made this choice for fun and to look comical;
for he considered that gaiety, good at all hours,
is especially useful when there are great dangers
to be incurred.

Having thus armed themselves, they went off,
under the moon, over the dark fields.  Freeheart
had tied the horses at the edge of a little wood,
near the fortress gate, where they found them
gnawing the bark of the bushes; these horses
were very swift, and it took them less than an
hour to reach, amid dancing will o' wisps and
confused visions, the mountains of the dwarfs.

"Here is the cave," said Freeheart.

The lord and squire dismounted.  Sword in
hand, they entered the cave.  Great courage was
required to engage in such an adventure.  But
George was in love and Freeheart was faithful.
And as the most delightful of poets says:

"What cannot Friendship do guided by sweet Love?"

The lord and the squire walked in the darkness
for nearly an hour; then they saw a great blaze,
at which they were astonished.  It was one of
those meteors with which we know the dwarfs
illuminate their kingdom.

By the light of this subterranean brightness they
saw they were at the base of an ancient castle.

"Here," said George, "is the castle which we
must seize."

"Certainly," answered Freeheart, "but allow
me to drink a few drops of this wine which I
brought with me as a weapon, for a good wine
makes a good man, and a good man makes a
good spear, and a good spear makes a bad foe."

George, not seeing a living soul, roughly struck
with the hilt of his sword the door of the castle.
A small quavering voice made him lift his head,
and he saw at one of the windows a very small old
man with a long beard who asked him:

"Who are you?"

"George of the White Moor."

"And what do you want?"

"I want to take back Bee of the Clarides, whom
you unjustly detain in your mole-hill, ugly moles
that you are!"

The dwarf disappeared, and again George found
himself alone with Freeheart, who said to him:

"My lord, I do not know if I am guilty of
exaggeration when I state that in your answer to
the dwarf you did not perhaps exhaust all the
resources of the most persuasive eloquence."

Freeheart feared nothing, but he was old.  His
manners, like the top of his head, had been
smoothed by time, and he did not like to see
people annoyed.  George, on the other hand,
rushed about yelling:

"Vile earthmen, moles, badgers, dormice,
ferrets, and water-rats, only open the door and
I will cut all your ears off."

But hardly had he finished speaking these
words when the bronze door of the castle opened
of itself.  No one could be seen pushing the huge
leaves.

George was frightened, and yet he stepped
through the mysterious door because his courage
was greater than his fear.  Once inside the court,
he saw at all the windows, in all the galleries,
on all the roofs, on all the gables, inside the
lamp and even on the chimney-pots dwarfs armed
with bows and cross-bows.

He heard the bronze door shut behind him,
and a shower of arrows began to fall hard on
his head and his shoulders.  For the second time
he was very frightened, and for the second time
he overcame his fear.

Shield on arm, and sword in hand, he went up
the stairs, when suddenly he saw, standing on
the highest step, and calmly majestic, a stately
dwarf, bearing the golden sceptre, the royal
crown, and the purple mantle.  And this dwarf
he recognised to be the little man who had freed
him from his glass prison.  Then he threw himself
at his feet and said to him in tears:

"My benefactor, is it you?  Are you one of
those who have taken from me Bee whom I love?"

"I am King Loc," answered the dwarf.  "I
have kept Bee with me to teach her the secrets
of the dwarfs.  Child, you have come upon my
kingdom like hail on a garden of flowers.  But
the dwarfs, less weak than men, do not grow
irritated as they do.  I am too much above you
in mind to feel anger at your acts, whatever
they may be.  Of all the advantages I have
over you there is one that I will carefully keep;
it is that of being just.  I will send for Bee, and
I will ask her if she wishes to follow you.  I will
do this not because you demand it, but because
it is my duty."

There was a deep silence, and Bee appeared in
a white dress with her fair hair loose.  As soon as
she saw George she ran to throw herself in his
arms, and clasped with all her might the iron
breast of the knight.

Then King Loc said to her:

"Bee, is it true that this is the man whom you
wish to marry?"

"It is true, very true, that this is the man,
little King Loc," answered Bee.  "Look, little
men, how I laugh and how I am happy."

And she began to cry.  Her tears fell on George's
cheek, and they were tears of happiness; laughter
mingled with the tears and a thousand delightful
words which had no sense, like those murmured
by little children.  She did not reflect that the
sight of her happiness could sadden the heart
of King Loc.

"Dearest," George said to her, "I find you
again just as I wished you to be: the most
beautiful and the best of beings.  You love me!
Heaven be thanked, you love me!  But, Bee, do
you not also love King Loc a little, who drew
me from the glass prison where the Sylphs
kept me far from you?"

Bee turned to King Loc:

"Little King Loc, you did this!" she cried:
"you loved me and you freed the one who loved
me and whom I loved..."

She could say no more, and she fell on her
knees, her head in her hands.

All the little men, witnesses of this scene, shed
tears on their crossbows.  King Loc alone kept an
unmoved face.  Bee, discovering in him so much
magnanimity and so much kindness, felt for him
the love of a daughter for a father.  She seized
the hand of her lover and said:

"George, I love you: heaven only knows how
much I love you.  But how can I leave little
King Loc?"

"Ha, ha! you are both prisoners of mine,"
cried King Loc in a terrible voice.

He put on a terrible voice by way of amusement
and to play a good joke.  But really he was
not angry.  Freeheart came to him and bent a
knee to the ground.

"Sir," he said, "will your Highness be pleased
to let me share the captivity of the master I
serve?"

Bee, recognising him, said to him:

"It is you, my good Freeheart.  I am pleased
to see you again.  You are wearing a very ugly
feather.  Tell me, have you composed any new
songs?"

And King Loc took them all three off to dinner.





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.. _`IN WHICH ALL ENDS WELL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI

.. class:: center medium bold

   IN WHICH ALL ENDS WELL

.. vspace:: 2

The next day George and Freeheart dressed
themselves in sumptuous clothes which the
dwarfs had prepared for them, and betook
themselves to the Hall of State where King Loc, in
the dress of an Emperor, soon came to join them
as he had promised.  He was followed by his
officers wearing arms, and furs of a wild
magnificence, and helmets on which swan-wings waved.
The dwarfs, thronging in crowds, came in by the
windows, the ventilators, and the chimneys, and
even crept under the seats.

King Loc got up on a stone table, at the end
of which were drawn up rows of flagons,
candlesticks, bowls, and cups of fine gold and of
marvellous workmanship.  He motioned to Bee and
to George to come near, and said:

"Bee, a law of the Dwarf people requires that
a stranger received within our house should be
free at the end of seven full years.  You have
spent seven years in our midst, Bee, and I would
be a bad citizen and a guilty king if I detained
you longer.  But before I let you go away, I wish,
not having been able to marry you, to betroth
you myself to the man you have chosen.  I do so
with joy, because I love you more than myself,
and my pain, if any is left, is like a little shadow
unnoticed in my happiness.  Bee of the Clarides,
Princess of the Dwarfs, give me your hand; and
you, George of the White Moor, give me yours."

Having put the hand of George in that of Bee,
King Loc turned to his people and said in a loud
voice:

"Little men, my children, you are witnesses
that these two here undertake mutually to marry
each other on earth.  Let them return there
together and together bring forth deeds of courage,
modesty, and faithfulness, as good gardeners tend
and bring to flower roses, carnations and peonies."

At these words the dwarfs shouted loudly, and,
not knowing whether they ought to lament or to
rejoice, they were distracted by contrary feelings.
King Loc turned again to the two betrothed, and
showing them the bowls,
the flagons, all the splendid plate:

"These," he said, "are
the presents of the dwarfs.
Take them, Bee, they will recall your little
friends; they are given by them and not by me.
You will know in a moment what I mean to
give you."

There was a long silence.  King Loc gazed with
a lovely look of tenderness at Bee, whose beautiful
radiant head, crowned with roses, rested on
the shoulder of her betrothed.

Then he spoke again in these terms:

"Children, it is not enough to love much; you
must love well.  Great love is good, undoubtedly;
wise love is better.  May yours be as mild as it
is strong; may it want nothing, not even
indulgence, and may some pity be mingled with it.
You are young, beautiful and good; but you are
human, and, for that very reason, subject to
many miseries.  This is why, if some pity does
not form part of the feelings you have for each
other, these feelings will not be adapted to the
circumstances of your common life; they will
be like holiday clothes which are no protection
against the wind and the rain.  You only love
those securely whom you love even in their
weaknesses and meannesses.  Mercy, forgiveness,
consolation, that is love and all its science."

King Loc stopped, overcome by sweet and
powerful emotions.  He resumed his speech:

"Children, be happy.  Keep your happiness,
keep it carefully."

While he spoke, Pic, Tad, Dic, Bob, Truc, and
Paw, clinging to Bee's white mantle, covered
with kisses the girl's naked arms and hands.
And they begged her not to leave them.  Then
King Loc drew from his belt a ring, the stone of
which flung showers of light.  It was the magic
ring with which he had opened the dungeon of
the Sylphs.  He slipped Bee's finger through it,
and said:

"Bee, receive at my hands this ring, which will
allow you to enter at all times, you and your
husband, the kingdom of the dwarfs.  You
will be received with delight and helped
in every way.  On the other hand, teach
the children you will have not to despise the
innocent and industrious little men who live
under the earth."

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.. _`Dwarf`:

.. figure:: images/img-118.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: Dwarf

   Dwarf





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.. _`LOOKING BACKWARD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   LOOKING BACKWARD

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[Sidenote: *Chapter I.*]

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Now that we know all about Princess Bee, we
may find it pleasant to look backward and think
a little about the story, chapter
by chapter, to find out whether
it has come to stay in our minds.
Some stories do and others don't.  We are glad
to forget some stories, but I do not think that
the story of Bee is one of that kind.  Besides,
it is told with such loving carefulness that, for
the sake of the writer, who wrote that he might
please and inspire us, we ought to read it again
with a quiet mind, undisturbed by any thought
of what is going to happen next; for now we
know all about that.

It is a story of that wonder time so often
spoken of as "long, long ago," and its date does
not matter; but you will see from the first
chapter that it belongs to the time of the knights,
the best of whom tried to remedy things that
were wrong and make the world a finer place in
which to live.

Do you like the Countess of the White Moor?
And why?  How much older was George than Bee?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter II.*]

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Read over several times the description of the
estates of the Duchess of Clarides (there are
three bites to *this* cherry).  It is
such a good "pen-picture" and
there are many more in this story
for which you ought to watch with care.  The old
monk in the tower with his birds and his books
is worth thinking about and so are his rules; so
also are the rules of the Duchess.  There is a
good "pen-picture" with two trees and two
children in it.  I wonder if you could sketch it?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter III.*]

.. vspace:: 1

Do they teach falconry in your school?  If not,
you might at least try to find out something about
it, for it was a fascinating sport--except,
of course, for the little
birds--much better fun than
learning several styles of handwriting or getting
"grammatical instruction with barbarous
terminology."  What a lovely jumble of big words!
What about that sentence, "affectionate lessons
are the only good lessons"?  And whatever is
"inebriety "?  It must be something very
dreadful.  I fancy it is something catching and can
most easily be caught at "Tin-jugs," and "Red
Lions," and "Indian Queens," and "Bull and
Bushes," and suchlike places where they know
absolutely nothing about synecdoche or
aposiopesis either.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter IV.*]

.. vspace:: 1

There are some lovely colours in the first bit
of this chapter.  Perhaps you could get someone
to make a colour-sketch?  And
pearls *have* a "mild splendour,"
haven't they, quite different
from diamonds or rubies?  If you are a girl
wouldn't you like to have a hair-ribbon like Bee's?
George and Bee were taught a beautiful lesson
that morning, and learnt it, too.  I wish we could
all describe beautiful scenery as beautifully as
the Duchess could--and, by-the-way, look
carefully at the iris flower when you meet with one
again.  Sylphs?  Have you another name for them?
What a sounding title the old beggar-woman gave
herself, and what a well furnished kitchen she
had!  Have you a pipkin and a caldron at home?
What are the duties of Dwarfs?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter V.*]

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Have you ever noticed that hills and woods
are really "blue in the distance"?  A great many
writers have done so.  What a
charming definition (horrid word)
Princess Bee gave of the horizon,
and how differently she thought of the bigness
of the world from George.  Do you think they
would find lobsters by fishing under the old
stone bridge?  (Perhaps, however, this is too
severe a question for a tale about "long, long
ago.")  Those forbidden Sylphs were still in the
children's minds, but Bee had less fear than
George--or was she daring George to go?  Which
of the two children was the best quarreller?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter VI.*]

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And *now*, who is the brave adventurer?  There
is a pretty picture of which the "Headless
Woman" is the centre.  Read
the description again and again
and look at the picture with
closed eyes.  There is another with Bee in the
centre, holding out her skirt for the cherries.
Bee's teachers had not taught her economics,
had they?  It would be hard to find a more
charming description of a walk than is contained
in this chapter.  Bee is soon plunged in despair,
but George is a little Greatheart and soon has
his reward.  Read slowly and more than once
the description of the lake.  The sudden appearance
of the goose-girl gives us another pretty
picture.  What is a demijohn?  How does Bee tell
us that the day is waning?  Consider the words
"Reeds, like pliant swords," and the pretty
coloured flower-picture at the end of the chapter.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter VII.*]

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George still plays the part of Greatheart
manfully and is ready for any event, having used his
observing powers on the fruits
and berries like a Boy Scout.
Think of that sharp picture
against the pale sky of evening--"a little dwarf
riding on a crow."  Then of the changing picture--like
a lovely scene in a play--as night falls
upon the lake.  See how the Sylphs come while
the boy stands entranced.  Did he remember the
words of Bee's mother as he was carried "through
the waters, in halls of crystal and porphyry"?
And what a lovely word the last one is!

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[Sidenote: *Chapter VIII.*]

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It would be good fun to try to draw a dwarf
from the description given at the beginning of
this chapter, helped by a
glance at some of the little
pictures in this book.  Can't
you feel how quick the dwarfs were as you say
the words "incredible nimbleness," rolling them
round your tongue?  I wonder what it means to
"look like an old poet."  Pic's last sentence, at
all events, is very like poetry.  Rug is very good
at argument and at sticking to his own opinion.
Tad is a dwarf of character--"Justice should
prevail, and not custom."  As for Pan, he might
have been a very sensible father, mightn't he?
There is a pretty picture when Bee raises herself
upon her elbow and another one of a different
kind when Pic stands upon his dignity (to make
himself taller) and speaks the sounding sentence
which begins, "She is only a child."  And what
a depth of real truth there is in Tad's words,
"You will consider us less ugly when you like
us better."  No one who is loved can be ugly to
the one who loves.

And what a sad reproach there is in Tad's
words to Rug: "You are more like a man than
a dwarf."  This chapter ends with another
charming picture.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter IX.*]

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How many colours or tints are mentioned in
the first paragraph of this chapter?  In the next
paragraph poetry and gentle fun
have kissed each other.  A dwarf
of "great majesty"?  Oh, yes.
Majesty is not a matter of inches.  The *dwarf*
monarch understood little girls in a wonderful
way and Bee was soon at her ease as every guest
is who asks for a pair of slippers, right off.  The
next thing such a guest would do would be to
poke the fire!  The illustrious Belisarius?  He
was a famous general who won many victories
in Italy and the East, and was brave, generous,
just and faithful and afraid of nothing but his
wife.  Bee was just a little ungracious about
those slippers, don't you think?  But there was
some excuse for her--she *did* want to be at home
again.  It would be a lovely arrangement if those
who love each other *could* exchange dreams when
they are parted for a time.  Some people say
they do, and possibly the dwarf poet believed it
to be possible.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter X.*]

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It was a strange but beautiful underground
world in which the dwarfs had their home.  Why
*lava* pavement?  Bee's lessons
must have been fascinating.  If
only we could all learn without
books!  Then perhaps we also should "move
with grace and express ourselves according to
the rule of poetry."  What a delightful picture
of a puppet show is given in this chapter!  There
are clever men and women to-day who can make
dolls act in this way.  Read the description again,
for it is well worth while.  Wouldn't you like to
play the theorbo?  It has a lovely name.  Did
the dwarfs change as the days and months passed
and the years made their round?

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[Sidenote: *Chapters XI. and XII.*]

.. vspace:: 1

The deep, deep darkness between the rocky
walls makes the light shine all the brighter, and
Bee's exclamation might be that
of a blind girl whose sight is
suddenly restored.  Have you
ever seen a chalice, a pyx, or a
patin, and would you know them if you saw them
again?  Or a thurible?  And wouldn't you like
that set of moonstone chessmen?  What a wonderful
description of a coffer full of jewels!  Yet,
with all this wealth before her Bee chooses to
go back to earth and into the sunshine back to
her mother and George of the White Moor, more
precious than pearls.  Read again and again, nay,
learn by heart what King Loc said to Bee after
he had tested her--for he was only testing her
all the time.  Was there ever such a proposal
of marriage?  But little King Loc has his own
dignity--also his hopes.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XIII.*]

.. vspace:: 1

Who would be a princess and wear a crown
which interfered with flowing locks and merry
gambols?  The story-teller
strikes a sad note.  Bee and
the little king are both unhappy
and there is a pathetic and very beautiful
picture of the princess gazing on the sunbeam;
another of her arrival on earth again.  The king's
instructions are difficult and there is danger in
them.  The journey home is fascinating,
reminding us of Peter and Wendy on the way to the
Land of Lost Boys; so also is the arrival home,
which is fully described.  But the sad ending is
told in a few curt words.  It is much too pitiful
for a long description.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XIV.*]

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Is this story beginning to remind you of an
old, old tale told long ago among the Ancient
Greeks, a tale of a lost princess
carried off to the Underworld
by Pluto and mourned
on earth by Ceres, the goddess of the corn?  If
you happen to know that old, old story you will
be able to make interesting comparisons.  But
to return to King Loc.  The secret comes out.
Did Bee know that she loved George of the White
Moor when King Loc had asked her, long before,
whether she loved anyone else?  Have *you* known
Bee's secret all along?  The effect of her declaration
is rather piteous--with a smile behind the
sadness.  King Loc's exit is very dignified and
dramatic and, by the way, what an excellent play
could be made from this story, or a series of
tableaux.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XV.*]

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Poor King Loc cannot understand the situation.
He is a king, he has learning, wealth, and merit.
Why; therefore, does not Bee
love him?  Further, he is good
and wishes to be just.  Poor
little King Loc!  Nur introduces and describes
himself in a speech worth learning and
remembering.  His long speech about ourselves is full
of wisdom and warning.  Read it again and again.
The last portion is very beautiful.  And what a
wonderful way the dwarfs had of finding things
out without books.  George of the Moor was
easily traced.  King Loc is very undwarflike or,
let us say, very human when he learns where
George is.  But would the laugh of these little
creatures even in unison be a "jovial great
guffaw"?  Surely it is only jolly giants who make
great guffaws.  Perhaps you can describe the
dwarf laughter in a better way.  What do you
think the writer means by making Nur live in a
deep well?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XVI.*]

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There is an interesting glimpse of one of the
duties of the dwarfs in the first paragraph of this
chapter.  Have you read Mrs. Ewing's
*Lob-lie-by-the-Fire*?  If
not, get it from the library
and read about what one of our poets calls "the
lubber-fiend."  Dwarf madness seems to be an
amiable thing.  "A shell of mother-of-pearl
*irisated*."  Remember that Iris was the Greek
goddess of the rainbow.  George was no more
happy among the beauties of the sea-world than
was Bee among the treasures of the caves, and
he learnt the same lesson as she did.  You will
find it in the sentence which begins: "The
years went by."  Compare King Loc with the
Princess of the Sylphs.  Achilles was the Greek
hero who fought against Troy and killed their
champion, Hector.  Disguised as a girl, he was
once sent by his mother to the court of King
Lycomedes because she wished to prevent his
setting out for the Siege of Troy.  Tannhauser
is the hero of the German story, who visited
the court of Venus, the Goddess of Love, and
there forgot everything but pleasure; but later
he repented.  The story is set to music in Wagner's
opera.  George was not the first, nor the last, to
be saved from slackness and inspired to deeds of
courage by a book.  Compare his request to be
set free with that of Bee in a former part of the
story.  What do you think about Nur's opinion
on science and poetry?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XVII.*]

.. vspace:: 1

What is the "bezel" of a ring?  And how
would you like to go boating on a petroleum
lake?  There is a wonderful
description of King Loc's
journey through the sea cavern.
Does it recall any piece of literature, prose or
verse, song or story.  There is a good picture in
the story of the meeting of George and his rival.
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who knew
almost everything there was to be known.  If
King Loc had belonged to our time we should
call him a "sport."  But it was too much to
hurl Bee's name at him without any preparation.
On the whole the shadows of the story appear
to be lifting in this chapter, don't they?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XVIII.*]

.. vspace:: 1

John's exclamation was not quite polite.  If he
did not see a ghost he might have guessed that
it was an angel.  The people
had given a natural cause for
the disappearance of George,
but explained Bee's absence in a more wonderful
and mysterious way, with a touch of poetry.  The
home-coming of George has various effects,
according to the character of the people he meets.
Freeheart back again, too, and still at his old
game of "making a song about it"!  The light
grows brighter and brighter.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XIX.*]

.. vspace:: 1

It was the common people who were expected
to know all about the habits of the dwarfs.
Glauce is good fun and a clever
girl would love to act her part
in a play; she is by no means
unimportant in the story.  Cider added to oats
for a horse!  I wonder what Glauce meant by
"drinking fair"?  And what the neighbours
said afterwards about her late husband's story?

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XX.*]

.. vspace:: 1

An "espadon" must be a terrible weapon,
judging by its name.  Avalon
lies at the farthest verge of the
western sea and is the last home
of all good knights, including King Arthur:

   |        The island-valley of Avilion;
   |  Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
   |  Nor ever wind blows loudly: but it lies
   |  Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
   |  And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.

And Thule is the northernmost land of all the
world.  Freeheart's ideas of costume are quite
original; but his notion of wine-inspired courage
is not so praiseworthy.  He is, however, a better
diplomatist than George, and has a very charming
way of telling the young lover that he has
been foolishly rude.  George's entry, reception,
and meeting with little King Loc make a splendid
moving picture.  Disappointment in love has not
soured the little king, but has made him something
of a poet; and how gently he reproves the
hot-headed George!  How kind George is, too,
in the midst of his happiness.  And all ends in
mock-heroics and good fun.

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[Sidenote: *Chapter XXI.*]

.. vspace:: 1

The last scene of all makes one long to have
a play based upon this story.  Who would not
be proud to act King Loc and
have such a lofty mind?  It
would be difficult, of course,
to get together such a wedding present as he
gave Bee, but the players could easily agree to
play the game of "Let's pretend," as Shakespeare
did when he hung up a card, on the curtain,
bearing the words, "This is a wood."

.. vspace:: 2

A true story?  Well---what is it all about?  It
is a story of mother-love, child-love, and lover's
love.  It is full of kindliness, courage, gaiety,
forgiveness, compassion, helpfulness, resource,
and fortitude.  And these things have always
been true, are true to-day and will be true long,
long after we all reach the "island valley of
Avilion."  So, what greater truth could we ask for?

.. vspace:: 2

We give here for purposes of enjoyment and
comparison a prose story and a poem, both of
which tell the story of the Greek maiden who was
carried off to the dark Underworld, but who,
unlike Bee, became the bride of its king; also
another story of dwarfs and their ways.





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.. _`THE SORROW OF DEMETER`:

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THE SORROW OF DEMETER

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In the fields of Enna, in the happy island of
Sicily, the beautiful Persephone was playing
with the girls who lived there with her.  She was
the daughter of the Lady Demeter, and every
one loved them both; for Demeter was good and
kind to all, and no one could be more gentle and
merry than Persephone.  She and her companions
were gathering flowers from the field, to make
crowns for their long flowing hair.  They had
picked many roses and lilies and hyacinths which
grew in clusters around them, when Persephone
thought she saw a splendid flower far off; and
away she ran, as fast as she could, to get it.  It
was a beautiful narcissus, with a hundred heads
springing from one stem; and the perfume which
came from its flowers gladdened the broad
heaven above, and the earth and sea around it.
Eagerly Persephone stretched out her hand to
take this splendid prize, when the earth opened.
and a chariot stood before her drawn by four
coal-black horses; and in the chariot there was
a man with a dark and solemn face, which looked
as though he could never smile, and as though he
had never been happy.  In a moment he got out
of his chariot, seized Persephone round the waist,
and put her on the seat by his side.  Then he
touched the horses with his whip, and they drew
the chariot down into the great gulf, and the
earth closed over them again.

Presently the girls who had been playing with
Persephone came up to the place where the
beautiful narcissus was growing; but they could not
see her anywhere.  And they said, "Here is the
very flower which she ran to pick, and there is
no place here where she can be hiding."  Still for
a long time they searched for her through the
fields of Enna; and when the evening was come,
they went home to tell the Lady Demeter that
they could not tell what had become of Persephone.

Very terrible was the sorrow of Demeter when
she was told that her child was lost.  She put a
dark robe on her shoulders, and took a flaming
torch in her hand, and went over land and sea
to look for Persephone.  But no one could tell
her where she was gone.  When ten days were
passed she met Hekate, and asked her about her
child; but Hekate said, "I heard her voice, as
she cried out when some one seized her; but I
did not see it with my eyes, and so I know not
where she is gone."  Then she went to Helios,
and said to him, "O Helios, tell me about my
child.  Thou seest everything on the earth, sitting
in the bright sun."  Then Helios said to Demeter,
"I pity thee for thy great sorrow, and I will tell
thee the truth.  It is Hades who has taken away
Persephone to be his wife in the dark and gloomy
land which lies beneath in the earth."

Then the rage of Demeter was more terrible
than her sorrow had been; and she would not
stay in the palace of Zeus, on the great Thessalian
hill, because it was Zeus who had allowed
Hades to take away Persephone.  So she went
down from Olympus, and wandered on a long
way until she came to Eleusis, just as the sun
was going down into his golden cup behind the
dark blue hills.  There Demeter sat down close
to a fountain, where the water bubbled out from
the green turf and fell into a clear basin, over
which some dark olive-trees spread their branches.

Just then the daughters of Keleos, the king
of Eleusis, came to the fountain with pitchers on
their heads to draw water; and when they saw
Demeter, they knew from her face that she
must have some great grief; and they spoke
kindly to her, and asked if they could do anything
to help her.  Then she told them how she had
lost and was searching for her child; and they
said, "Come home and live with us: and our
father and mother will give you everything that
you can want, and do all that they can to soothe
your sorrow."  So Demeter went down to the
house of Keleos, and she stayed there for a whole
year.  And all this time, although the daughters
of Keleos were very gentle and kind to her, she
went on mourning and weeping for Persephone.
She never laughed or smiled, and scarcely
ever did she speak to any one, because of her
great grief.  And even the earth, and the things
which grow on the earth, mourned for the sorrow
which had come upon Demeter.  There was no
fruit upon the trees, no corn came up in the
fields, and no flowers blossomed in the gardens.
And Zeus looked down from his high Thessalian
hill, and saw that everything must die unless he
could soothe the grief and anger of Demeter.
So he sent Hermes down to Hades, the dark and
stern king, to bid him send Persephone to see
her mother Demeter.  But before Hades let her
go, he gave her a pomegranate to eat, because
he did not wish her to stay away from him
always, and he knew that she must come back
if she tasted but one of the pomegranate seeds.
Then the great chariot was brought before the
door of the palace, and Hermes touched with
his whip the coal-black horses, and away they
went as swiftly as the wind, until they came close
to Eleusis.  Then Hermes left Persephone, and
the coal-black horses drew the chariot away
again to the dark home of King Hades.

The sun was sinking down in the sky when
Hermes left Persephone, and as she came near
to the fountain she saw someone sitting near it
in a long black robe, and she knew that it must
be her mother who still wept and mourned for
her child.  And as Demeter heard the rustling of
her dress, she lifted up her face, and Persephone
stood before her.

Then the joy of Demeter was greater, as she
clasped her daughter to her breast, than her
grief and her sorrow had been.  Again and again
she held Persephone in her arms, and asked her
about all that had happened to her.  And she
said, "Now that you are come back to me, I
shall never let you go away again; Hades shall
not have my child to live with him in his dreary
kingdom."  But Persephone said, "It may not
be so, my mother; I cannot stay with you
always; for before Hermes brought me away to
see you, Hades gave me a pomegranate, and I
have eaten some of the seeds; and after tasting
the seed I must go back to him again when six
months have passed by.  And indeed, I am not
afraid to go; for although Hades never smiles
or laughs, and everything in his palace is dark
and gloomy, still he is very kind to me: and I
think that he feels almost happy since I have
been his wife.  But do not be sorry, my mother,
for he has promised to let me come up and stay
with you for six months in every year, and the
other six months I must spend with him in the
land which lies beneath the earth."

So Demeter was comforted for her daughter
Persephone, and the earth and all the things
that grew in it felt that her anger and sorrow had
passed away.  Once more the trees bore their
fruits, the flowers spread out their sweet
blossoms in the garden, and the golden corn waved
like the sea under the soft summer breeze.  So
the six months passed happily away, and then
Hermes came with the coal-black horses to take
Persephone to the dark land.  And she said to
her mother, "Do not weep much; the gloomy
king whose wife I am is so kind to me that I
cannot be really unhappy; and in six months more
he will let me come to you again."  But still,
whenever the time came round for Persephone
to go back to Hades, Demeter thought of the
happy days when her child was a merry girl
playing with her companions and gathering the
bright flowers in the beautiful plains of Enna.





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.. _`THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN`:

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   THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN

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   FROM "GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES"

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There was once a merchant who had only one
child, a son, that was very young, and barely
able to run alone.  He had two richly laden ships
then making a voyage upon the seas, in which
he had embarked all his wealth, in the hope of
making great gains, when the news came that
both were lost.  Thus from being a rich man he
became all at once so very poor that nothing
was left to him but one small plot of land; and
there he often went in an evening to take his
walk, and ease his mind of a little of his trouble.

One day, as he was roaming along in a brown
study, thinking with no great comfort on what
he had been and what he now was, and was like
to be, all on a sudden there stood before him
a little rough-looking black dwarf.  "Prithee,
friend, why so sorrowful?" said he to the
merchant; "what is it you take so deeply to heart?"
"If you could do me any good I would willingly
tell you," said the merchant.  "Who knows
but I may?" said the little man: "tell me what
ails you, and perhaps you will find I may be of
some use."  Then the merchant told him how all
his wealth was gone to the bottom of the sea,
and how he had nothing left but that little plot
of land.  "Oh! trouble not yourself about that,"
said the dwarf; "only undertake to bring me
here, twelve years hence, whatever meets you
first on your going home, and I will give you as
much as you please."  The merchant thought
this was no great thing to ask; that it would
most likely be his dog or his cat, or something
of that sort, but forgot his little boy Heinel; so
he agreed to the bargain, and signed and sealed
the bond to do what was asked of him.

But as he drew near home, his little boy was
so glad to see him that he crept behind him, and
laid fast hold of his legs, and looked up in his
face and laughed.  Then the father started,
trembling with fear and horror, and saw what
it was that he had bound himself to do; but as
no gold was come, he made himself easy, by
thinking that it was only a joke that the dwarf
was playing him, and that, at any rate, when
the money came, he should see the bearer, and
would not take it in.

About a month afterwards he went upstairs
into a lumber-room to look for some old iron,
that he might sell it and raise a little money;
and there, instead of his iron, he saw a large pile
of gold lying on the floor.  At the sight of this he
was overjoyed, and forgetting all about his son,
went into trade again, and became a richer
merchant than before.

Meantime little Heinel grew up, and as the
end of the twelve years drew near the merchant
began to call to mind his bond, and became very
sad and thoughtful; so that care and sorrow
were written upon his face.  The boy one day
asked what was the matter, but his father would
not tell for some time; at last, however, he said
that he had, without knowing it, sold him for
gold to a little, ugly-looking, black dwarf, and
that the twelve years were coming round when
he must keep his word.  Then Heinel said,
"Father, give yourself very little trouble about
that; I shall be too much for the little man."

When the time came, the father and son went
out together to the place agreed upon: and the
son drew a circle on the ground, and set himself
and his father in the middle of it.  The little
black dwarf soon came, and walked round and
round about the circle, but could not find any
way to get into it, and he either could not, or
dared not, jump over it.  At last the boy said to
him, "Have you anything to say to us, my
friend, or what do you want?"  Now Heinel
had found a friend in a good fairy, that was fond
of him, and had told him what to do; for this
fairy knew what good luck was in store for him.
"Have you brought me what you said you
would?" said the dwarf to the merchant.  The
old man held his tongue, but Heinel said again,
"What do you want here?"  The dwarf said,
"I come to talk with your father, not with
you."  "You have cheated and taken in my father,"
said the son; "pray give him up his bond at
once."  "Fair and softly," said the little old
man; "right is right.  I have paid my money,
and your father has had it, and spent it; so be
so good as to let me have what I paid it
for."  "You must have my consent to that first,"
said Heinel; "so please to step in here, and
let us talk it over."  The old man grinned, and
showed his teeth, as if he should have been very
glad to get into the circle if he could.  Then at
last, after a long talk, they came to terms.  Heinel
agreed that his father must give him up, and that
so far the dwarf should have his way: but, on
the other hand, the fairy had told Heinel what
fortune was in store for him, if he followed his
own course; and he did not choose to be given
up to his hump-backed friend, who seemed so
anxious for his company.

So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the
matter, it was settled that Heinel should be put
into an open boat, that lay on the sea-shore hard
by; that the father should push him off with
his own hand, and that he should thus be set
adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind
and weather.  Then he took leave of his father,
and set himself in the boat; but before it got
far off a wave struck it, and it fell with one side
low in the water, so the merchant thought that
poor Heinel was lost, and went home very
sorrowful, while the dwarf went his way, thinking
that at any rate he had had his revenge.

The boat, however, did not sink, for the good
fairy took care of her friend, and soon raised
the boat up again, and it went safely on.  The
young man sat safe within, till at length it ran
ashore upon an unknown land.  As he jumped
upon the shore he saw before him a beautiful
castle, but empty and dreary within, for it was
enchanted.  "Here," said he to himself, "must
I find the prize the good fairy told me of."  So
he once more searched the whole palace through,
till at last he found a white snake, lying coiled
up on a cushion in one of the chambers.

Now the white snake was an enchanted
princess; and she was very glad to see him, and said,
"Are you at last come to set me free?  Twelve
long years have I waited here for the fairy to
bring you hither as she promised, for you alone
can save me.  This night twelve men will come:
their faces will be black, and they will be dressed
in chain armour.  They will ask what you do
here, but give no answer; and let them do what
they will, beat, whip, pinch, prick, or torment
you, bear all; only speak not a word, and at
twelve o'clock they must go away.  The second
night twelve others will come: and the third
night twenty-four, who will even cut off your
head; but at the twelfth hour of that night their
power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come
and bring you the water of life, and will wash
you with it, and bring you back to life and
health."  And all came to pass as she had said;
Heinel bore all, and spoke not a word; and the
third night the princess came, and fell on his
neck and kissed him.  Joy and gladness burst
forth throughout the castle, the wedding was
celebrated, and he was crowned king of the
Golden Mountain.

They lived together very happily, and the
queen had a son.  And thus eight years had
passed over their heads, when the king thought
of his father; and he began to long to see him
once again.  But the queen was against his
going, and said, "I know well that misfortunes
will come upon us if you go."  However, he gave
her no rest till she agreed.  At his going away
she gave him a wishing-ring, and said, "Take
this ring, and put it on your finger, whatever
you wish it will bring you: only promise never
to make use of it to bring me hence to your
father's house."  Then he said he would do
what she asked, and put the ring on his finger,
and wished himself near the town where his
father lived.

Heinel found himself at the gates in a moment;
but the guards would not let him go in, because
he was so strangely clad.  So he went up to a
neighbouring hill, where a shepherd dwelt, and
borrowed his old frock, and thus passed
unknown into the town.  When he came to his
father's house, he said he was his son; but the
merchant would not believe him, and said he
had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he
knew was long since dead: and as he was only
dressed like a poor shepherd, he would not even
give him anything to eat.  The king, however,
still vowed that he was his son, and said, "Is
there no mark by which you would know me if
I am really your son?"  "Yes," said his mother,
"our Heinel had a mark like a raspberry on his
right arm."  Then he showed them the mark,
and they knew that what he had said was true.

He next told them how he was king of the
Golden Mountain, and was married to a princess,
and had a son seven years old.  But the merchant
said, "That can never be true; he must be a
fine king truly who travels about in a shepherd's
frock!"  At this the son was vexed; and
forgetting his word, turned his ring, and wished
for his queen and son.  In an instant they stood
before him; but the queen wept, and said he
had broken his word, and bad luck would follow.
He did all he could to soothe her, and she at
last seemed to be appeased; but she was not so
in truth, and was only thinking how she should
punish him.

One day he took her to walk with him out of
the town, and showed her the spot where the
boat was set adrift upon the wide waters.  Then
he sat himself down, and said, "I am very
much tired; sit by me, I will rest my head in
your lap, and sleep awhile."  As soon as he had
fallen asleep, however, she drew the ring from
his finger, and crept softly away, and wished
herself and her son at home in their kingdom.
And when he awoke he found himself alone, and
saw that the ring was gone from his finger.  "I
can never go back to my father's house," said
he, "they would say I am a sorcerer: I will
journey forth into the world, till I come again to
my kingdom."

So saying, he set out and travelled till he came
to a hill, where three giants were sharing their
father's goods; and as they saw him pass, they
cried out and said, "Little men have sharp
wits; he shall part the goods between us."  Now
there was a sword, that cut off an enemy's head
whenever the wearer gave the words, "Heads
off!" a cloak, that made the owner invisible,
or gave him any form he pleased; and a pair of
boots that carried the wearer wherever he
wished.  Heinel said they must first let him try
these wonderful things, then he might know
how to set a value upon them.  Then they gave
him the cloak, and he wished himself a fly, and
in a moment he was a fly.  "The cloak is very
well," said he; "now give me the sword."  "No,"
said they; "not unless you undertake not to
say, 'Heads off!' for if you do, we are all dead
men."  So they gave it him, charging him to
try it on a tree.  He next asked for the boots
also; and the moment he had all three in his
power, he wished himself at the Golden Mountain;
and there he was at once.  So the giants
were left behind with no goods to share or quarrel
about.

As Heinel came near his castle he heard the
sound of merry music; and the people around
told him that his queen was about to marry
another husband.  Then he threw his cloak
around him, and passed through the castle-hall,
and placed himself by the side of his queen,
where no one saw him.  But when anything to
eat was put upon her plate, he took it away
and ate it himself; and when a glass of wine
was handed to her, he took it and drank it:
and thus, though they kept on giving her
meat and drink, her plate and cup were always
empty.

Upon this fear and remorse came over her,
and she went into her chamber alone, and sat
there weeping; and he followed her there.
"Alas!" said she to herself, "was I not once
set free? why then does this enchantment still
seem to bind me?"

"False and fickle one!" said he, "one indeed
came who set thee free, and he is now near
thee again; but how have you used him? ought
he to have had such treatment from thee?"  Then
he went out and sent away the company,
and said the wedding was at an end, for that he
was come back to the kingdom.  But the princes,
peers, and great men mocked at him.  However,
he would enter into no parley with them, but
only asked them if they would go in peace or
not.  Then they turned upon him and tried to
seize him; but he drew his sword; "Heads off!"
cried he; and with the word, the traitors' heads
fell before him, and Heinel was once more king
of the Golden Mountain.





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.. _`PERSEPHONE`:

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   PERSEPHONE[1]

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[1] In some forms of this story the maiden is called Proserpina
and her mother Ceres.  Tennyson tells the story in his poem
"Demeter."

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   \I

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..

   |  She stepped upon Sicilian grass,
   |    Demeter's daughter, fresh and fair;
   |  A child of light, a radiant lass,
   |    And gamesome as the morning air.
   |  The daffodils were fair to see,
   |  They nodded lightly on the lea,
   |  Persephone--Persephone!

   |  Lo! one she marked of fairer growth
   |    Than orchis or anemone:
   |  For it the maiden left them both,
   |    And parted from her company.
   |  Drawn nigh she deemed it fairer still,
   |  And stooped to gather by the rill
   |  The daffodil, the daffodil.

   |  What ailed the meadow that it shook?
   |    What ailed the air of Sicily?
   |  She wandered by the prattling brook,
   |    And trembled with the trembling lea.
   |  "The coal-black horses rise--they rise:
   |  O Mother, Mother!" low she cries--
   |  Persephone--Persephone!

   |  "O light, light, light!" she cried, "farewell;
   |    The coal-black horses wait for me.
   |  O shade of shades, where must I dwell,
   |    Demeter, Mother, far from thee!
   |  Ah, fated doom that I fulfil!
   |  Ah, fateful flower beside the rill!
   |  The daffodil, the daffodil!"

   |  What ails her that she comes not home?
   |    Demeter seeks her far and wide,
   |  And gloomy-browed doth ceaseless roam
   |    From many a morn till eventide.
   |  "My life, immortal though it be,
   |  Is nought," she cried, "for want of thee,
   |  Persephone--Persephone!"

   |  "Meadows of Enna, let the rain
   |    No longer drop to feed your rills,
   |  Nor dew refresh the fields again,
   |    With all their nodding daffodils!
   |  Fade, fade and droop, O lilied lea,
   |  Where thou, dear heart, wast reft from me--
   |  Persephone--Persephone!"

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   \II

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..

   |  She reigns upon her dusky throne,
   |    'Mid shades of heroes dread to see;
   |  Among the dead she breathes alone,
   |    Persephone--Persephone!
   |  Or seated on the Elysian hill
   |  She dreams of earthly daylight still,
   |  And murmurs of the daffodil.

   |  A voice in Hades soundeth clear,
   |    The shadows mourn and flit below;
   |  It cries--"Thou Lord of Hades, hear,
   |    And let Demeter's daughter go.
   |  The tender corn upon the lea
   |  Droops in her golden gloom when she
   |  Cries for her lost Persephone.

   |  "From land to land she raging flies,
   |    The green fruit falleth in her wake,
   |  And harvest fields beneath her eyes
   |    To earth the grain unripened shake.
   |  Arise and set the maiden free;
   |  Why should the world such sorrow dree[2]
   |  By reason of Persephone?"

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[2] *Dree* means endure or bear.

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..

   |  He takes the cleft pomegranate seeds,
   |    "Love, eat with me this parting day;"
   |  Then bids them fetch the coal-black steeds--
   |    "Demeter's daughter, wouldst away?"
   |  The gates of Hades set her free;
   |  "She will return full soon," saith he--
   |  "My wife, my wife Persephone."

   |  Low laughs the dark king on his throne--
   |    "I gave her of pomegranate seeds;"
   |  Demeter's daughter stands alone
   |    Upon the fair Eleusian meads.
   |  Her mother meets her.  "Hail!" saith she;
   |  "And doth our daylight dazzle thee,
   |  My love, my child Persephone?

   |  "What moved thee, daughter, to forsake
   |    Thy fellow-maids that fatal morn,
   |  And give thy dark lord power to take
   |    Thee living to his realm forlorn?"
   |  Her lips reply without her will,
   |  As one address who slumbereth still--
   |  "The daffodil, the daffodil!"

   |  Her eyelids droop with light oppressed,
   |    And sunny wafts that round her stir,
   |  Her cheek is on her mother's breast,
   |    Demeter's kisses comfort her.
   |  Calm Queen of Hades, art thou she
   |  Who stepped so lightly on the lea--
   |  Persephone, Persephone?

   |  When, in her destined course, the moon
   |    Meets the deep shadow of this world,
   |  And labouring on doth seem to swoon
   |    Through awful wastes of dimness whirled--
   |  Emerged at length, no trace hath she
   |  Of that dark hour of destiny,
   |  Still silvery sweet--Persephone.

   |  The greater world may near the less,
   |    And draw it through her weltering shade,
   |  But not one biding trace impress
   |    Of all the darkness that she made;
   |  The greater soul that draweth thee
   |  Hath left his shadow plain to see
   |  On thy fair face, Persephone!

   |  Demeter sighs, but sure 'tis well
   |    The wife should love her destiny;
   |  They part, and yet, as legends tell,
   |    She mourns her lost Persephone;
   |  While chant the maids of Enna still--
   |  "O fateful flower, beside the rill--
   |  The daffodil, the daffodil!"

   |  JEAN INGELOW (1820-89).

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.. _`THE WRITER OF THE STORY OF BEE`:

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   THE WRITER OF THE STORY OF BEE

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The best way to learn something about the
author of *Bee* is to study with care the portrait
given as the frontispiece of this book.  You shall
form your own opinion of the man from the
artist's drawing and that opinion will depend
greatly upon the amount of enjoyment and the
number of ideas you have got from his story.

His name is sufficient guide to his nationality,
and you will know by easy guesswork that you
have been reading a translation of his tale;
but the change from French to English is so well
made that not much is lost of the charm of the
story as Anatole France wrote it.  The best way
to judge his work is, of course, to read it in
French.

Anatole France is not, like Hans Andersen,
a recognised fairy-tale writer, which from our
point of view seems a pity, because he has the
light touch which does not crush the gossamer
or brush the dust from the wings of the butterfly.
It is of no use having a heavy touch if
you are dealing with things like Queen Mab's
Wagon.

   |  Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs.
   |  The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
   |  Her traces of the smallest spider's web,
   |  Her whip of crickets' bone, the lash of film;

   |  Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
   |  Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
   |  Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
   |  Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
   |

One of our own writers, John Ruskin, wrote
one fairy tale called *The King of the Golden
River*, and the rest of his writings, like those of
Anatole France, were for grown-up readers.
There are some people who think that Ruskin's
fairy tale is one of the best of its kind ever
written, and *Bee: the Princess of the Dwarfs* is
quite worthy to stand beside it.  You may care
to compare the two in matters of detail and style,
and will find the work very interesting indeed;
and you will remember that it is quite fair to
compare these two stories, for they were both
*invented* or "made-up" by their authors all out
of their own heads.

Most of the old fairy tales, like Cinderella,
seem to have grown like the cabbages, or, shall
we say, the roses.  They have been told again
and again by one person after another as the
years rolled by and they were well known
before anyone set them down in print.  In a sense,
*Bee* and *The King of the Golden River* are not
true fairy tales, but you will agree that they are
very good imitations of the old models.

Anatole France, whose real surname is Thibault,
was the son of a bookseller in Paris, and
was born so long ago as 1844.  He was brought
up among books and among clever men who
came to his father's shop not only to buy books
but to discuss them.  It is not surprising that
when he grew up he should begin to write books.

As for his thoughts about things in general,
you will find them all in the pages of *Bee: the
Princess of the Dwarfs*.

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   THE TEMPLE PRESS
   LETCHWORTH ENGLAND

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