Beauty

by Robin McKinley

  “Sunset no longer pleases you?” the Beast inquired, as one who will do his duty by the conversation.

  “I’d never seen a sunrise—I was always asleep,” I explained. “I used to stay up very late, reading. Then we moved to the country—I suppose I like sunrise best now; I’m too tired, usually, by sunset, to appreciate it, and I’m usually in a hurry to finish something and go in to supper—or I was,” I said sadly. Longing for home broke over me suddenly and awfully, and closed my throat.

  We came to a wall covered with climbing roses which I recognized at once: This must be where Father had met the Beast. We went through the break in the wall, and I looked around me at the glorious confusion; the Beast halted a few steps behind me. Then suddenly in a final fierce bloom of light before it disappeared, the sun filled the castle and its gardens with gold, like nectar in a crystal goblet; the roses gleamed like facets. We both turned towards the light, and I found myself gazing at the back of the Beast’s head. I saw that the heavy brown mane that fell to his shoulders was streaked with grey. The light went out like a snuffed candle, and we stood in soft grey twilight; the sky the sun had left behind was pink and lavender.

  The Beast turned back to me. I could look at him fairly steadily this time. After a moment he said harshly: “I am very ugly, am I not?”

  “You are certainly, uh, very hairy,” I said.

  “You are being polite,” he said.

  “Well, yes,” I conceded. “But then you called me beautiful, last night.”

  He made a noise somewhere between a roar and a bark, and after an anxious minute, I decided it was probably a laugh. “You do not believe me then?” he inquired.

  “Well—no,” I said, hesitantly, wondering if this might anger him. “Any number of mirrors have told me otherwise.”

  “You will find no mirrors here,” he said, “for I cannot bear them: nor any quiet water in ponds. And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?”

  “But—” I said, and Platonic principles rushed into my mouth so fast that they choked me silent. After a moment’s reflection I decided against a treatise on the absolute, and I said, to say something: “There’s always Greatheart. Although I’ve never noticed that he minds how I look.”

  “Greatheart?”

  “My horse. The big grey stallion in your stable.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, and looked at the ground.

  “Is anything wrong?” I said anxiously.

  “It would have been better, perhaps, if you had sent him back with your father,” said the Beast.

  “Oh dear—is he not safe? Oh, tell me nothing will happen to him! Could I not send him back now? I won’t have him hurt,” I said.

  The Beast shook his head. “He’s safe enough; but you see—beasts—other beasts don’t like me. You’ve noticed that nothing lives in the garden but trees and grass and flowers, and rocks and water.”

  “You’ll not hurt him?” I said again.

  “No; but I could, and horses know it. As I recall, your father’s horse would not come through my gates a second time.”

  “That’s true,” I whispered.

  “There’s no need to worry. You know now. You look after him well, and I will take care to stay away from him.”

  “Perhaps—perhaps it would be better if he went home,” I said, although my heart sank at the thought of losing him. “Could you—send him?”

  “I could, but not in any fashion that he would understand, and it would drive him mad. He will be all right.”

  I looked up at him, wanting to believe him, and found to my surprise that I did. I smiled. “All right.”

  “Come; it’s getting dark. Shall we go in? May I join you at your dinner?”

  “Of course,” I said. “You are master here.”

  “No, Beauty; it is you who are mistress. Ask for anything I can give you, and you shall have it.”

  “My freedom” sat on my tongue, but I did not say it aloud.

  “Is your room as you wish? Is there anything you would change?”

  “No—no. Everything is perfect. You are very kind.”

  He brushed this away impatiently. “I don’t want your thanks. Is the bed comfortable? Did you sleep well last night?”

  “Yes, of course, very well,” I said, but an involuntary gesture of my hands caught his eye.

  “What have you done to your hands?” he demanded.

  “I—oh—” I said, and realized I could not lie to him, although I did not understand why. “Last night—I tried to go out of my room. The door wouldn’t open, and—I was frightened.”

  “I see,” he said; it was no more than a rumble deep in his chest. “It was on my orders that the door was locked.”

  “You said I had nothing to fear,” I said.

  “That is so; but I am a Beast, and I cannot always behave prettily—even for you,” he replied.

  “I am sorry,” I said. “I did not understand.” There was something about the way he stood there without looking at me: Resignation born of long silent hopeless years sat heavily on him, and I found myself involuntarily anxious to comfort him. “But I am quite recovered now in my mind—and see: I am sure my hands are nearly healed too.” I pulled the bandages off as I spoke, and held my hands out for inspection. I had forgotten my ring; the diamonds and the bright ruby eyes caught a few drops of the last daylight and glittered.

  “Do you like your ring?” he asked after a pause, looking at my hands.

  “Yes,” I said. “Very much. And thank you for the rose seeds, too. I planted them right after Father came home, and they bloomed the day I left—so I can remember the house all covered with them,” I said wistfully.

  “I’m glad. I tried to hurry them along, of course, but it’s rather difficult to do at a distance.”

  “Is it?” I said, not sure if an answer was required; and I remembered how the vines nearest the forest had grown the fastest. “And thank you for all the lovely things in Father’s saddle-bags—it was very kind of you.”

  “I am not kind—you know you are thinking right now that you would much rather be without rings and roses and lace tablecloths, and be home again instead—and I don’t want your gratitude. I told you that already,” he said roughly. After a moment he continued in a different tone: “It was difficult to know what to send. Emeralds, sapphires, the usual king’s ransom and so forth, I didn’t think would be much good to you. Even gold coins might be difficult to use.”

  “You chose very well,” I said.

  “Did I really?” he sounded pleased. “Or are you just being polite again?”

  “No, really,” I said. “I used two of the candles myself, reading. It was very extravagant of me, but it was wonderful to have good, even light to read by.”

  “I sent more candles this time,” he said. “And furs, and cloth. I didn’t want to send more money.”

  Blood money, I thought.

  “It’s dark,” he said. “Your dinner will be waiting. Will you take my arm?”

  “I’d rather not,” I said.

  “Very well,” he replied.

  “Let’s hurry,” I said, looking away from him. “I’m very hungry.”

  The dining hall lit up at our approach. I had noticed without thinking about it that while dusk was falling as we stood in the gardens, and the pedestal lanterns were lighting elsewhere, we stood among the roses in a little pool of shadow, and the lanterns that lined our path back towards the castle remained dark.

  “That’s odd,” I said. “Don’t they usually light as you approach? The candles did, last night, when I was walking through the castle.”

  He made a noise like a grunt with words in it, but in no language I knew; and the lamps lit at once.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  He glanced at me. “I have long preferred the dark.”

  I could think of no response; and we entered the castle. The same immense table stood, heavily laden with fine china and crystal and silver an
d gold, and I recognized not one cup or bowl or plate from the night before; and the air was crowded with savory smells. The Beast stood behind the great carved chair and bowed me into it; and called another chair over to him from where it stood in a row of tall chairs, no two alike, lined up against the wall. The words he used were as unfamiliar as those he had spoken to the lamps in the garden.

  Then the little table with hot water and towels trotted up to me, and while I busied myself with that, serving platters jostled and rang against each other in their haste to serve my plate. A little rattling cutlery, I thought. But here even clanks and collisions are musical—I suppose because they’re made of such fine materials. What am I doing here? Grace would have looked magnificent in a throne. I feel foolish.

  I glanced over at the Beast, who was sitting a little way down the table on my right. He was leaning back in his chair with one velvet knee against the table, and no place laid for him.

  “Are you not joining me?” I asked in surprise.

  He raised his hands—or paws, or claws. “I am a Beast,” he said. “I cannot wield knife and fork. Would you rather I left you?”

  “No,” I said, and this time I didn’t need to remember to be polite. “No; it’s nice to have company. It is lonesome here—the silence presses around so.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said, and I thought of what he had said the previous night. “Beauty,” he said, watching the parade past my plate, “you shouldn’t let them bully you that way. You can have anything you would like to eat; you need only ask for it.”

  “Everything looks and smells so delicious, I couldn’t choose. I don’t mind having the decision taken out of my hands.” Around a mouthful I said: “You say I need only ask—yet the words I’ve heard you say, to the lanterns outside, and your chair here, are no language I recognize.”

  “Yes; when enchantments are dragged from their world into ours they tend to be rather slow and grudging about learning the local language. But I’ve assigned two—er—well, call them handmaids, to you that should understand you.”

  “The little breeze that chatters at me,” I said.

  “Yes; they should seem a little more real—almost substantial to you. They’re very near our world.”

  I chewed thoughtfully. “You talk as if this were all very obvious, but I don’t understand at all.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It is rather complicated; I’ve had a long time to accustom myself to the arrangements here, but little practice in explaining them to an outsider.”

  I looked again at the grey in his hair. “You are not a very—young Beast, are you?” I said.

  “No,” he answered, and paused. “I have been here about two hundred years, I think.”

  He did not give me time to recover from this, but went on as I stared at him, stunned, thinking, two centuries!

  “Have you had any difficulty making your wants known? I will gladly assist you if necessary.”

  “No-o,” I said, dragging myself back to the present. “But how would I find you if I needed you?”

  “I am easily found,” he said, “if you want me.”

  Shortly after that I finished my meal, and stood up. “I will wish you good night now, milord,” I said. “I find that I am already tired.”

  Sitting in his chair, he was nearly as tall as my standing height. “Beauty, will you marry me?” he said.

  I took a step backwards. “No,” I said.

  “Do not be afraid,” he said, but he sounded unhappy. “Good night, Beauty.”

  I went directly to bed and slept soundly. I heard no strange voices and felt no fear.

  Several weeks passed, more quickly than I would have believed possible during those first few days. My time fell into a sort of schedule. I rose early in the morning, and after breakfast in my room went out into the gardens for a walk. I usually took Greatheart with me, on his lead rope. At home he used to follow me around like a pet dog, and sometimes when I was working in the shop for an afternoon I would let him loose to graze in the meadow that surrounded our house. He would wander over to the shop occasionally, and fill up the doorway with his shoulders while he watched Ger and me for a few minutes before returning to his meanderings. Since the Beast had warned me about other animals’ dislike of him, I had thought it wise to keep a lead on my big horse, though in fact if he had ever taken it into his head to bolt, my small strength would not have been able to do much about it. But the Beast stayed away from us, and I never saw Greatheart exhibit any uneasiness; he was placid to the point of sleepiness, and as sweet-natured as ever. Ger had been right; having him with me in exile made a big difference in my courage.

  About mid-morning I returned to the castle and spent the hours till lunch reading and studying. I had forgotten more of my Greek and Latin in the nearly three years I’d been away from them than I liked to admit; and my French, which had always been weak, had been reduced to near nonexistence. One day, in a temper at my own stupidity, I was prowling through the bookshelves for something to relax me, and found a complete Faerie Queen. I had only had the opportunity to read the first two cantos before, and I seized upon these volumes with delight.

  After lunch, I read again; usually Faerie Queen or Le Morte d’ Artbur, after studying languages all morning, until mid-afternoon, when I changed into riding clothes and went out to take Greatheart for a gallop. Nearly every day we found ourselves traveling over unfamiliar ground, even when I thought I was deliberately choosing a route we had previously traced; even when I thought I recognized a particular group of trees or flower-strewn meadow, I could not be sure of it. I didn’t know whether this was caused by the fact that my sense of direction was worse than I’d realized, which was certainly possible, or whether the paths and fields really changed from day to day—which I thought was also possible. One afternoon we rode out farther than usual, while I was preoccupied with going over the morning’s reading in my mind. I realized with dismay that the sun was almost down when we finally turned back. I didn’t like the idea of trying to find our way after dark—or rather, I did not like the idea of being abroad on this haunted estate after the sun set—but by some sympathetic magic less than an hour’s steady jog-trot and canter brought us to the garden borders. I was sure we had been nearly three hours riding out.

  But usually I had Greatheart stabled, groomed, and fed before the light faded, so that I could watch the sun set from the gardens, as I had truthfully told the Beast I liked to do. He usually met me then, in the gardens, and we walked together—I learned to trot along beside him without being too obvious about how difficult I found him to keep up with—and sometimes talked, and sometimes didn’t, and watched the sky turn colors. When it had paled to mauve or dusty gold, we went inside and he sat with me in the great dining hall while I ate my dinner.

  After the first few days of my enforced visit I had adopted the habit of going upstairs first, to dress for dinner. This had been one of the civilized niceties I was most pleased to dispense with after my family had left the city; but the magnificence of the Beast’s dining hall cowed me. At least I could make a few of the right gestures, even if I did look more like the scullery-maid caught trying on her mistress’s clothes than the gracious lady herself.

  After dinner I went back to my room and read for a few more hours beside the fire before going to bed. And every night after dinner at the moment of parting, the Beast said: “Will you marry me, Beauty?” And every night I said, “No,” and a little tremor of fear ran through me. As I came to know him better, the fear changed to pity, and then, almost, to sorrow; but I could not marry him, however much I came to dislike hurting him.

  I never went outside after dark. We came in to dinner as soon as the sun sank and took its brilliant colors with it. When I had retired to my room after dinner I did not leave it again, and carefully avoided trying the door—or even going near it; nor did I look from my window into the gardens after the lanterns extinguished themselves at about midnight.

  I missed my family t
erribly, and the pain of losing them eased very little as the weeks passed, but I learned to live with it, or around it. To my surprise, I also learned to be cautiously happy in my new life. In our life in the city my two greatest passions had been for books and horseback riding, and here I had as much as I wanted of each. I also had one other thing I valued highly, although my generally unsocial nature had never before been forced to admit it: companionship. I liked and needed solitude, for study and reflection; but I also wanted someone to talk to. It wasn’t long before I looked forward to the Beast’s daily visits, even before I had overcome my fear of him. It was difficult to completely forget fear of something as large as a bear, maned like a lion, and silent as the sun; but after a very few weeks of his company I found it was equally difficult not to like and trust him.

  Even my makeshift bird feeder was successful. On the very first day I noticed that the seed had been disturbed, rearranged into little swirls and hollows that, I thought hopefully, were more likely to have been caused by birds’ feet and beaks than by errant wind; although in this castle one was never sure. But the next morning I saw a tiny winged shadow leave the sill as I approached the window; and at the end of two weeks I had half a dozen regular visitors I recognized: three sparrows, a chaffinch, a little yellow warbler, and a diminutive black-and-white creature with a striped breast that I didn’t recognize. They grew so tame that they would perch on my fingers and take grain from my hand, and chirp and whistle at me when I chirped and whistled at them. I never saw anything larger than a dove.

  The weather over these enchanted lands was nearly always fine. Spring should have a good grasp on the world where my family still lived; there would be mud everywhere, and the trees would be putting out their first fragile green, and the shabby last year’s grass would be displaced by this year’s fresh growth. At the castle, the gardens remained perfect and undisturbed—by seasonal change, animal depredations, or anything else. Not only was there no sign of gardeners, visible or invisible, but there was never any sign of any need for gardeners; hedges never seemed to need trimming, nor flower beds weeding, nor trees pruning; nor did the little streams in their mosaic stone beds swell with spring floods.