The young man was the son of a great Tartar Emperor. Vicious had abducted him from his father’s court. For two years the fay had kept him imprisoned in that frightful abode. How hard she had tried to make him love her! All her artifices were futile; the hatred that the prince had conceived for her was invincible; he could not look at her without horror. Vicious soon discerned his sentiments; that might have put an end to his life; she would have sacrificed him to her rage and her chagrin if the violence of her passion had not calmed a fraction of the fury by which she was agitated.
The prince was named Tendrebrun. He was tall and well built, and all his features were agreeable; he had an air of majesty and the politeness of the noblest society attracted all hearts to him. In sum, he had been born with a great penchant for amour, and when he wanted to please, he pleased.
The indolent life that he led in the fay’s abode bored him infinitely; he was retained there by an enchantment that all his courage was unable to overcome; he had the liberty to stroll in the gardens of the palace, but he usually only made use of it when night had deployed its wings, because he dreaded encountering Vicious or someone from her retinue. The edge of the pool where Constance was confined was the place he almost always chose to repose and to think about means he might employ to get out of his prison.
He had already been savoring the agreeable coolness of the night for some time when he saw the crayfish, which, as I have said, was looking at him very attentively. He thought at first that it was dead, but, after picking up a little twig, he touched it, and knew that it was not. Astonished by the fact that it did not appear to want to escape, and that its eyes were attached to him in a particular fashion, he considered it attentively. Then, picking it up, he heard it sigh; after that, he had no doubt that it was some unfortunate person whose metamorphosis was the work of Vicious. He voiced that idea, and noticed that it made all the signs that a crayfish can employ to make him understand that he was not mistaken. He therefore carried it rapidly to his apartment, put it in a golden bowl full of water, which he found in his cabinet, and threw himself on his bed.
Curiosity soon came to trouble the mildness of the repose that he had begun to enjoy, however. The memory of his prisoner snatched him from the arms of sleep; he ran to the cabinet, visited his crayfish, and gave it a piece of biscuit. Having perceived that it ate it with pleasure, he felt sorry for it again and promised to keep it company as often as he could.
Sometimes, he looked at it and thought he remarked something in its eyes so tender and so touching that he could not help uttering imprecations against the person who had reduced it to that state.
One day, when he assured her that no one was interested in her misfortunes as much as he was, she emerged from the water, took a pen and a sheet of paper that he had left on the table, and, making use of her paw, wrote her name and the causes of her metamorphosis. She thanked Tendrebrun for the care he had taken of her and implored him not to abandon her, and to be careful that the fay did not discover her.
The prince, charmed by what she had just done, swore that he would rather lose his life than suffer that the slightest harm be done to her; in order to reassure her, he told her that Vicious ought to be away from her palace for a month.
From that day on he was more assiduous toward her; he read her several amusing stories in order to relieve her boredom, and he anticipated her in everything that might give her pleasure. Constance listened to him with an infinite satisfaction, and although amour made further progress in her heart every day, she refrained nevertheless from letting him know the extent to which she was smitten with his charms. Such a confession appeared to her to be shameful, and she did not hope that Tendrebrun would ever fall in love with a crayfish. Those thoughts caused her so much pain that she made the resolution one evening to allow herself to die of starvation.
She therefore stopped eating. The prince perceived that, and asked her the reason, but she refused to tell him, which gave him a great deal of chagrin. He imagined that perhaps she did not like what he gave her, and that she would rather eat fish. With a view to making sure, he took a line and went straight to the pool.
A small fish was caught on his hook; he took it with al diligence to his dear crayfish and threw it into the bowl, imploring her to eat it; but the fish was no sooner there than it agitated the water and troubled it in such a fashion that the prince could no longer see anything.
A moment later the water calmed down and became clear. Tendrebrun saw his crayfish again, but instead of the small fish he saw a little old man, whose cheerful and agreeable expression reassured those his sudden appearance might have frightened.
“Have no fear, Prince,” he said to the son of the Tartar Emperor. “My name is Beneficent; the fay who is retaining you was irritated against me because I had removed a young princess that she had taken to the court of a king, one of my neighbors, in order to give her in marriage to a monster, one of his friends. She changed me into a small fish, because her power is far greater than mine, and told me as she threw me into the pool where you caught me that I would remain there until someone fished me out. I’ve been there for three hundred years. I owe you my liberty and I want to render you happy.”
As he was speaking he took a little golden box from his pocket, and a flame-colored bird emerged from the box.
“This bird,” he said to the prince, “will take you in a short time to wherever you wish, provided that you hold on to the tip of its wing without ever letting go. That’s not all I can do for you. This crayfish is a charming princess in whom you have inspired a great deal of tenderness. I want to return her original form; you can take her with you by letting her hold on to the other wing of the bird.
Having said that, the old man took the crayfish and cut off its head, to the great astonishment of the prince, who was preparing to make him the sharpest reproaches, but he was prevented from doing so by a loud noise that he heard.
It was Vicious, who was arriving home sooner than she was expected. The fay remarked the disturbance of the prince and the bird that he was already holding in his hands. She quivered with rage on seeing that the animal would have stolen her lover a moment later. She snatched it from his hands furiously, therefore, and crushed it, searching in all directions to see whether the person who had made him a present of it might be; but he had disappeared, and her search was futile.
Tendrebrun, in despair, said to the fay everything he could imagine of the most insulting, but she only heard a part of his reproaches, because she went out, in order to go and augment the prince’s enchantment.
The latter was no sooner alone than he ran to the unfortunate crayfish, whose head the old man had cut off. Scarcely had he touched it, however, than the chamber appeared to be ablaze and he found himself in the midst of flames. Immediately thinking of saving himself, he left the crayfish in order to look for the window or the door. The fire dissipated as he was about to go out, and he perceived that it had not done him any harm. Seeing then that he had been alarmed unnecessarily, he searched for the crayfish, in the hope that some new prodigy might have brought it back to life.
After a futile search, he had no doubt that it had been consumed by the flames, a misfortune for which he blamed the fay. He felt a dolor so sharp in consequence that, scarcely able to sustain himself, he collapsed on a sofa, which fortunately happened to be behind him, and lay there for a long time, his eyes looking at the floor, without making the slightest movement.
Finally, he perceived something moving at his feet, which appeared to him to be extremely bright. Having leaned over to see what it might be, he was greatly surprised to see a tiny young woman about the size of a large pin, all of whose features were charming. She was wearing a dress of white gauze, sown with tiny carbuncles, and he discovered on her head a spray of feathers garnished with precious stones.
Astonished by that new prodigy, Tendrebrun picked her up very delicately, placed her on the table in order to consider her more easily, and found her so beaut
iful that he gave no further thought to the crayfish he had just lost. Instantly, he felt for that admirable little person a passion so violent that he thought he was going mad, on making the reflection that he would never be able to do anything but gaze at her, since she was so small, and it was impossible for him to unite himself with her by means of bonds stronger than those of amity.
Those thoughts would have rendered him even unhappier than he had been before if he had had time to deliver himself to them, but the beauty with whom he was occupied, gazing at him with eyes capable of inflaming the least tender hearts, said to him in a voice as soft as it was charming:
“Prince the old man you saw had just returned me to my original form. A moment ago I was a happy crayfish, since, in that for, you had the generosity to take care of me and I lacked nothing. Presently, I’m an unfortunate princess, devoid of parents, devoid of support and devoid of a realm, only too content, however, to be able to assure you of the gratitude that I shall have all my life for the services that you have rendered me.
“What! It’s you, beautiful Constance, that I had the good fortune of conserving here for a few days?” Tendrebrun said to her. “It’s you whom I was regretting so deeply a moment ago, and who, if I can believe Beneficent, will suffer without difficulty that I adore you for as long as I live? How can it be that the old man’s knife has not caused you to perish, and that you have escaped the flames that surrounded you on all sides?”
“Everything the magician did was necessary to disenchant me,” she told him. “He was the one who made the fire appear that alarmed you so much. He took me at the instant you abandoned me, and, touching me with a coral wand, he returned my natural form, at a reduced stature. He also gave me this crystal egg, telling me that as soon as you have touched it with a branch of jasmine that you will find on the ground at the entrance to the garden, you and I will no longer be in the power of the fay.”
Constance then gave the mysterious egg to the prince, and implored him to go in search immediately of the jasmine that would set them free. Before obeying her, however, he wanted to tell her how much he loved her, and to let her know how desperate he was in seeing her so tiny.
“I’ll become taller,” the young princess said, smiling. “The worthy old man assured me that within an hour, I’ll be as tall as I was before the fay turned me into a crayfish. So don’t worry, but don’t delay, and run to search for the jasmine that alone can get us out of here.”
The prince, full of pleasure and hope, was about to follow that advice when Vicious suddenly came back into the room and forbade him to go out. The princess, seeing her cruel enemy, ran to hide, but fell off the table-top, albeit without injuring herself.
Tendrebrun, wanting to pick her up without the fay perceiving it, forgot that he was holding the crystal egg and dropped it, with the consequence that it shattered into a thousand pieces. To complete the misfortune, Vicious advanced so promptly that he did not have time to put Constance in his pocket, and the poor princess found herself directly underneath the dress of her mortal enemy.
The prince trembled, seeing that the fay might crush her by making the slightest movement, but fortunately, she remained in the same place. In one of her hands she held a gilded vellum book, and in the other an ebony wand, with which she tapped him on the shoulder.
“Don’t think of escaping me, ingrate,” she said. “I’ve just rendered the charms that retain you close to me so powerful that all the powers of Hell couldn’t break them. Resolve, therefore, to see me incessantly by your side to torment you if you don’t accept immediately the heart and the hand that I still want to offer you; on the contrary, imagine all that might make the happiness of a mortal, and be assured of enjoying it is you respond to my desires. Speak quickly, and remember that your response will decide the good or ill fortune of your days. I’ll give you a quarter of an hour to make up your mind.”
The prince, to whom the discourse and threats of the fay caused scant anxiety, was only occupied with what he could see. His eyes were attached to her dress, because he perceived that it was stirring, and had no doubt that it was the unfortunate Constance who was visibly growing. The excess of his dolor was unimaginable when he thought that his lovely princess was soon about to appear before the fay, and would then be exposed to new punishments. How he repented amusing himself talking about the amour that she caused him; he ought instead to have run after the jasmine branch that was so necessary to them—but regrets were futile; the moment when he was about to lose the princess had arrived.
She was growing so prodigiously and so rapidly that Vicious finally sensed her, and her head suddenly emerged from the split in her skirt.
“Aha!” she said, extremely surprised. “What does this mean? How, little creature, have you dared to come so close to me? Does the fellow who gave you back your original form think that I’m not sufficiently powerful to take it away from you again, and that you can show yourself to my eyes with impunity? I’ll prove the contrary to him.”
“Stop, cruel woman!” said the prince, hastily. “Don’t maltreat a princess who has experienced your fury excessively.”
“And what interest do you have in her?” she replied, in a tone that made Constance feel faint and the prince go pale. “How do you know her and what renders you so sensible to her?”
“Only the pity that I have for the unfortunate,” said Tendrebrun, who dared not confess the truth.
But the fay turned her head, and, showing her long black teeth as she muttered a few words, opened her book, and discovered everything that had happened between the two lovers.
That knowledge put her into such great wrath that it made the earth tremble. Her first impulse was to kill them, but, changing her resolution, she uttered a screech similar to that of an owl, and spun for a quarter of an hour without stopping, holding the prince by the hair without him being able to make use of his strength to extract himself from her frightful hands. Then a frightful griffin appeared and an enormous bat, which asked her what her orders were. She showed them the prince and the princess.
“Take them,” she said. “Go away, and do your duty.”
She was obeyed, and both of them took directly opposite routes with their prey.
The griffin, charged with the prince, traversed a number of countries, and after having traveled through the air for three hours descended at nightfall in the middle of a wood, where Tendrebrun imagined that he was about to be devoured. The animal having placed him on the ground gently, however, flew away without touching him.
The obscurity was so great that the prince did not know whether he ought to go forwards, backwards, or stay where he was. After having remained irresolute for a few moments, however, he made the decision to walk, groping, awaiting all the catastrophic events that might happen to him.
He had only taken a few paces when he perceived a light, which seemed very distant as yet. He walked for more than a quarter of an hour in order to reach it. Finally, he found himself next to a castle whose windows were illuminated.
He examined the building, but he was extremely surprised when he realized that it was that of the emperor, his father. Suspecting that it was a dream, he advanced as far as the door of the guard-room with an agitation that did not leave him the liberty of speech. The first people who saw him uttered cries of joy and ran to his father’s apartment to tell him the good news.
That prince, curbed by the weight of years, was lying on several piles of cushions, of golden cloth embroidered with pearls, and lending a very mediocre attention to a concert of voices and instruments that some of his women were performing. When he saw the men enter who had come to tell him that Tendrebrun was in the palace, and perceived that dear son in person, whose loss had been so sensible to him, the joy that the two individuals felt is imaginable, if one knows the tender emotions of nature. I shall not describe them, therefore; I shall simply say that no prince had ever found his father and his subjects again with more pleasure than Tendrebrun felt.
&nbs
p; The emperor was very old; he obliged his son to take the reins of the empire, finding him more capable of governing than he was himself.
The prince took charge, reluctantly, of the care of a state that had been rather neglected for some years. The splendor of his crown and the pleasure of reigning over a numerous people did not prevent him from thinking about Constance. He sighed continually and regretted the moments that he had spent with her.
How lovable she is, he sometimes said to himself. What tenderness, grace, delicacy and intelligence are assembled in that divine person! What would I not sacrifice to find her again? Alas, perhaps the Fate has already cut the thread of her beautiful days; or, if she is still alive, it is doubtless only to experience the further furies of the malevolent Vicious. Are you thinking about me in your misfortunes, charming princess? Do you remember that Tendrebrun will never cease to love you, and that he will put everything to work to deliver you from your troubles? Yes, you must be convinced of that, you must believe that my dolor will soon put me in the grave if I do not see you again promptly.
It was thus that he conversed with himself in thinking about young Constance; he imagined the methods of Vicious very often; he could not understand how he had escaped from her hands, or why she had sent him back to his estates without doing him any harm, although he had experienced until then such violent marks of her amour and her anger. He was far away from her, but he was still fearful of her fury and malevolence.
That dread, combined with his passion, troubled the tranquility of his days infinitely. Unable to live overwhelmed by so many anxieties, he resolved to go to the island of Tintarinos in order to ask Beneficent for news of Constance and obtain from him some talisman that might preserve him from the fay’s enchantments.
Funestine and Other Adventures in Romancia Page 7