Chapter 9

Left a widower after a year's marriage, Bizarre had fixed his whole affections on his son and heir, who was the most beautiful child imaginable. His complexion was as fresh as a rose; his beautiful hair fell in golden curls on his shoulders; add to his clear blue eyes a straight nose, a small mouth, and a dimpled chin, and you have the portrait of a cherub. At twelve years of age this young marvel danced enchantingly, rode like a riding-master, and fenced to perfection. No one could have helped being won by his smile and the truly royal manner in which he saluted the crowd in passing when he was in good humor. For this reason, the voice of the people, which is never mistaken, had christened him Prince Charming, and his name always clung to him.

Charming was as beautiful as the day; but the sun itself, it is said, has spots, and the princes do not disdain to resemble the sun. The child dazzled the court with his fine mien; but there were shadows here and there which did not escape the piercing eye of love or envy. Supple, agile, and adroit in all kinds of bodily exercises, Charming had an indolent mind. He lacked application, and had taken a fancy that he ought to know everything without studying. It is true that governesses, courtiers, and servants had continually repeated to him that work was not made for kings, and that a prince always knows enough when he lavishes on poets, writers, and artists, with a prodigal and disdainful hand, a little of the money which the people are too happy to offer him.

These maxims tickled Charming's pride; and at twelve years of age the beautiful child, with precocious firmness, had steadily refused to learn the alphabet. Three teachers, chosen from the most able and patient instructors, a priest, a philosopher, and a colonel, had attempted in turn to bend his youthful obstinacy; but the priest had wasted his philosophy, the philosopher his tactics, and the colonel his Latin. Left master of the field of battle, Charming listened to nothing but his caprice, and lived lawless and unconstrained. As stubborn as a mule, as irascible as a turkey-cock, as dainty as a cat, and as idle as an adder, but an accomplished prince withal, he was the pride of the beautiful country of Wild Oats, and the hope and love of a people that esteemed nothing in their kings but grace and beauty.

II

PAZZA

Notwithstanding he had been brought up at court, King Bizarre was a man of sense. Charming's ignorance was far from pleasing to him, and he often asked himself with anxiety what would become of his kingdom in the hands of a prince whom the basest of flatterers might easily deceive. But what was he to do, what means could he employ with a child that a worshiped wife had bequeathed to him in dying? Rather than see his son weep, Bizarre would have given him his crown; his affection rendered him powerless. Love is not blind, whatever the poets may say; alas! it would be too happy not to see a jot. It is the torment of him who loves to become, despite himself, the slave and accomplice of the ingrate who feels himself beloved.

Every day, after the council, the king went to spend the evening with the Countess of Castro, an old lady who had dandled him on her knees when an infant, and who alone could recall to him the sweet memories of his childhood and youth. She was very ugly, and something of a witch, it is said; but the world is so wicked that we must never believe more than half its scandal. The countess had large features and luxuriant gray hair, and it was easy to see that she had been beautiful in former times.

One day, when Charming had been more unreasonable than usual, the king entered the countess's house with an anxious air, and seating himself before the card-table, began to play a game of Patience. It was his way of diverting his thoughts and forgetting for a few hours the cares of royalty. Scarcely had he ranged sixteen cards in a square when he heaved a deep sigh.

"Countess," he cried, "you see before you the most wretched of fathers and kings. Despite his natural grace, Charming is every day becoming more wilful and vicious. Must I leave such an heir after me, and intrust the happiness of my people to a crowned fool?"

"That is the way with Nature," replied the countess; "she always distributes her gifts with an impartial hand. Stupidity and beauty go hand in hand, and wit and ugliness are seldom separated. I have an example of this in my own family. A few days ago a great-grandniece was sent to me, a child under ten years old, that has no other relative. She is as tawny as a frog, as scraggy as a spider, yet, withal, as cunning as an ape, and as learned as a book. Judge for yourself, sire; here is my little monster coming to salute you."

Bizarre turned his head and saw a child that answered in every respect to the countess's description. With a high, round forehead, black, wild-looking eyes, rough hair turned back in the Chinese fashion, dull, brown skin, great white teeth, red hands, and long arms, she was anything but a beauty. But the chrysalis gives birth to the butterfly. Wait a few years, and you will see what pretty women come from these frightful little girls of ten.

The little monster approached the king, and courtesied to him with so serious an air that Bizarre could not help laughing, though he felt little like it.

"Who are you?" asked he, chucking the child under the chin.

"Sire," she answered, gravely, "I am Donna Dolores Rosario Coral Concha Balthazara Melchiora Gaspara y Todos Santos, the daughter of the noble knight Don Pasquale Bartolomeo Francesco de Asiz y--"

"Enough," said the king. "I did not ask for your genealogy; we are witnessing neither your baptism nor your marriage. What are you commonly called?"

"Sire," replied she, "I am called Pazza."[1]

[Footnote 1: That is to say, Madcap, in Italian. It appears that a very mixed language is spoken in the kingdom of Wild Oats.]

"And why are you called Pazza?"

"Because it is not my name."

"That is strange," said the king.

"No, it is natural," replied the child. "My aunt pretends that I am too giddy for any saint to wish to own me for her goddaughter, and that is why she has given me a name that can offend no one in Paradise."

"Well answered, my child. I see that you are not an ordinary girl. The saints in Paradise are not always treated with such consideration. Since you know so much, tell me what is a wise man?"

"A wise man, sire, is one who knows what he says when he speaks, and what he does when he acts."

"Upon my word," exclaimed the king, "if my wise men were what you fancied them, I would make the Academy of Sciences my council of state, and would give it my kingdom to govern. What is an ignorant man?"

"Sire," returned Pazza, "there are three kinds of ignorant men: he who knows nothing, he who talks of what he does not know, and he who will learn nothing; all three are fit for nothing but to be burned or hung."

"That is a proverb. Do you know what proverbs are called?"

"Yes, sire; they are called the wisdom of nations."

"And why are they called so?"

"Because they are mad; they say whatever you please; they are of all colors, to suit all tastes. Proverbs are like bells, which answer yes or no according to the humor of their listener."

Upon which, springing with both feet from the ground, Pazza caught a fly that was buzzing about the king's nose; then, leaving Bizarre astonished, she took her doll and, seating herself on the ground, began to rock it in her arms.

"Well, sire," the countess said, "what do you think of this child?"

"She has too much wit," answered the king; "she will not live long."

"Ah, sire," exclaimed Pazza, "you are not complimentary to my aunt; she is considerably older than I am."

"Hush, gipsy!" said the old lady, smiling; "don't you know that nobody lectures kings?"

"Countess," said Bizarre, "an idea has just struck me, which is so strange that I hardly dare tell it to you; yet I have a violent wish to carry it out. I can do nothing with my son; reason has no power with the stubborn child. Who knows whether folly would not be more successful? If I thought so, I would make Pazza Charming's teacher. The intractable boy, who rejects all masters, might be defenseless before a child. The only objection is that no one will be of my opinion; I shall have everybody against me."

"Bah!" said the countess; "everybody is so stupid that it is a proof that you are right that you think differently."

III

THE FIRST LESSON

In this manner Pazza was intrusted with the instruction of the young prince. There was no official appointment; it was not announced in the court gazette that the king, with his usual wisdom, had found an unparalleled genius at the first attempt, to whom he had confided the heart and mind of his child; but the very next morning Charming was sent to the countess's house, and was permitted to play with Pazza.

The two children, left alone together, gazed at each other in silence. Pazza, being the bolder, was the first to speak.

"What is your name?" asked she.

"Those who know me call me Your Highness," answered Charming, in a piqued tone; "those who do not know me call me simply My Lord, and everybody says Sir to me; etiquette requires it."

"What is etiquette?" asked Pazza.

"I don't know," replied Charming. "When I want to jump, shout, and roll on the ground, I am told that it is contrary to etiquette; then I keep still, and yawn for lack of amusement--that is etiquette."

"Since we are here to amuse ourselves," resumed Pazza, "there is no etiquette needed; speak to me as if I were your sister, and I will speak to you as if you were my brother. I will not call you My Lord."

"But you don't know me," said Charming.

"What does that matter?" returned Pazza; "I will love you, that is better. They say that you dance beautifully; teach me to dance, will you?"

The ice was broken; Charming took the young girl by the waist, and in less than half an hour taught her the last new polka.

"How well you dance!" said he. "You have caught the step directly."

"It is because you are a good teacher," she replied. "Now it is my turn to teach you something."

She took a beautiful picture-book, and showed him fine buildings, fishes, statesmen, parrots, scholars, curious animals, and flowers, all of which greatly amused Charming.

"See," said Pazza, "here is the explanation of all the pictures; read it."

"I don't know how to read," replied Charming.

"I will teach you; I will be your little tutor."

"No," replied the stubborn prince, "I do not wish to read. My masters tire me."

"Very well; but I am not a master. See, here is an A, a beautiful great A; say A."

"No," returned Charming, frowning, "I will never say A."

"Not to please me?"

"No, never. Enough of this; I do not like people to differ from me."

"Sir," said Pazza, "a polite man never refuses ladies anything."

"I would refuse the devil in petticoats," replied the young prince, tossing his head. "I am tired of you; let me alone. I don't love you any longer. Call me My Lord."

"My Lord Charming, or my charming lord," said Pazza, flushed with anger, "you shall read, or I will know the reason why."

"I won't read."

"Will you not? One--two--three!"

"No! no! no!"

Pazza raised her hand, and, lo! the king's son received a box on the ear. Pazza had been told that she was witty to the ends of her fingers, and had been stupid enough to believe it; it is never right to jest with children.

At this first lesson in reading, Charming turned pale and trembled; the blood mounted to his cheeks, his eyes filled with tears, and he gazed at his young teacher with a look that made her start; then all at once, with a great effort, he regained his self-possession, and said, in a tremulous voice, "Pazza, that is A." And the same day and at one sitting he learned all the letters of the alphabet; at the end of the week he spelled readily, and before the month was ended he read with ease.

King Bizarre was delighted. He kissed Pazza on both cheeks; he insisted on having her always with him or his son, and made this child his friend and counselor, to the great disdain of all the courtiers. Charming, still gloomy and silent, learned all that this young mentor could teach him, then returned to his former preceptors, whom he astonished by his intelligence and docility. He soon knew his grammar so well that the priest asked himself one day whether, by chance, these definitions, which he had never understood, had not a meaning. Charming none the less astonished the philosopher, who taught him every evening the opposite of what the priest had taught him in the morning. But, of all his masters, the one to whom he listened with the least repugnance was the colonel. It is true that Bayonet, for that was the colonel's name, was a skilful strategist, and that he could say, like the ancient poet, with a slight variation, "I am a man, and nothing that pertains to the art of despatching poor human beings is indifferent to me." It was he that initiated Charming into the mysteries of button gaiters and shoulder-straps; it was he that taught his pupil that the noblest study for a prince is the drilling of battalions, and that the groundwork of statesmanship is to have reviews in order to make war, and to make war in order to have reviews.

This was not perhaps altogether according to Bizarre's idea of the art of government; but he thought he could correct any errors in the future, and besides, he was so rejoiced at Charming's progress that he was unwilling in any way to meddle with the admirable work of an education so long considered hopeless.

"My child," he often said, "never forget that you owe everything to Pazza." As the king spoke thus, Pazza gazed tenderly at the young man. Despite all her wit, she was foolish enough to love him. Charming contented himself with coldly answering that gratitude was a princely virtue, and that Pazza should some day learn that her pupil had forgotten nothing.

IV

PAZZA'S WEDDING

When Prince Charming had attained his seventeenth year, he went one morning in search of King Bizarre, whose health was declining and who was very desirous of seeing his son married before his death.

"Father," said he, "I have long reflected on your wise words. You gave me life, but Pazza has done still more in awakening my mind and soul. I see but one way of paying the debt of my heart; that is, to marry the woman to whom I am indebted for what I am. I come to ask you for Pazza's hand."

"My dear child," answered Bizarre, "this step does you credit. Pazza is not of royal blood; she is not the one whom, in different circumstances, I should have chosen for your wife; but her virtues, her merit, and, above all, the service which she has rendered us, make me forget idle prejudices. Pazza has the soul of a queen; she shall mount the throne with you. In the country of Wild Oats, wit and humor are held in sufficient estimation to win you forgiveness for what fools call a misalliance, and what I call a princely marriage. Happy is he who can choose an intelligent wife, capable of understanding and loving him! To-morrow your betrothal shall be celebrated, and in two years your marriage shall take place."

The marriage occurred more speedily than the king had foreseen. Fifteen months after these memorable words, Bizarre expired of languor and exhaustion. He had taken the vocation of king in earnest; he fell a victim to royalty. The old countess and Pazza wept their friend and benefactor, but they were the only mourners. Without being a bad son, Charming was engrossed with the cares of the empire; and the court expected everything from the new reign, and thought no more about the old king, whose eyes were closed in death.

After honoring his father's memory by magnificent obsequies, the young prince, thenceforth wholly devoted to love, celebrated his marriage with a splendor that charmed the good people of Wild Oats. The taxes were doubled, but who could regret money so nobly employed? Men came from a hundred leagues round to gaze at the new king, and Pazza, whose growing beauty and air of goodness fascinated all hearts, was not less admired. There were interminable dinners, harangues longer than the dinners, and poems more tedious than the harangues. In a word, it was an incomparable festival, which was talked of for six months after.

Evening come, Charming took the hand of his graceful, timid, and blushing bride, and with cold politeness led her through the corridors of the old castle. All at once Pazza was frightened to find herself in a gloomy dungeon, with grated windows and huge bars and locks.

"What is this?" asked she. "It looks like a prison."

"Yes," said the prince, with a terrible look, "it is a prison which you will quit only for the grave."

"My dear, you frighten me," said Pazza, smiling. "Am I a criminal without knowing it? Have I deserved your displeasure, that you threaten me with a dungeon?"

"You have a short memory," replied Charming. "An insult is written on sand to the giver; it is inscribed on marble and bronze to the receiver."

"Charming," returned the poor child, beginning to be afraid, "you are repeating something from those speeches that tired me so much. Can you find nothing better to say to me to-day?"

"Wretch!" cried the king, "you no longer remember the box on the ear that you gave me seven years ago, but I have not forgotten it. Know that if I wished you for my wife, it has been only to have your life in my hands and to make you slowly expiate your crime of high treason."

"My dear," said Pazza, with a pettish manner, "you may put on your Bluebeard airs, but you will not frighten me, I assure you. I know you, Charming, and I warn you that if you do not put an end to this bad jest, I will not only give you one box on the ear, but three, before I forgive you. Make haste and let me go out, or I vow that I will keep my word."

"Vow it then, madame," cried the prince, furious at not intimidating his victim. "I accept your vow. I vow, too, on my side, that I will never acknowledge you as my wife till I have been base enough to receive three times an insult which nothing but blood can wash out. He laughs well that laughs last. Here, Rachimburg!"

At this terrible name, a jailer with a bushy beard and threatening mien entered the room, pushed the queen on a wretched truckle-bed, and shut and double-locked the iron door.

If Pazza wept, it was so quietly that no one heard her. Tired of the silence, Charming departed, with rage in his heart, resolving that his rigor should break the pride that braved him. Vengeance, it is said, is the delight of kings.

Two hours later the countess received a note by a sure hand acquainting her with the sad fate of her niece. How this note reached her is known to me, but I will not betray the secret. If a charitable jailer is found by chance, he should be treated with consideration; the species is rare, and is daily becoming rarer.

V

A TERRIBLE EVENT

The next morning the court gazette announced that the queen had been seized with a raging fit of madness on the very night of her wedding, and that there was little hope of saving her. There was scarcely a courtier, indeed, that had not observed the princess's restless air on the evening before, and no one was surprised at her malady. All pitied the king, who received with a gloomy and constrained mien the expressions of affection which were lavished on him. He was doubtless weighed down with grief, but this grief appeared very much lightened after the visit of the countess.

The good lady was very sad, and had a great desire to see her poor child, but she was so old, and found herself so weak and sensitive, that she entreated the king to spare her a heartrending spectacle. She threw herself into the arms of Charming, who tenderly embraced her, and withdrew, saying that she placed all her hope and trust in the love of the king and the talent of the chief physician of the court.

She had scarcely left the room when the physician whispered a few words in Charming's ear which called to his face a smile quickly repressed. The countess pacified, there was nothing more to fear; the vengeance was sure.

Doctor Wieduwillst was a great physician. Born in the country of Dreams, he had early quitted his native land to seek his fortune in the kingdom of Wild Oats. He was too able a man not to find it. In the five years that he had spent in the celebrated University of Lugenmaulberg, the medical theory had changed twenty-five times, and, thanks to this solid education, the doctor had a firmness of principle which nothing could shake. He had the frankness and bluntness of a soldier, it was said; he swore at times, even with ladies, a rudeness which left him at liberty always to be of the same mind with the stronger, and to demand a fee for having no opinion. The queen had fallen into his incorruptible hands.

She had been imprisoned for three days, and the town was already beginning to talk of something else, when one morning Rachimburg abruptly entered the king's apartments with a distracted air, and threw himself trembling at his feet.

"Sire," said he, "I bring you my head. The queen has disappeared."

"What do you tell me!" exclaimed the king, turning pale. "The thing is impossible; the dungeon is barred on all sides."

"Yes," said the jailer, "the thing is impossible, that is certain; the bars are in their places, the walls are whole, and neither the locks nor the bolts have been disturbed; but there are witches in the world that pass through walls without moving a stone, and who knows but what the prisoner is one of them? Was it ever known whence she came?"

The king sent in search of the doctor. He was a strong-minded man and had little faith in witches. He sounded the walls, shook the bars, and cross-examined the jailer, but all to no purpose. Trusty men were sent everywhere through the town, and spies were set on the countess, whom the doctor suspected, but all in vain, and after a week the search was abandoned. Rachimburg lost his place as jailer, but as he possessed the royal secret, as he was needed, and as he thirsted to avenge himself, he was made the warden of the royal castle. Furious at his bad luck, he exercised his supervision with such strictness that in less than three days he arrested Wieduwillst himself half a dozen times, and disarmed all suspicion.

At the end of a week some fishermen brought to the court the robe and mantle of the queen. The waves had cast on the shore these sad relics, covered with sand and sea-foam. That the poor mad woman had drowned herself no one doubted on seeing the grief of the king and the tears of the countess. The council was assembled. It decided with a unanimous voice that the queen was legally dead and that the king was legally a widower, and for the interest of the people entreated his majesty to abridge a painful mourning and to marry again as soon as possible, in order to strengthen the dynasty. This decision was transmitted to the king by Wieduwillst, the chief physician to the king and president of the royal council, who made so touching a speech that the whole court burst into tears, and Charming threw himself into the doctor's arms, calling him his cruel friend.