Prince Hyacinth And The Dear Little Princess

: The Blue Fairy Book

Once upon a time there lived a king who was deeply in

love with a princess, but she could not marry anyone,

because she was under an enchantment. So the King set out

to seek a fairy, and asked what he could do to win the

Princess's love. The Fairy said to him:



"You know that the Princess has a great cat which she

is very fond of. Whoever is clever enough to tread on

that cat's tail is the man
she is destined to marry."



The King said to himself that this would not be very

difficult, and he left the Fairy, determined to grind the

cat's tail to powder rather than not tread on it at all.



You may imagine that it was not long before he went

to see the Princess, and puss, as usual, marched in before

him, arching his back. The King took a long step, and

quite thought he had the tail under his foot, but the cat

turned round so sharply that he only trod on air. And so

it went on for eight days, till the King began to think that

this fatal tail must be full of quicksilver--it was never

still for a moment.



At last, however, he was lucky enough to come upon

puss fast asleep and with his tail conveniently spread out.

So the King, without losing a moment, set his foot upon it

heavily.



With one terrific yell the cat sprang up and instantly

changed into a tall man, who, fixing his angry eyes upon

the King, said:



"You shall marry the Princess because you have been

able to break the enchantment, but I will have my

revenge. You shall have a son, who will never be happy

until he finds out that his nose is too long, and if you ever

tell anyone what I have just said to you, you shall vanish

away instantly, and no one shall ever see you or hear of

you again."



Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter,

he could not help laughing at this threat.



"If my son has such a long nose as that," he said to

himself, "he must always see it or feel it; at least, if he is

not blind or without hands."



But, as the enchanter had vanished, he did not waste

any more time in thinking, but went to seek the Princess,

who very soon consented to marry him. But after all,

they had not been married very long when the King died,

and the Queen had nothing left to care for but her little

son, who was called Hyacinth. The little Prince had large

blue eyes, the prettiest eyes in the world, and a sweet

little mouth, but, alas! his nose was so enormous that it

covered half his face. The Queen was inconsolable when

she saw this great nose, but her ladies assured her that it

was not really as large as it looked; that it was a Roman

nose, and you had only to open any history to see that

every hero has a large nose. The Queen, who was devoted

to her baby, was pleased with what they told her, and

when she looked at Hyacinth again, his nose certainly did

not seem to her quite so large.



The Prince was brought up with great care; and, as

soon as he could speak, they told him all sorts of dreadful

stories about people who had short noses. No one was

allowed to come near him whose nose did not more or less

resemble his own, and the courtiers, to get into favor with

the Queen, took to pulling their babies' noses several

times every day to make them grow long. But, do what

they would, they were nothing by comparison with the

Prince's.



When he grew sensible he learned history; and whenever

any great prince or beautiful princess was spoken of,

his teachers took care to tell him that they had long noses.



His room was hung with pictures, all of people with

very large noses; and the Prince grew up so convinced

that a long nose was a great beauty, that he would not on

any account have had his own a single inch shorter!



When his twentieth birthday was passed the Queen

thought it was time that he should be married, so she

commanded that the portraits of several princesses should

be brought for him to see, and among the others was a

picture of the Dear Little Princess!



Now, she was the daughter of a great king, and would

some day possess several kingdoms herself; but Prince

Hyacinth had not a thought to spare for anything of that

sort, he was so much struck with her beauty. The Princess,

whom he thought quite charming, had, however, a

little saucy nose, which, in her face, was the prettiest

thing possible, but it was a cause of great embarrassment

to the courtiers, who had got into such a habit of laughing

at little noses that they sometimes found themselves

laughing at hers before they had time to think; but this

did not do at all before the Prince, who quite failed to see

the joke, and actually banished two of his courtiers who

had dared to mention disrespectfully the Dear Little

Princess's tiny nose!



The others, taking warning from this, learned to think

twice before they spoke, and one even went so far as to

tell the Prince that, though it was quite true that no man

could be worth anything unless he had a long nose, still,

a woman's beauty was a different thing; and he knew a

learned man who understood Greek and had read in some

old manuscripts that the beautiful Cleopatra herself had

a "tip-tilted" nose!



The Prince made him a splendid present as a reward for

this good news, and at once sent ambassadors to ask the

Dear Little Princess in marriage. The King, her father,

gave his consent; and Prince Hyacinth, who, in his anxiety

to see the Princess, had gone three leagues to meet her

was just advancing to kiss her hand when, to the horror

of all who stood by, the enchanter appeared as suddenly

as a flash of lightning, and, snatching up the Dear Little

Princess, whirled her away out of their sight!



The Prince was left quite unconsolable, and declared

that nothing should induce him to go back to his kingdom

until he had found her again, and refusing to allow any of

his courtiers to follow him, he mounted his horse and rode

sadly away, letting the animal choose his own path.



So it happened that he came presently to a great plain,

across which he rode all day long without seeing a single

house, and horse and rider were terribly hungry, when, as

the night fell, the Prince caught sight of a light, which

seemed to shine from a cavern.





He rode up to it, and saw a little old woman, who

appeared to be at least a hundred years old.



She put on her spectacles to look at Prince Hyacinth,

but it was quite a long time before she could fix them

securely because her nose was so very short.



The Prince and the Fairy (for that was who she was)

had no sooner looked at one another than they went into

fits of laughter, and cried at the same moment, "Oh, what

a funny nose!"



"Not so funny as your own," said Prince Hyacinth to

the Fairy; "but, madam, I beg you to leave the consideration

of our noses--such as they are--and to be good

enough to give me something to eat, for I am starving,

and so is my poor horse."



"With all my heart," said the Fairy. "Though your nose

is so ridiculous you are, nevertheless, the son of my best

friend. I loved your father as if he had been my brother.

Now he had a very handsome nose!"



"And pray what does mine lack?" said the Prince.



"Oh! it doesn't lack anything," replied the Fairy. "On

the contrary quite, there is only too much of it. But

never mind, one may be a very worthy man though his

nose is too long. I was telling you that I was your father's

friend; he often came to see me in the old times, and you

must know that I was very pretty in those days; at least,

he used to say so. I should like to tell you of a conversation

we had the last time I ever saw him."



"Indeed," said the Prince, "when I have supped it will

give me the greatest pleasure to hear it; but consider,

madam, I beg of you, that I have had nothing to eat

to-day."



"The poor boy is right," said the Fairy; "I was

forgetting. Come in, then, and I will give you some supper, and

while you are eating I can tell you my story in a very few

words--for I don't like endless tales myself. Too long a

tongue is worse than too long a nose, and I remember

when I was young that I was so much admired for not

being a great chatterer. They used to tell the Queen, my

mother, that it was so. For though you see what I am

now, I was the daughter of a great king. My father----"



"Your father, I dare say, got something to eat when he

was hungry!" interrupted the Prince.



"Oh! certainly," answered the Fairy, "and you also

shall have supper directly. I only just wanted to tell

you----"



"But I really cannot listen to anything until I have had

something to eat," cried the Prince, who was getting quite

angry; but then, remembering that he had better be

polite as he much needed the Fairy's help, he added:



"I know that in the pleasure of listening to you I should

quite forget my own hunger; but my horse, who cannot

hear you, must really be fed!"



The Fairy was very much flattered by this compliment,

and said, calling to her servants:



"You shall not wait another minute, you are so polite,

and in spite of the enormous size of your nose you are

really very agreeable."



"Plague take the old lady! How she does go on about

my nose!" said the Prince to himself. "One would almost

think that mine had taken all the extra length that hers

lacks! If I were not so hungry I would soon have done

with this chatterpie who thinks she talks very little! How

stupid people are not to see their own faults! That comes

of being a princess: she has been spoiled by flatterers, who

have made her believe that she is quite a moderate talker!"



Meanwhile the servants were putting the supper on the

table, and the prince was much amused to hear the Fairy

who asked them a thousand questions simply for the

pleasure of hearing herself speak; especially he noticed

one maid who, no matter what was being said, always

contrived to praise her mistress's wisdom.



"Well!" he thought, as he ate his supper, "I'm very glad

I came here. This just shows me how sensible I have been

in never listening to flatterers. People of that sort praise

us to our faces without shame, and hide our faults or

change them into virtues. For my part I never will be

taken in by them. I know my own defects, I hope."



Poor Prince Hyacinth! He really believed what he said,

and hadn't an idea that the people who had praised his

nose were laughing at him, just as the Fairy's maid was

laughing at her; for the Prince had seen her laugh slyly

when she could do so without the Fairy's noticing her.



However, he said nothing, and presently, when his

hunger began to be appeased, the Fairy said:



"My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more

that way, for your nose casts such a shadow that I really

cannot see what I have on my plate. Ah! thanks. Now

let us speak of your father. When I went to his Court he

was only a little boy, but that is forty years ago, and I

have been in this desolate place ever since. Tell me what

goes on nowadays; are the ladies as fond of amusement as

ever? In my time one saw them at parties, theatres, balls,

and promenades every day. Dear me! what a long nose

you have! I cannot get used to it!"



"Really, madam," said the Prince, "I wish you would

leave off mentioning my nose. It cannot matter to you

what it is like. I am quite satisfied with it, and have no

wish to have it shorter. One must take what is given one."



"Now you are angry with me, my poor Hyacinth," said

the Fairy, "and I assure you that I didn't mean to vex

you; on the contrary, I wished to do you a service. However,

though I really cannot help your nose being a shock

to me, I will try not to say anything about it. I will even

try to think that you have an ordinary nose. To tell the

truth, it would make three reasonable ones."



The Prince, who was no longer hungry, grew so impatient

at the Fairy's continual remarks about his nose that

at last he threw himself upon his horse and rode hastily

away. But wherever he came in his journeyings he thought

the people were mad, for they all talked of his nose, and

yet he could not bring himself to admit that it was too

long, he had been so used all his life to hear it called handsome.



The old Fairy, who wished to make him happy, at last

hit upon a plan. She shut the Dear Little Princess up in

a palace of crystal, and put this palace down where the

Prince would not fail to find it. His joy at seeing the

Princess again was extreme, and he set to work with all

his might to try to break her prison; but in spite of all his

efforts he failed utterly. In despair he thought at least

that he would try to get near enough to speak to the Dear

Little Princess, who, on her part, stretched out her hand

that he might kiss it; but turn which way he might, he

never could raise it to his lips, for his long nose always

prevented it. For the first time he realized how long it

really was, and exclaimed:



"Well, it must be admitted that my nose is too long!"



In an instant the crystal prison flew into a thousand

splinters, and the old Fairy, taking the Dear Little Princess

by the hand, said to the Prince:



"Now, say if you are not very much obliged to me.

Much good it was for me to talk to you about your nose!

You would never have found out how extraordinary it

was if it hadn't hindered you from doing what you wanted

to. You see how self-love keeps us from knowing our own

defects of mind and body. Our reason tries in vain to

show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them

in the way of our interests."



Prince Hyacinth, whose nose was now just like anyone's

else, did not fail to profit by the lesson he had

received. He married the Dear Little Princess, and they

lived happily ever after.



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