The Complete Fairy Books. Andrew Lang

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ We must enter the castle with more ceremony. Wait for me here, and in an hour I will return with carriages and horses fit for a princess.’

      ‘Don’t be long,’ replied Zizi, and she watched him go with wistful eyes.

      When she was left by herself the poor girl began to feel afraid. She was alone for the first time in her life, and in the middle of a thick forest.

      Suddenly she heard a noise among the trees. Fearing lest it should be a wolf, she hid herself in the hollow trunk of a willow tree which hung over the fountain. It was big enough to hold her altogether, but she peeped out, and her pretty head was reflected in the clear water.

      Then there appeared, not a wolf, but a creature quite as wicked and quite as ugly. Let us see who this creature was.

      X

      Not far from the fountain there lived a family of bricklayers. Now, fifteen years before this time, the father in walking through the forest found a little girl, who had been deserted by the gypsies. He carried her home to his wife, and the good woman was sorry for her, and brought her up with her own sons. As she grew older, the little gypsy became much more remarkable for strength and cunning than for sense or beauty. She had a low forehead, a flat nose, thick lips, coarse hair, and a skin not golden like that of Zizi, but the colour of clay.

      As she was always being teased about her complexion, she got as noisy and cross as a titmouse. So they used to call her Titty.

      Titty was often sent by the bricklayer to fetch water from the fountain, and as she was very proud and lazy the gypsy disliked this very much.

      It was she who had frightened Zizi by appearing with her pitcher on her shoulder. Just as she was stooping to fill it, she saw reflected in the water the lovely image of the Princess.

      ‘What a pretty face!’ she exclaimed, ‘Why, it must be mine! How in the world can they call me ugly? I am certainly much too pretty to be their water carrier!’

      So saying, she broke her pitcher and went home.

      ‘Where is your pitcher?’ asked the bricklayer.

      ‘Well, what do you expect? The pitcher may go many times to the well....’

      ‘But at last it is broken. Well, here is a bucket that will not break.’

      The gypsy returned to the fountain, and addressing once more the image of Zizi, she said:

      ‘No; I don’t mean to be a beast of burden any longer.’ And she flung the bucket so high in the air that it stuck in the branches of an oak.

      ‘I met a wolf,’ she told the bricklayer, ‘and I broke the bucket across his nose.’

      The bricklayer asked her no more questions, but took down a broom and gave her such a beating that her pride was humbled a little.

      Then he handed to her an old copper milk-can, and said:

      ‘If you don’t bring it back full, your bones shall suffer for it.’

      XI

      Titty went off rubbing her sides; but this time she did not dare to disobey, and in a very bad temper stooped down over the well. It was not at all easy to fill the milk-can, which was large and round. It would not go down into the well, and the gypsy had to try again and again.

      At last her arms grew so tired that when she did manage to get the can properly under the water she had no strength to pull it up, and it rolled to the bottom.

      On seeing the can disappear, she made such a miserable face that Zizi, who had been watching her all this time, burst into fits of laughter.

      Titty turned round and perceived the mistake she had made; and she felt so angry that she made up her mind to be revenged at once.

      ‘What are you doing there, you lovely creature?’ she said to Zizi.

      ‘I am waiting for my lover,’ Zizi replied; and then, with a simplicity quite natural in a girl who so lately had been a canary, she told all her story.

      The gypsy had often seen the young Prince pass by, with his gun on his shoulder, when he was going after crows. She was too ugly and ragged for him ever to have noticed her, but Titty on her side had admired him, though she thought he might well have been a little fatter.

      ‘Dear, dear!’ she said to herself. ‘So he likes yellow women! Why, I am yellow too, and if I could only think of a way——’

      It was not long before she did think of it.

      ‘What!’ cried the sly Titty, ‘they are coming with great pomp to fetch you, and you are not afraid to show yourself to so many fine lords and ladies with your hair down like that? Get down at once, my poor child, and let me dress your hair for you!’

      The innocent Zizi came down at once, and stood by Titty. The gypsy began to comb her long brown locks, when suddenly she drew a pin from her stays, and, just as the titmouse digs its beak into the heads of linnets and larks, Titty dug the pin into the head of Zizi.

      No sooner did Zizi feel the prick of the pin than she became a bird again, and, spreading her wings, she flew away.

      ‘That was neatly done,’ said the gypsy. ‘The Prince will be clever if he finds his bride.’ And, arranging her dress, she seated herself on the grass to await Desire.

      XII

      Meanwhile the Prince was coming as fast as his horse could carry him. He was so impatient that he was always full fifty yards in front of the lords and ladies sent by Tubby to bring back Zizi.

      At the sight of the hideous gypsy he was struck dumb with surprise and horror.

      ‘Ah me!’ said Titty, ‘so you don’t know your poor Zizi? While you were away the wicked witch came, and turned me into this. But if you only have the courage to marry me I shall get back my beauty.’ And she began to cry bitterly.

      Now the good-natured Desire was as soft-hearted as he was brave.

      ‘Poor girl,’ he thought to himself. ‘It is not her fault, after all, that she has grown so ugly, it is mine. Oh! why did I not follow the old man’s advice? Why did I leave her alone? And besides, it depends on me to break the spell, and I love her too much to let her remain like this.’

      So he presented the gypsy to the lords and ladies of the Court, explaining to them the terrible misfortune which had befallen his beautiful bride.

      They all pretended to believe it, and the ladies at once put on the false princess the rich dresses they had brought for Zizi.

      She was then perched on the top of a magnificent ambling palfrey, and they set forth to the castle.

      But unluckily the rich dress and jewels only made Titty look uglier still, and Desire could not help feeling hot and uncomfortable when he made his entry with her into the city.

      Bells were pealing, chimes ringing, and the СКАЧАТЬ