Beauty

by Robin McKinley

  I saw this very clearly, but all in the space of a moment. The doors swung silently but ponderously open, revealing a great hall lit by hundreds of candles in crystal sconces. As I stood dumb and staring, a little singing breeze swept out through the doors and curled around me. I could almost hear voices in it, but when I tried to listen I lost them. It was a very small wind, and it seemed to exist only for the purpose of tugging at my sleeves and twitching the hem of my divided riding skirt, and uttering what sounded like little cries of dismay at the condition of my hair and my boots. No candle flame shivered in a draft, and no leaves tapped one against another. The breeze circled eagerly around my shoulders, and feeling that I was being encouraged, I took a few steps forwards, towards the enormous doors. I wondered how King Cophetua’s beggar-maid had felt when the palace gates had first opened for her. But there was little resemblance between us; she had a king in love with her, because of her innate nobility, and a beauty that sparkled even through her rags. So much for comparisons. I went inside.

  The breeze giggled and chirped at me as if I were a reluctant horse, and then dashed off before me into the hall. As I crossed the threshold a door swung open, to my right, about fifty feet down the broad front corridor. The clicking of my boot-heels had as much effect on that massive silence as the sweep of a butterfly’s wings might. I went through the open door. This was a dining hall, big enough to be two ballrooms; there were three fireplaces, with windows on the fourth wall that were each three times as tall as I was, and a many-legged rectangular table that might take half an hour to walk around, but only ten minutes to walk across. I looked up. There was a musicians’ gallery at one end of the room, with heavy dark velvet drapes drawn across it. Its balcony was built where the second storey should have been; the ceilings were very high. I tipped my head farther back, squinting: There seemed to be a design, painted or sculptured, on the ceiling, but the candles were set no higher than the foot of the musicians’ gallery, and their light did not reach so far.

  I returned my gaze to the table. I saw now that it was crowded with covered dishes, silver and gold. Bottles of wine stood in buckets full of gleaming crushed ice; a bowl big enough to be a hip bath stood on a pedestal two feet tall, in the shape of Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders; and the hollow globe was full of shining fresh fruit. A hundred delightful odours assailed me. At the head of the table, near the door I had entered by, stood a huge wooden chair, carved and gilded and lined with chestnut-brown brocade over straw-colored satin. The garnet-set peak was as tall as a schooner’s mast. It could have been a throne. As I looked, it slid away slightly from the table and turned itself towards me, as another chair had beckoned to my father. I noticed for the first time that it was the only chair at that great table, and there was only one place laid, although the table gleamed to its farther end with the curved backs of plate covers, and with goblets and tureens and tall jeweled pitchers.

  “Good heavens, no,” I said. “I can’t sit there. And who’s to eat all this? I can’t,” I said, and thought nervously, I hope it’s not required. The Beast must mean to eat me after all, and means to fatten me well first. He certainly doesn’t lack for food, my thoughts continued ruefully: Is his palate really so jaded that with all of this he wants young maiden too? Besides, all of this fancy stuff will probably disagree with me.

  At once my breeze was back, tsk-tsking and scolding and banging at the backs of my knees and all but dragging me to where the great chair waited in lofty silence. I sat on it timidly, feeling smaller and more bedraggled than ever, and much the worse for the day’s dirt. A white linen napkin unfolded itself and blew onto my patched homespun lap. There were seven spoons and seven forks, four knives and five goblets of different shapes and colors lined up before me. A little table walked out of nowhere to my left elbow, bearing hot water and soap and thick towels; while I was occupied with these, dishes were jingling merrily back and forth across the table, and I turned back to a plate heaped high with delicacies.

  The tentative thoughts I had entertained about refusing to eat and thus spoiling the Beast’s plans for me melted away at once like butter in a hot skillet. The knowledge that I had eaten nothing since breakfast, and that twelve hours ago, reasserted itself forcefully, and I made an excellent dinner. I recognized very few of the dishes I was offered, but everything I sampled was superb. I was soon bemused by a variety that surpassed anything I had known at the finest banquets in the city. It was after I was finished, leaning back with a sigh, that my fears rushed back to me, as if they had only been waiting till I was revived enough to pay them proper attention. I stood up abruptly without another thought for that wonderful table, and walked to the door. I wouldn’t wait any longer; I must know tonight what my doom was to be. If the Beast would not come to me, very well then, I would look for him.

  Dinner had refreshed me, and I set out if not eagerly at least energetically. I walked across more corridors, up and down more stairs, and in and out of more rooms than I cared to count. I saw furniture and whatnots in all the styles and designs I had ever seen or heard of, plus many more that were entirely outside my experience. There were tables and chairs and divans in black wood, and in all the hues of brown; in ivory and alabaster and bone; even in brass and copper and jade, silver and gold. I saw no sign of anything less than the finest of craftsmanship. There were tapestries on the walls, and hundreds of paintings, mostly sea-and landscapes; very few people figured in any of the scenes, and few animals. There were no hunting scenes of any sort, nor any souvenirs of the chase, antlers or stuffed trophies or weapons, hung on the walls. There was statuary on elegant pedestals, or standing in alcoves; china displayed in cabinets; gorgeous rugs alternated with polished floors of marble or inlaid wood. There were no clocks and no mirrors.

  I soon lost my sense of direction, and then most of my sense of purpose, but I kept walking. The fine dinner, the strange new surroundings, and my apprehensions combined to keep me feeling alert and wide awake. But I found that the beauties of the castle began to blur before my eyes; there was too much to take in, as there had been in the garden during the afternoon, and more recently in the dining hall.

  After a while, perhaps hours, I came to a door at the end of a corridor, just around a corner; on this door was a golden plaque. As I approached, the candelabra set in two niches on each side of the door lit themselves—I was becoming accustomed to being preceded in my wanderings by invisible pages carrying invisible tinder, which never sputtered and always lit the first time—and on the plaque I read: “Beauty’s Room.” I just had time enough to make out the words before the door opened inwards.

  I hesitated. It might be my name, of course, but then it was also possible that the plaque had something a little more abstract in mind, and if I crossed the threshold I should be blasted at once. On the other hand, I had no idea of the rules of the game I was now playing; and if the castle or its owner was trying to trap me, there were easier ways. That I was here at all was a gesture of defeat and surrender. I looked inside. It was a room for a princess, even in this castle full of wonders: An enormous bed stood on a dais, canopied in gold, with a white counterpane worked in scarlet and green. Tall wardrobes stood back against the wall to one side of the bed, and as I looked at them their doors burst open as if from the pressure of the hundreds of beautiful gowns that hung inside. A bolt of deep-blue silk stitched with silver thread in the shapes of flying birds fell from some hidden shelf at the top of one wardrobe and unrolled itself almost to my feet, across the amber-figured carpet. Beside the wardrobes were low tables, and upon them were placed jewelry boxes as rare and beautiful as the jewels they contained, and more brushes and combs than a dozen vain princesses could use. There were cut-crystal bottles of perfume with emerald caps, and vases full of red and white roses; their perfume shimmered in the air like a rainbow.

  On the other side of the room was an arched wall of windows that reached, in rows and rows of tiny panes, from the high ceiling to the padded gold-and-white-velv
et window seat. Then with a small gasp I stepped into the room, philosophical questions on the nature of Beauty forgotten, because the walls that met the window on each side were lined with bookshelves. There were hundreds of leather-bound volumes, regal and wise. My fingers touched the smooth bindings reverently. There was a desk with enough drawers and pigeonholes for the most—or least—organized of scholars, a tall pile of fine white paper, a dozen colors of ink in gilt or cut-glass bottles, and pens and nibs by the hundreds. I sat down at the desk and stared at it all.

  Then my breeze came back, as if I had had more than enough time to riffle through smooth paper and line up the pens in rows. It whisked under my fingers and around my chair, and drew my attention to the fireplace behind me, opposite the bed, and the deep ivory-and-silver-colored bathtub drawn up near it. The tub was receiving its last jugful of steaming perfumed water as I watched—floating china jugs were more disturbing than invisible pages, I decided—and towels curled over the back of an armchair. There was no reason why the victim shouldn’t present herself for her doom after she was properly washed; and it would doubtless be good for morale.

  It was. And the enchanted soap didn’t get in my eyes. The breeze, which had been tossing about washcloths and back-brushes and towels, combed my hair and strung a jade-green ribbon through it, and then presented me with a pale-green dress with yards and yards of frothy billowing skirt sewn all over with tiny winking diamonds. “Ha,” I said. “I will wear nothing of the kind.”

  The breeze and I had quite a little struggle after that over what I would put on—my old clothes had disappeared while I bathed—by the end of which my hair had escaped its ribbon, and the breeze was racing around the room whistling angrily to itself. It sizzled through the long silk fringe of the canopy and hurled to the length of their twisted cords the heavy golden tassels that tied back the bed-curtains. There were dresses scattered all over the floor and across the bed and backs of chairs in gorgeous colored heaps. And I still wasn’t happy about what I finally did agree to wear: It was much simpler than the green dress, but there were still pearls on the white bodice, and the skirt was golden velvet, a few shades paler than the canopy.

  I turned towards the door again at last. It must be very late, but I still felt that I couldn’t sleep until I knew what was going to happen to me—even if thus seeking it out was only hastening the end. I left “Beauty’s Room” and stood for a moment in the hall, watching the bright plaque catch fire and shadow in the candlelight as the door shut behind me. I turned away to walk more corridors, more tall arched and pillared rooms. I spent little time looking at the wonders I passed; I was too intent on that one thing: finding my host, or my gaoler. I paused at last on a balcony overlooking a large dim hall similar to the one I had eaten dinner in. Candles lit themselves only a few feet ahead of me as I walked, and beyond them all was darkness; after I had passed, in a minute or two, they winked out again, as I saw when I turned once or twice to watch them. The big windows, when they were not muffled with curtains, showed only as paler grey shapes in the walls; there was no moon yet to shine through them. But then, looking up again, I thought I saw a golden edge of light to a partly open door, beyond the glow of my entourage of lighted candles. My heart began to beat very much faster, and I made my way quietly towards that door.

  Like all of the other doors I had met in the castle, this one opened at my approach. A few days of this and I would forget the operation of a latch or a door-handle. The room it revealed was a large, warm, and gracious one, although small by the standards of this castle. On one wall to my left a fire was burning in a fireplace framed with wrought iron in the shape of climbing vines; two armchairs were drawn up before it. One chair was empty. In the other a massive shadow sat. Except for the faint and flickering light of the fire the room was in darkness; there was a table behind the occupied armchair, and on it stood a candelabrum of a dozen tall candles, but they remained dark. I realized I was standing in a little halo of light; the candles in the hall shining around me as I stood on the threshold. My eyes slowly adjusted themselves to the gloom beyond the door. I caught a gleam of dark-green velvet on what might have been a knee in the shadowed armchair. “Good evening, Beauty,” said a great harsh voice.

  I shivered, and put a hand to the door-frame, and tried to take courage from the fact that the Beast—for it must be he—had not devoured me at once. “Good evening, milord,” I said. My voice was misleadingly steady.

  “I am the Beast,” was the reply. “You will call me that, please.” A pause. “Have you come of your own free will to stay in my castle?”

  “I have,” I said, as bravely as I could.

  “Then I am much obliged to you.” This was said in so quiet a voice, notwithstanding the deep rumbling echo that was part of every word, and was so totally different a greeting from what I was expecting that I was shocked into saying before I thought:

  “Obliged! Milord, you gave me no choice. I could not let my father die for the sake of a silly rose.”

  “Do you hate me then?” The rough voice sounded almost wistful.

  Again I was taken aback. “Well, you give me little cause to love you.” I thought then guiltily of the fine meal, and the beautiful room—especially the books. It occurred to me for the first time that if he had planned to eat me immediately it was unlikely, or at least curious, that he should have provided me with enough books for years’ reading.

  The immense shadow shifted in its chair. I was sure of the knee, now, and the velvet; and now I could see a glitter of eyes, and also—perhaps—of sharp claws. I looked hastily away from the claws. The feet were lost in the pool of darkness beneath the wrought-iron grate.

  “Would it help perhaps if I told you that, had your father returned to me alone, I would have sent him on his way unharmed?”

  “You would?” I said; it was half a shriek. “You mean that I came here for nothing?”

  A shadowy movement like the shaking of a great shaggy head. “No. Not what you would count as nothing. He would have returned to you, and you would have been glad, but you also would have been ashamed, because you had sent him, as you thought, to his death. Your shame would have grown until you came to hate the sight of your father, because he reminded you of a deed you hated, and hated yourself for. In time it would have ruined your peace and happiness, and at last your mind and heart.”

  My tired brain refused to follow this. “But—I could not have let him go alone,” I said, bewildered.

  “Yes,” said the Beast.

  I thought about it for a minute. “Can you see the future, then?” I asked uneasily.

  “Not exactly,” said the shadow. “But I can see you.”

  There didn’t seem to be any answer to that, either. “I cannot see you at all, milord,” I ventured timidly.

  Again the gleam of eyes. “Indeed,” said the Beast. “I should have welcomed you when you first arrived this afternoon; but I thought candlelight might be a little kinder for a first impression of such as me.” He stood up, straightening himself slowly, but I still shrank back. He must have been seven feet tall at full height, with proportionate breadth of shoulder and chest, like the great black bears of the north woods that could break a hunter’s back with one blow of a heavy paw. He stood still for a moment, as if waiting for me to recover myself, and then with a sigh as deep as a storm wind, he raised the candelabrum from the table. It lit as he brought it to shoulder level, and I was staring suddenly into his face. “Oh no,” I cried, and covered my own face with my hands. But when I heard him take a step towards me, I leaped back in alarm like a deer at the crack of a branch nearby, turning my eyes away from him.

  “You have nothing to fear,” the Beast said, as gently as his harsh voice allowed.

  After a moment I looked up again. He was still standing, watching me with those eyes. I realized that what made his gaze so awful was that his eyes were human. We looked at each other a moment. Not bearish at all, I decided. Not like anything else I could put a name
to either. If Yggdrasil had been given an animal’s shape, it might have looked like the Beast.