Part 3

At night, dressed in my spangled coat, and with a bundle under my arm, I sat in the shop waiting for my stranger. I was too wise to take with me the true doublet, and you may be sure the bundle contained a substitute. It would be time enough to deliver the magic garment at the wedding. It reposed meanwhile under lock and key, concealed beyond the possibility of discovery.

It was late when the stranger appeared. He conducted me to the Prince and his daughter in chilly silence. The Prince was standing, and his daughter sat on the divan, her chin in her hand.

“You have brought the doublet?” said the Prince.

“First,” I said, “do you accept the terms?”

“I must see the doublet,” he said.

With my left hand I placed the bundle in his left hand. He opened it. When he saw its contents, he turned on me with a face like a thunder cloud.

“What!” said I. “Another accident? Well, it’s of no consequence. The doublet is safe, perfectly safe. It will be placed in your hands--_at the wedding_. Do you consent?”

_The Magic Doublet Is Suddenly Produced_

He clapped his hands. A door opened behind the divan, and--I could scarcely believe my eyes--in hobbled, with her crooked stick, the old woman whom I had pledged myself to marry. I was speechless with astonishment. The Prince clapped his hands again. From other doors entered the eight black tailors whom I had seen before. The ancient hag approached the Prince, and drew forth from her dress the doublet which I had left securely locked and hidden at home! I saw it closely; it could be no other. With her left hand she laid it in the left hand of the Prince.

In an instant he had put it on. When he had buttoned the last button, a startling change came over him and the eight black tailors. All their faces grew a mottled blue, then red, and then the natural color of healthy white skin.

At the same time the room began to contract. The ceiling came slowly down and stopped just above my head. The walls came slowly together, and as they reached the Prince, his daughter, the Courteous Stranger, and the eight tailors, gave way to them, so that all these persons passed from view on the outer side, and I was left alone with the hideous old woman, with the walls coming in upon us by degrees until I thought we should be crushed.

I became dizzy; I sank in terror upon the chair which stood beside me. The walls came on from all four sides until the place wherein I sat was no bigger than a cupboard, and there they stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief, and attempted to rise. To my horror, I could not move.

The old woman pointed a skinny finger at me and gave a loud and angry laugh which sent a chill up and down my spine. She moved her finger about in strange figures. She mumbled to herself a torrent of meaningless words; and passing through the door which remained before me in one wall of my cabinet, she left me, and closed the door behind her. The closet began to rock; it seemed to rise, and in a moment I knew that it was flying with me through space....

Thus, your majesty (said the old man in the spangled coat), I came to be imprisoned in my cell beneath the Forest Pool. There I sat, unable to move or speak, for nearly a hundred years, until the happy day when I was delivered by the excellent Prince, your grandson; and for the refuge which has been accorded me in your majesty’s castle I now tender to your majesty my grateful thanks, and--

_“Eh? What? Did you say something?” exclaimed the King, waking up from a sound slumber, and rubbing his eyes. “Oh, yes. I see. Very interesting. Very interesting. Something about a button, wasn’t it? Bless my soul, I’d no idea it was so late. It’s long past my bedtime. I’m always late for breakfast when I stay up past my-- Mortimer, will you see to it that the castle windows are locked for the night? My dear, I think we will have bacon and eggs in the morning; and if it’s at all possible, I’d like to have a piece of toast that isn’t burnt. The audience is now over.”_

THE SECOND NIGHT

ALB THE UNICORN

_Solario the Tailor was sitting at the open window of his room in the northeast tower of the castle, looking out at the stars which glittered in a clear sky over the Great Forest. He sighed, and rising wearily lit the candles on his table; and at that moment there came a knock on his door, and Bojohn and Bodkin entered, rather timidly._

_“If you please, sir--” said Bojohn._

_“Pray be seated,” said Solario, and they all sat down. “It’s a warm evening,” said he._

_“We thought,” said Bojohn, “that you might perhaps be willing to tell us one of the stories that you--”_

_“It’s very warm this evening, indeed,” said Solario. “Quite oppressive.”_

_“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” said Bodkin, “we’d like you to tell us about--”_

_“I don’t know when I’ve felt the heat so much,” said the old tailor. “But then it’s the idleness. If there were only something to do, there wouldn’t be so much time to think about the weather.”_

_“Last night, sir,” said Bojohn, “you were obliged to leave out some parts of your story, and we thought--”_

_“If I only had a few good ells of cloth on my table, and a man like--well, say like Mortimer the Executioner,--to exercise my art on, I’d be the happiest man alive; but as it is, sitting here with nothing to do--”_

_“There was one tale you mentioned,” said Bojohn, “about a--”_

_“It’s a very fine thing to be a Knight of the Silver Lamp,” said Solario, “but there doesn’t seem to be much connected with it in the nature of work. If I could only be employed in making a suit of clothes for Mortimer the Executioner!_ There’s _a subject! The biggest man I’ve ever seen in my life, and the hardest to fit! That would be an undertaking worthy of my genius. Dear, dear!”_

_“I’ll speak to grandfather about it,” said Bojohn. “I’m sure he’ll let you make a suit for Mortimer. But what we would like to know is--”_

_“We’d like to hear one of the stories,” began Bodkin again, “that the King made you leave out last night when--”_

_“It made no difference to me, I assure you,” said Solario, stiffly. “None whatever.”_

_“But if you would only tell us--” said Bodkin._

_“I do not wish to annoy any one with my dull tales,” said Solario. “Far from it; far from it indeed, I assure you.”_

_“But there was one” said Bojohn, “about a griffin; what kind of a griffin did you say it was?”_

_“I believe, if I remember correctly, it was a Roving Griffin; but his majesty your grandfather--”_

_“Oh, never mind grandfather,” said Bojohn. “Tell us about the--”_

_“I’d rather hear the one about the giant,” said Bodkin._

_“You probably have reference to the Blind Giant,” said Solario. “But--”_

_“Then there was one,” said Bojohn, “about some cave or other.”_

_“The Cave of Montesango,” said Solario. “I remember it only too well. But I couldn’t tell you that; it would be too terrible. You wouldn’t be able to sleep in your beds to-night.”_

_“Then tell us that one!” cried the two boys, together._

_“No,” said Solario. “The King would never approve if I--”_

_“Grandfather isn’t here now,” said Bojohn. “Please--”_

_“Perhaps,” said Solario, “I might tell you the story concerning the-- But I fear it would bore you.”_

_“No! no!” cried the boys._

_“Then I might perhaps tell you the story of Alb the Unicorn, only--”_

_“Yes! yes! Tell us about the unicorn!”_

_“You are sure it will not weary you?”_

_“Not a bit!” said Bojohn._

_“Would you mind, sir,” said Bodkin, “leaving out the big words?”_

_“I shall willingly endeavor to gratify your reasonable predilection for lucidity,” said Solario._

_“Sir?” said Bodkin._

_“Never mind,” said Bojohn. “Let him go on.”_

_“Ahem!” said the old man, clearing his throat. “I will give you as much of it as I can remember, as it was told me by the young man in the white leather suit while we were sitting in the half-moon pasture of Korbi by the river Tarn, after I had delivered him from his enchantment. You are sure it will not weary you?”_

_“Go on! Go on!”_

_“Then I will begin,” said Solario, settling himself back at his ease, and folding his hands across his stomach,_

“THE STORY OF ALB THE UNICORN.”

You must know (said the young man to me) that I am called Alb the Fortunate. I was born in the Island Kingdom, far out in the Great Sea, the only son of a rich goldsmith. I lived with my parents, by whom I was tenderly loved, in the principal city of that kingdom, in which city, on a height overlooking the island, stood the castle of the King.

_Alb the Fortunate and the Princess Hyla_

My father, whose skill in his art had caused him to be valued highly by the King, was a familiar figure at the castle, and I had there, in company with my mother, become acquainted with the young Princess Hyla, the King’s only child, a beautiful and amiable girl some two years younger than myself. We were even permitted to play together in the gardens of the castle, for the King was in no wise proud, but on the contrary made a point of treating his subjects with a friendliness which endeared him to them all. I need hardly tell you that from the earliest moment I knew that I loved the little Princess.

I grew thus in time to be twelve years old. Although my parents had done for me all that love could devise and money could effect, I had caused them much uneasiness. My disposition was unnaturally gloomy; I scarcely ever smiled; my mind was filled with terrors, I knew not why; I would sit for hours in moody silence; the games of other boys did not amuse me; and I would find myself at times weeping bitterly, for no reason whatever.

All that my parents could do to divert me availed nothing; I continued to be a misery to myself and to them. They feared for my health; their wealth no longer gave them any pleasure; and an atmosphere of gloom settled down upon their house. Sometimes my mother would look mournfully into my eyes while she smoothed back the yellow hair from my forehead; and I knew that she would willingly have given all that she had to make me happy.

On my twelfth birthday it chanced that I was in my father’s shop, alone. My mother had gone into the back room, and my father was absent, for the day, at the residence of a distant client. I had been trying all that morning to find some occupation to amuse me, but without success; I had finally given myself up to a restless and discontented idleness; and at the moment I was examining in my hand, without much interest, a long chain, of extremely fine gold and delicate workmanship, which I had picked up from one of the cabinets in the shop. I was in the act of placing it back in its case, wondering what I should do next, when a strange figure entered the door from the street, and approached me.

_A Tattered Old Beggar Comes to the Goldsmith’s Shop_

It was an old man, evidently a beggar, a huge man, fat and heavy, his face covered by a gray beard which hung to his waist, and his eyes, which were very bright, almost hidden by shaggy eyebrows,--the longest eyebrows I had ever seen on any human being. A ragged tunic of brown, belted around the middle, hung scantily to his knees; a battered felt hat flapped over his forehead; and in his hand he carried, for a staff, what seemed to be a yardstick, such as tailors use. From his belt hung a pair of large shears, also of the sort used by tailors. A queer tailor! thought I.

“Good morning, master Melancholy,” said he, “have you a mind for trade this morning?”

The idea of this poor creature’s pretending to be a customer at such a shop as ours was too absurd. I could not restrain a little toss of the head.

“So?” said the old man. “Is that what you think? Nevertheless, there is something here which I wish to buy.” He looked around the shop. “I wish to buy a chain, a gold one; and I see none that pleases me so much as the one you are holding behind your back. Will you sell it?”

I was astonished that he should have discovered the chain, which I could have sworn was hidden from his eyes. I drew it forth and held it up.

“Be so good as to let me see it,” said the old man; and at the same time he took it from me, before I could snatch it away.

“What may the price be, my young merchant?” said he.

I was trembling with anxiety, but I thought it best to end the whole matter by naming the price, which I found on the card which remained in the cabinet.

While I hesitated, the horrid creature gazed at me with his glittering eyes through his tangled eyebrows, and ran his fingers down his beard like a comb.

“The price,” I said, “is four thousand gold florins. Now please give me back the chain.”

“The price is high,” said the old man, “but I will take it.”

“Then give me the money,” said I.

“Money?” said he, with an air of great surprise. “Money? But I have no money.”

“Then how are you going to buy the chain?” said I. “Give it back to me.”

“I will buy it, nevertheless,” said he. “I will give you what is better than money.”

“What is that?” said I, suspiciously.

“I will give you,” said he, “whatever you would like best in the world.”

“Then give me back the chain.”

“Think!” said he. “What would you like best in all the world, for your very self?”

“Nothing,” I said, ready to cry. “I want the chain back. If you don’t give it to me,” I said, angrily, “I will call my mother.”

“With all the pleasure in the world,” said the impudent old rascal.

I was now ready to cry in good earnest.

_The Old Man Proposes a Strange Bargain_

“But I advise you to listen to me, my young friend,” went on the dreadful creature. “You may make a wish, if you will; and if you don’t, I will. If I keep the chain, you shall make the wish; if you keep the chain, I will make it; but I warn you, if I make the wish, I shall wish you harm! Such harm that you would rather be dead than alive! Come now, will you sell me the chain for a wish?”

“I can’t,” I said, “I can’t.” And I began to cry.

“Then you would like to be crippled all your life? To find vipers in your bed every night? To see the Princess run away from the sight of you? To suffer a sharp pain in your ears, to have all your drink turn to--”

“No, no!” I cried. “Please don’t, please don’t!”

“Then you had better sell me the chain. What would you like best in the world?”

“Oh, I want to be happy! I want to be happy! I’m so miserable!”

“You really wish to be happy?”

“Oh, yes! If I could only be happy, always happy!”

“Think well. I can grant you that wish, if you really wish it.”

“I wish I could be happy, always happy!”

“The wish is granted. You shall be happy; after this day you shall be nothing but happy, always. It is done. The chain is mine.”

“Oh, please! If you will only wait one moment! Just one! I must call my mother!”

I ran to the door of the back room, and called my mother. She came at once, alarmed by my outcry. Together we turned back into the shop, toward the spot where I had left the old man. He was gone.

I dragged my mother to the shop door, and we looked up and down the street. There was no sign of him. I ran from one corner to the other. He was nowhere in sight. I returned to my mother and threw myself on her breast and wept.

“The chain!” I sobbed. “It is gone!”

While she tried to comfort me I told her the story. She wrung her hands. “What will your father say?”

That evening, when my father heard what had happened, he was very angry. He was a kind man, but he scolded me so severely that I crept up to bed weeping, without any supper. I had never been so miserable. I cried myself to sleep.

When I awoke in the morning, sunshine was streaming in through the window. I sprang out of bed. A fat sparrow was hopping on the window sill, and when he saw me he cocked his head at me in the jolliest manner possible. I whistled to him, and laughed after him as he flew away.

While I was dressing, and humming a tune the while, I suddenly remembered that I had gone to bed in tears for the loss of my father’s golden chain; but I laughed as I thought of it, for the loss seemed pitifully small, and my father’s anger over it was quite ridiculous. I went on with my tune, and stood before the mirror with a hairbrush in my hand. I began to brush my hair; and I cannot deny that as I looked at its yellow and somewhat curly abundance I thought of the Princess with complacency.

Now it happened that the most serious work of my life, on which I had then been engaged for more than six months, had been the training of my hair to lie in a flat sweep backward from my forehead. I had devoted much patient labor to this work; it required that I should wear on my head all day a tight skullcap, and I even suffered to the extent of wearing it in bed at night, when I could do so without my mother’s knowledge. I now shook my hair from my forehead with a quick backward toss of the head, in a manner which always made my father look at me in alarm, and proceeded to brush it straight back with vigorous strokes of the brush.

_The Three Black Hairs in the Yellow Head_

I was in the act of applying a small quantity of dry soap, when I looked at my yellow head in the mirror a trifle more attentively. My gaze became fixed; and as I held my head close to the glass I was astonished to see there, among the yellow strands, three coarse black hairs, very distinct, one in the middle and one on either side.

They did not suit me very well, and I accordingly, with some trouble, plucked each of them out by the root.

Before leaving the room, I gave a final glance of satisfaction at myself in the mirror, and a final touch of the brush to my hair. I stopped suddenly, fixed with astonishment; the three long, coarse black hairs, which I had but a few moments before plucked away, lay there as before, one in the middle of my head and one on either side.

I could not understand it in the least, but after all, what did it matter? I could not allow myself to be bothered by such a trifle. I ran downstairs singing merrily.

At breakfast, I found myself prattling of a thousand things, and I was surprised to remark the confusion with which my parents received my sallies. In the midst of my talk, my mother whispered with sudden excitement into my father’s ear; I did not hear what she said, but I saw his eyebrows rise and heard him blow out his lips in a long-drawn “O-oh!” as if a light had dawned on him. And after that they responded gayly to my chatter, and we had altogether the merriest meal we had ever had in our lives.

After breakfast I accompanied my father to the castle, where I sought out the Princess Hyla, and found her weeping beside one of the fountains in the garden, because her ball had fallen into the water which filled the wide marble basin. I laughed at her, for she did seem comical enough. She stamped her foot angrily at me, but this only made me laugh the more. I jumped into the pool and brought back the ball. She looked at me as if in bewilderment, and cried, “What are you laughing at? Are you crazy?” Far from being offended, I laughed more merrily than before.

The King was much pleased with my little service to the Princess, and after our departure my father assured me that I had advanced markedly in the King’s regard. Everything, in short, was going well.

From that day, my unfailing spirits rejoiced my parents more and more as time went by; their house rang with my merriment; my mother became more youthful in appearance; and as I grew older I became known throughout our city for the brightness of my face and the liveliness of my talk, and I was everywhere in demand. It is true that the three long black hairs continued in their places on my head, and my mother looked at them at times, as it seemed to me, with uneasiness; but I laughed at her; and although I sometimes plucked these hairs from my head, I did so only for the amusement of seeing them reappear in their places as before.

_Alb Wins the Promise of the Princess’s Hand_

When I was sixteen years of age, a circumstance befell which I was able to turn to good account. The Princess Hyla one night unaccountably disappeared. The King was strangely disturbed by this incident, and though I could not quite understand the reason for so much perturbation, I resolved to rescue the Princess and restore her to her father’s arms, if I could. This I was able to do, in the course of a very singular adventure, and in reward the King promised me her hand in marriage. I will now relate to you, if you wish it, the adventure by which I rescued the Princess from the strange fate which involved her; it is the adventure, as I may call it, of

THE RAGPICKER AND THE PRINCESS

It happened (said Alb the Fortunate) that the King, with his daughter, sojourned for a time at his castle of Ventamere, beside the Great Sea; and my father and myself, being lodged in the town hard by,--

_“On second thoughts,” said Solario, interrupting himself, “I will not relate this tale just now. It is too long. It will be better to go on with--”_

_“But we’d like to hear it now,” said Bojohn._

_“No,” said Solario, firmly, “it will be much better to tell it some other time.”_

Thus (said Alb, when he had finished the story of his adventure), I restored the Princess, with the assistance of the One-Armed Sorcerer whom I have mentioned, and in gratitude the King took the One-Armed Sorcerer to dwell with him in his castle in our own city, and promised to me the hand of the Princess in marriage when I should come of age. Truly things were going well with me.

_A Trifling Incident Disturbs Alb’s Mother_

Some two years later, when I was just past my eighteenth birthday, an incident occurred in our household which caused my mother much disturbance. My father died. He had left the house on horseback in the morning, for a journey to the country on a matter pertaining to his business. In the evening, after the shop was closed, a loud knock brought my mother and myself to the door in haste. A crowd was gathered at the entrance, and on a litter carried by two men lay my father’s body; and in this manner he was borne into the shop. His horse had thrown him and his neck was broken.

My mother threw herself upon him and wailed. She tried to arouse him; she talked to him as if he were alive; she even went so far as to try to call him back to life. I was at first greatly astonished at her behavior, and then it struck me as being excessively ridiculous. To think of trying to call back the dead to life! It was highly amusing. I felt a tide of merriment rising within me. I laughed.

I have never seen on any human being’s face the look of horror which my mother turned on me when she heard my laugh. She crouched away from me in fear. Her sobbing ceased, and her eyes remained fixed on me; they grew wider and wider; I began to wonder how long they could stare so without winking. I glanced at the others in the room, and was surprised to see that no one else even so much as smiled. It was useless to remain longer in a company so dead to the brighter things of life. I controlled my good humor and composed my features, and patted my mother affectionately on the shoulder; but she recoiled from my touch; and without appearing to take her inconsiderate behavior in ill part in the least, I left the room.

_Unreasonable Conduct of the Goldsmith’s Widow_

It astonished me afterward to observe that my mother met my customary gayety with coldness, for she had always seemed to take great pleasure in it. She grew very gloomy indeed. I could not discover any reason for it, but I did what I could to cheer her by my own liveliness. For some reason or other, my father’s death appeared to have a depressing effect on her. I made my jokes and sang my songs as usual, but she reached such a state in a few months that she would scarcely speak to me, but on the contrary spent most of her time in her room, alone.