The Princess and Curdie

e's M

tom of the hill, he met his father coming up. The sun was then down, and the warm first of the twilight filled the evening. He came rather wearily up the hill: the road, he thought, must have grown steeper in parts since he was Curdie's age. His back was to the light of the

eing his son come bounding along as if i

red, Father,

I'm not so y

the princess,

ut going downhill when they begin to get old? It se

of you, as if you had been climbing the hill

e top when it lies miles away. But I must not keep you, my boy, for you are wanted; and we sha

s nobody more to be trusted than my fath

d almost to fly down the long, winding, steep pa

door stood the housekeeper, and she seemed to broa

when he pleases, and keeps running up and down my stairs without ever saying by your leave,

respectfully. 'You forget, ma'

ng left it to me to take care

ft it to you?' asked Curdie, half in dou

usekeeper. 'Don't you see by my dre

ot one of h

You are an out-of-doors labourer. You are a nobody. Y

a nobody to whom the king

or it was very heavy and always seemed unwilling to shut. Curdie came a pace nearer. She lifted the great house key from her side, and threatened to strike him down with it, calling aloud

equalled. Its eyes were flaming with anger, but it seemed to be at the housekeeper, for it came cowering and creeping up and laid its head on the ground at Curdie's feet. Curdie hardly waited to look at it, however, but ran into the hous

d the voice of

re was the great sky, and the stars, and beneath he could see nothing only darkness! But what was that in

die,' said th

id Curdie, 'if I were sure I

you doubt

alls nor floor, only dar

right, Curd

would be to distrust the princess, and a greater rudeness he could not offer her. So he stepped straight in-I will not say without a litt

ast. He could see no sky or stars any more, but the wheel was flashing out blue-oh, such lovely sky-blue light!-and behind it of course sat the princess, b

dear to Curdie: its very tone was precious like a jewel, not a

listened an

saying?' ask

ing,' answe

s it si

e could not; for no sooner had he got h

nd listened, entra

Curdie, sa

try hard for a while, but I c

all I tell you again what I told my wheel, and my wheel

se, m

at spinning wheel! Now they were gold, now silver, now grass, now palm trees, now ancient cities, now rubies, now mountain brooks, now peacock's feathers, now clouds, now snowdrops, and now mid-sea islands. But for the voic

e spinning t

s are the dus

ns are wea

hen the sleepe

n in mus

are turni

es are gath

hen the sleep

are learni

er to glea

ry the care

hen the sleep

d the moths and

d the glimme

d sparrows an

thing that n

h was sweeter than song and wheel; sweeter than running brook and silv

ind me,' she said; and her laugh seemed sounding on still i

rainbow. It was some time before Curdie could take his eyes from the marvel of her loveliness. Fearing at last that he was rude, he turned them away; and, behold, he was in a room that was for beauty marvellous! The lofty ceiling was all a golden vine, Whose great clusters of carbuncles, rubies

eat fire was burning, and the fire was a huge heap of roses, and yet it was fire. The smell of the roses filled the air, and the heat of the flames of them glowed upon his face. He turned an

than one trial already, and have stood them well: now I am goin

ing I do not know what it is, or what prep

st and obedience,'

ng, ma'am. If you thin

ut that will be all; no real hurt but

stood gazing with parted

nds into that fire,' she sa

middle of the heap of flaming roses, and his arms halfway up to the elbows. And it did hurt! But he did not draw them back. He held the pain

rity it had become rather pleasant. At last it ceased altogether, and Curdie thought his hands must be burned to cinders if not ashes, for he did not feel them at all. The pri

o me,'

rprise, that her face looked

matter?' he cried. 'Did I

answered; 'but

feel it t

. Would you like to know why I made You put your hand

off them and make them fit fo

er. 'It would be a poor way of making your hands fit for the king's court to take off them s

ma'

ou might not know what had been given you, therefore I will tell you. Have

ma'

all men, if they do not take care, go down the hill to the animals' country; that many men are actua

ar it, ma'am, when I thin

tonight, you stood and spoke together on the same spot; and although one of you was going up and the other coming down, at a little distance no one could have told which was bound in the one direction and which in the

ood of knowing that there is such a diffe

y you can never know. When there is a necessity for your knowing, when you have to do important business with this or that man, there is always a way of knowing enough to keep you from any great blunder. An

hands, to which the outside ones are but as the gloves. They do not know it of course; for a beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast the less he knows it. Neither can their best fr

e outside of your flesh gloves, that you will henceforth be able to know at once the hand of a man who is growing into a beast; nay, mo

now the foot-what it is and what beast's it is. According, then, to your knowledge of that beast will be your knowledge of the man you have to do with. Only there is one beautiful and awful thing about it, that i

d Curdie. 'I must m

ndeed,

es make a mistake withou

t after his own ends, he will

whose hand tells me that he is growing a beast-

incess

n there is in general no insult like the truth. He cannot endure it, not because he is growing a beast, but because he is ceasing to be a man. It is the dying man in him that it makes uncom

thing be done? It's so awful to think

it's with h

me to make it worst

r coming fate is. Many a lady, so delicate and nice that she can bear nothing coarser than the finest linen to touch her body, if she had a mirror that could show her the

'am, shouldn'

ess held

a,' she said af

urdie's heart it overcame all the ludicrousness of her horrible mass of incongruities. She had a very short body, and very long legs made like an elephant's, so that in lying down she kneeled with both pairs. Her tail, which dragged on the floor behind her, was twice as long and quite as thick as her bod

paw, Lina,' sai

d to his eyes, he clasped in his great mining fist the soft, neat little hand of a child! He took it in both of his, and held it as if he could not let it go. The green eyes stared at him with their yellow light, and th

a child's hand

promised. It is yet better to perce

began

ave not half got to the bottom of the answers I have already given you. That paw in your han

h! please! one word more: may I tel

turn to find it a little difficult to believ

I believe it all th

at stone I gave him at night in a safe place-not because of the greatness of its price, although it is such an emerald as no prince has in his crown, but because it will be a news-bearer between you and him. As often as he gets at all anxious about you, he must take it and lay it in t

d Curdie. 'Please

princess, and held

th, but not very soft-and just the same to his fire-taught touch that it was to his e

' she said, 'for your journey

o carry, neither have you said what I am wanted for. I go without a notion whethe

e told again and again before he will understand. You have orders enough to start with, and you will find, as you go on, and as you need to know, what you have to do. But I warn you that perhaps it will not look the least like what you may have been fancying I should require of you. I have one idea of you and your work, and you have

in the midst of the glorious room, just like any wheel you might find in a country cottage-old and worn and dingy and dusty-the splendour of the place vanished, and