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The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

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by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)


  While he was thus taking account of his wealth, the Luck of the Bean-rows was struck by the reflection of himself in one of the mirrors with which all the apartments were adorned. If the glass was not fooling him, he must have grown—oh, wonder of wonders!—more than three feet since yesterday. And the brown moustache which darkened his upper lip plainly showed that he was passing from sturdy boyhood to youthful manliness.

  He was puzzling over this extraordinary change, when, to his great regret, a costly time-piece, between two pier-glasses, enabled him to solve the riddle. One of the hands pointed to the date of the year, and the Luck saw, without a shadow of doubt, that he had grown six years older.

  “Six years!” he exclaimed. “Unfortunate creature that I am! My poor parents have died of old age, and perhaps in want. Oh, pity me, perhaps they died of grief, fretting over the loss of me. What must they have thought in their last hours of my deserting them or of the misfortune that had befallen me!

  “Now I understand, hateful carriage, how you came to travel so fast; days and days were swallowed up in your minutes. Off, then; off, chick pea!” he continued as he took the magic coach from the wallet and flung it out of the window; “out of my sight, and fly so far that no eye may ever look on you again!”

  And to tell the truth, so far as I know, no one has ever since cast eyes on a chick pea in the shape of a post-chaise that went fifty leagues an hour.

  Luck of the Bean-rows descended the marble steps more sorrowfully than ever he went down the ladder of his bean-loft. He turned his back on the palace without even seeing it; he traversed those desert plains with never a thought of the wolves that might have encamped there to besiege him. He tramped on in a dream, striking his forehead with his hand and at times weeping.

  “What is there to wish for now that my parents are dead?” he asked himself as he listlessly turned the little hold-all in his fingers, “now that Pea-Blossom has been married six years?—for it was on the day I saw her that she came of age, and then the princesses of her house are married. Besides, she had already made her choice. What does the whole world matter—my world which was made up of no more than a cabin, a bean field which you, little green pea,” and he untied the last of the caskets from its case, “will never bring back to me. The sweet days of boyhood return no more!

  “Go, little green pea, go whither the will of God may carry you, and bring forth what you are destined to bring, to the glory of your mistress. All is over and done with—my old parents, the cabin, the bean field and Pea-Blossom. Go, little green pea, far and far away.”

  He flung it from him with such force that it might have overtaken the magic carriage had it been of that mind; then he sank down on the sand, hopeless and full of sorrow.

  When Luck of the Bean-rows raised himself up again the entire appearance of the plain was changed. Right away to the horizon it was a sea of dusky or of sunny green, over which the wind rolled tossing waves of white keel-shaped flowers with butterfly wings. Here they were flecked with violet like bean-blossom, there with rose like pea-blossom, and when the wind shook them together they were lovelier than the flowers of the loveliest garden plots.

  Luck of the Bean-rows sprang forward; he recognized it all—the enlarged field, the improved cabin, his father and mother alive, hastening now to meet him as eagerly as their old limbs would carry them, to tell him that not a day had passed since he went away without their receiving news of him in the evening, and with the news kindly gifts which had cheered them, and good hopes of his return, which had kept them alive.

  The Luck embraced them fondly, and gave them each an arm to accompany him to his palace. Now they wondered more and more as they approached it! Luck of the Bean-rows was afraid of overshadowing their joy, yet he could not help saying: “Ah, if you had seen Pea-Blossom! But it is six years since she married.”

  “Since I married you,” said a gentle voice, and Pea-Blossom threw wide the iron gates:

  “My choice was made then, do you not remember? Do come in,” she continued, kissing the old man and the old woman, who could not take their eyes off her, for she too had grown six years older and was now sixteen; “Do come in! This is your son’s home, and it is in the land of the spirit and of day dreams where one no longer grows old and where no one dies.”

  It would have been difficult to welcome these poor people with better news.

  The marriage festivities were held with all the splendor befitting such high personages; and their lives never ceased to be a perfect example of love, constancy and happiness. This is the usual lucky ending of all good fairy tales.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), sometimes known as Mary Shelley, was an English novelist and poet best known for her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which arose out of a competition with her literary friends. However, her dystopian novel about the destruction of mankind due to a malicious plague, The Last Man (1826), is often considered her finest work. Wollstonecraft Shelley’s innovative style has placed her as an ancestor to modern science fiction and of certain offshoots of Gothic horror. What many do not know is that Wollstonecraft Shelley’s life was very similar to a Cinderella tale; her mother died when she was young and her stepmother treated her very poorly. Yet, it would lead to her finding solace in her father’s library and later writing stories. An early example of doppelgänger fiction, “Transformation” is believed to have first made an appearance in The Keepsake for 1831, a gift book that Wollstonecraft Shelley contributed to, with “the author of Frankenstein” appearing as the story’s byline.

  Transformation

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d

  With a woful agony,

  Which forced me to begin my tale,

  And then it set me free.

  Since then, at an uncertain hour,

  That agony returns;

  And till my ghastly tale is told

  This heart within me burns.

  —Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.

  I HAVE HEARD IT SAID, that, when any strange, supernatural, and necromantic adventure has occurred to a human being, that being, however desirous he may be to conceal the same, feels at certain periods torn up as it were by an intellectual earthquake, and is forced to bare the inner depths of his spirit to another. I am a witness of the truth of this. I have dearly sworn to myself never to reveal to human ears the horrors to which I once, in excess of fiendly pride, delivered myself over. The holy man who heard my confession, and reconciled me to the church, is dead. None knows that once—

  Why should it not be thus? Why tell a tale of impious tempting of Providence, and soul-subduing humiliation? Why? answer me, ye who are wise in the secrets of human nature! I only know that so it is; and in spite of strong resolve—of a pride that too much masters me—of shame, and even of fear, so to render myself odious to my species—I must speak.

  Genoa! my birth-place-proud city! looking upon the blue waves of the Mediterranean sea—dost thou remember me in my boyhood, when thy cliffs and promontories, thy bright sky and gay vineyards, were my world? Happy time! when to the young heart the narrow-bounded universe, which leaves, by its very limitation, free scope to the imagination, enchains our physical energies, and, sole period in our lives, innocence and enjoyment are united. Yet, who can look back to childhood, and not remember its sorrows and its harrowing fears? I was born with the most imperious, haughty, tameless spirit, with which ever mortal was gifted. I quailed before my father only; and he, generous and noble, but capricious and tyrannical, at once fostered and checked the wild impetuosity of my character, making obedience necessary, but inspiring no respect for the motives which guided his commands. To be a man, free, independent; or, in better words, insolent and domineering, was the hope and prayer of my rebel heart.

  My father had one friend, a wealthy Genoese noble, wh
o in a political tumult was suddenly sentenced to banishment, and his property confiscated. The Marchese Torella went into exile alone. Like my father, he was a widower: he had one child, the almost infant Juliet, who was left under my father’s guardianship. I should certainly have been an unkind master to the lovely girl, but that I was forced by my position to become her protector. A variety of childish incidents all tended to one point,—to make Juliet see in me a rock of refuge; I in her, one, who must perish through the soft sensibility of her nature too rudely visited, but for my guardian care. We grew up together. The opening rose in May was not more sweet than this dear girl. An irradiation of beauty was spread over her face. Her form, her step, her voice—my heart weeps even now, to think of all of relying, gentle, loving, and pure, that was enshrined in that celestial tenement. When I was eleven and Juliet eight years of age, a cousin of mine, much older than either—he seemed to us a man—took great notice of my playmate; he called her his bride, and asked her to marry him. She refused, and he insisted, drawing her unwillingly towards him. With the countenance and emotions of a maniac I threw myself on him—I strove to draw his sword—I clung to his neck with the ferocious resolve to strangle him: he was obliged to call for assistance to disengage himself from me. On that night I led Juliet to the chapel of our house: I made her touch the sacred relics—I harrowed her child’s heart, and profaned her child’s lips with an oath, that she would be mine, and mine only.

  Well, those days passed away. Torella returned in a few years, and became wealthier and more prosperous than ever. When I was seventeen my father died; he had been magnificent to prodigality; Torella rejoiced that my minority would afford an opportunity for repairing my fortunes. Juliet and I had been affianced beside my father’s deathbed—Torella was to be a second parent to me.

  I desired to see the world, and I was indulged. I went to Florence, to Rome, to Naples; thence I passed to Toulon, and at length reached what had long been the bourne of my wishes, Paris. There was wild work in Paris then. The poor king, Charles the Sixth, now sane, now mad, now a monarch, now an abject slave, was the very mockery of humanity. The queen, the dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, alternately friends and foes now meeting in prodigal feasts, now shedding blood in rivalry—were blind to the miserable state of their country, and the dangers that impended over it, and gave themselves wholly up to dissolute enjoyment or savage strife. My character still followed me. I was arrogant and selfwilled; I loved display, and above all, I threw all control far from me. Who could control me in Paris? My young friends were eager to foster passions which furnished them with pleasures. I was deemed handsome—I was master of every knightly accomplishment. I was disconnected with any political party. I grew a favourite with all: my presumption and arrogance were pardoned in one so young: I became a spoiled child. Who could control me? not the letters and advice of Torella—only strong necessity visiting me in the abhorred shape of an empty purse. But there were means to refill this void. Acre after acre, estate after estate, I sold. My dress, my jewels, my horses and their caparisons, were almost unrivalled in gorgeous Paris, while the lands of my inheritance passed into possession of others.

  The Duke of Orleans was waylaid and murdered by the Duke of Burgundy. Fear and terror possessed all Paris. The dauphin and the queen shut themselves up; every pleasure was suspended. I grew weary of this state of things, and my heart yearned for my boyhood’s haunts. I was nearly a beggar, yet still I would go there, claim my bride, and rebuild my fortunes. A few happy ventures as a merchant would make me rich again. Nevertheless, I would not return in humble guise. My last act was to dispose of my remaining estate near Albaro for half its worth, for ready money. Then I despatched all kinds of artificers, arras, furniture of regal splendour, to fit up the last relic of my inheritance, my palace in Genoa. I lingered a little longer yet, ashamed at the part of the prodigal returned, which I feared I should play. I sent my horses. One matchless Spanish jennet I despatched to my promised bride; its caparisons flamed with jewels and cloth of gold. In every part I caused to be entwined the initials of Juliet and her Guido. My present found favour in hers and in her father’s eyes.

  Still to return a proclaimed spendthrift, the mark of impertinent wonder, perhaps of scorn, and to encounter singly the reproaches or taunts of my fellow-citizens, was no alluring prospect. As a shield between me and censure, I invited some few of the most reckless of my comrades to accompany me: thus I went armed against the world, hiding a rankling feeling, half fear and half penitence, by bravado and an insolent display of satisfied vanity.

  I arrived in Genoa. I trod the pavement of my ancestral palace. My proud step was no interpreter of my heart, for I deeply felt that, though surrounded by every luxury, I was a beggar. The first step I took in claiming Juliet must widely declare me such. I read contempt or pity in the looks of all. I fancied, so apt is conscience to imagine what it deserves, that rich and poor, young and old, all regarded me with derision. Torella came not near me. No wonder that my second father should expect a son’s deference from me in waiting first on him. But, galled and stung by a sense of my follies and demerit, I strove to throw the blame on others. We kept nightly orgies in Palazzo Carega. To sleepless, riotous nights, followed listless, supine mornings. At the Ave Maria we showed our dainty persons in the streets, scoffing at the sober citizens, casting insolent glances on the shrinking women. Juliet was not among them—no, no; if she had been there, shame would have driven me away, if love had not brought me to her feet.

  I grew tired of this. Suddenly I paid the Marchese a visit. He was at his villa, one among the many which deck the suburb of San Pietro d’Arena. It was the month of May—a month of May in that garden of the world the blossoms of the fruit trees were fading among thick, green foliage; the vines were shooting forth; the ground strewed with the fallen olive blooms; the fire-fly was in the myrtle hedge; heaven and earth wore a mantle of surpassing beauty. Torella welcomed me kindly, though seriously; and even his shade of displeasure soon wore away. Some resemblance to my father—some look and tone of youthful ingenuousness, lurking still in spite of my misdeeds, softened the good old man’s heart. He sent for his daughter—he presented me to her as her betrothed. The chamber became hallowed by a holy light as she entered. Hers was that cherub look, those large, soft eyes, full dimpled cheeks, and mouth of infantine sweetness, that expresses the rare union of happiness and love. Admiration first possessed me; she is mine! was the second proud emotion, and my lips curled with haughty triumph. I had not been the enfant gâté of the beauties of France not to have learnt the art of pleasing the soft heart of woman. If towards men I was overbearing, the deference I paid to them was the more in contrast. I commenced my courtship by the display of a thousand gallantries to Juliet, who, vowed to me from infancy, had never admitted the devotion of others; and who, though accustomed to expressions of admiration, was uninitiated in the language of lovers.

  For a few days all went well. Torella never alluded to my extravagance; he treated me as a favourite son. But the time came, as we discussed the preliminaries to my union with his daughter, when this fair face of things should be overcast. A contract had been drawn up in my father’s lifetime. I had rendered this, in fact, void, by having squandered the whole of the wealth which was to have been shared by Juliet and myself. Torella, in consequence, chose to consider this bond as cancelled, and proposed another, in which, though the wealth he bestowed was immeasurably increased, there were so many restrictions as to the mode of spending it, that I, who saw independence only in free career being given to my own imperious will, taunted him as taking advantage of my situation, and refused utterly to subscribe to his conditions. The old man mildly strove to recall me to reason. Roused pride became the tyrant of my thought: I listened with indignation—I repelled him with disdain.

  “Juliet, thou art mine! Did we not interchange vows in our innocent childhood? are we not one in the sight of God? and shall thy cold-hearted, cold-blooded father
divide us? Be generous, my love, be just; take not away a gift, last treasure of thy Guido—retract not thy vows—let us defy the world, and setting at nought the calculations of age, find in our mutual affection a refuge from every ill.”

  Fiend I must have been, with such sophistry to endeavour to poison that sanctuary of holy thought and tender love. Juliet shrank from me affrighted. Her father was the best and kindest of men, and she strove to show me how, in obeying him, every good would follow. He would receive my tardy submission with warm affection; and generous pardon would follow my repentance. Profitless words for a young and gentle daughter to use to a man accustomed to make his will, law; and to feel in his own heart a despot so terrible and stern, that he could yield obedience to nought save his own imperious desires! My resentment grew with resistance; my wild companions were ready to add fuel to the flame. We laid a plan to carry off Juliet. At first it appeared to be crowned with success. Midway, on our return, we were overtaken by the agonized father and his attendants. A conflict ensued. Before the city guard came to decide the victory in favour of our antagonists, two of Torella’s servitors were dangerously wounded.

 

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