On this occasion, Princess Rana was discussing a formal menu with the head cook. All at once, a cockroach scuttled across the floor. Quick as a flash, the princess grabbed it up and ate it. After that, even her personal maids treated her with cool distaste. Her only escape from the atmosphere of general disapprobation was her habit of taking day trips into the forest. Like her husband, she often left her attendants and went on deeper into the woods by herself.
Princess Rana made herself ever more unpopular by meddling in the affairs of state. She insisted that the prince outlaw deer hunting throughout his domain. To please her, he did so, against his better judgment. As a result, many of the forest peasants were left without a reliable source of meat. There was much grumbling among the people.
Then came the incident of the crown diamond. The princess had appropriated the largest diamond in the royal treasury, a world-famous gem that backed a sizeable portion of the country’s coinage. After it had been missing for some time, the prince tactfully asked her how she was planning to have it set. A necklace? A tiara? A brooch? Surely it was too large and heavy for a ring?
“I’m not planning to have it set at all,” said Rana.
“Then why not put it back in the treasury?” the prince asked. “It isn’t safe to leave the crown diamond knocking around loose in your jewel box.”
“It isn’t in my jewel box.”
“Then where is it?”
“I no longer have it.”
“What!” the prince shouted. “You’ve lost the crown diamond?” It was the first time he had ever raised his voice to her.
“I took it to pay an important debt,” Rana said. “A matter of honor.”
Of course this was insufficient excuse. The prince, the king, and all the counselors badgered her for hours to tell the whereabouts of the diamond. She refused to answer them. The prince pleaded with her: “Rana, please, you are risking criminal prosecution for thievery, and worse. To steal one of the crown jewels is high treason. Don’t you understand? You could be executed, and I’d be powerless to save you.”
She remained silent.
The counselors demanded that she be imprisoned at once. The prince countered that, in view of her expectant condition, she should only be placed under house arrest, and her case could not go to trial until after her child was born. “Remember, this is no ordinary child,” he said. “We’re talking about the heir to the throne. Surely his or her mother deserves every consideration, no matter what crime she may have committed.”
So Rana was allowed to remain in her royal quarters. Every day the prince begged her, with tears in his eyes, to save herself and reveal what she had done with the diamond. Though she loved him and was moved by his unhappiness, she said nothing. The counselors made plans to try her and find her guilty immediately after she gave birth. The broken-hearted prince had to agree to this, because it was the law.
When the time came for Princess Rana to give birth to the royal heir, matters went from bad to much worse. The child was horribly deformed. It had a large head with gill slits, and instead of legs, it had a broad, flat tail that tapered to a point. For a few moments after birth it gasped frantically like a fish out of water. Then it died.
The prince was doubly distressed. His heir had proved to be a monster, not human enough to live. His beloved princess was a criminal, almost certainly doomed to formal execution. Nearly out of his mind with sorrow, he sat weeping at her bedside while Princess Rana tried in vain to comfort him.
“I’d hoped to live with you to a ripe old age,” the prince told her. “Now it seems we must be forever parted. I can hardly bear to think about it.”
Princess Rana contemplated the vision of many future years of court life, and suddenly realized that she couldn’t have put up with it anyway. She loved her husband but couldn’t adapt herself to his lifestyle. She had tried and failed.
“Yes, we must be parted,” she said. “It’s too bad, but some people simply are not meant to stay together. Dear husband, will you grant me one last request?”
“Anything,” said the prince.
“Let me go back once more to the pond where we first met.”
“You’re still under house arrest.”
“I know,” she said, “but you can contrive a way. I will never ask you for anything else again.”
The prince agreed. In the small hours of the night, he slipped out of the castle with Rana, both of them muffled in black cloaks and masks. He took two horses from the stable and passed the guards by showing them his face and saying he was engaged on a secret mission.
The prince and princess rode until dawn, when they arrived at the pond and dismounted from their puffing horses. Rana kissed her prince tenderly and said, “Now leave me alone here for a little while.” The prince thought she was planning to escape, and he was willing to let it happen. He stroked her hair, looked into her golden eyes one last time, and led the horses away into the forest.
As he was walking, he heard a great splash behind. He hurried back to the pond. There were ripples still spreading across the water. Princess Rana’s clothing lay abandoned on the bank, but there was no sign of her.
Desperately, the prince tore off his cloak and dived into the pond. Though he searched to the very bottom, until his lungs were bursting for air, he found nothing. At last he had to admit to himself that she was gone. He didn’t notice a small, green, golden-eyed frog watching him from a lily pad.
The prince decided that she had committed suicide to save him from further disgrace. In time, he came to accept this view. His grief gradually softened. Some years later, he remarried. His new bride was a gracious, well-trained, wealthy princess who became an eminently suitable queen, and they lived happily ever after.
So did the frog, even though she never saw her prince again. Busy with affairs of state and his growing family, he lost interest in fishing.
SIX
On first reading the original version of Beauty and the Beast, I was puzzled by the apparent inconsistency between the Beast’s kindly nature and his threatening hostility toward Beauty’s father. Then I decided that the story was in part a homily on the subject of honesty. The merchant was well treated until he showed dishonest tendencies. Even then, he was given a chance to redeem himself by keeping a difficult promise. Can a merchant be truly honest?
Lack of honesty in appearances is a common theme in all stories of transformation. I thought the heroine might have been more admirable if she had less beauty and more character and I feared that the Beast’s transformation into a handsome prince might turn him into a less likable creature, perhaps conceited or selfish, as handsome princes are sometimes known to be. The illustration in my fairy tale book showed him with a trunk, tusks, and large ears like an elephant. I continued to see him that way, despite Walt Disney’s later lionlike version. It seemed more honest to leave him as he was, so his kindliness could shine through to match that of the ordinary, human, unattractive maiden.
He addressed her quietly, “So, you meet the Beast at last.”
Once upon a time there was a merchant who had seven sons and seven daughters. All of them were very handsome except the eldest daughter, who was hunchbacked, bowlegged, pigeon-toed, overweight, coarse-skinned, and lank-haired, with small piglike eyes, a bulbous nose, crooked teeth, and a deformed jaw. The poor girl was so hideous that everyone called her Ugly. Nevertheless, she took it in good spirit, knowing that it was a fair description. Despite her appearance, she had a sweet, warm, generous nature. Consequently her handsome siblings loved her dearly and shielded her from public ridicule. The merchant had a successful career until he suffered a series of disasters that wiped out almost all his assets in a single year. Two ships carrying his goods were lost at sea, then river floods destroyed his inventory in three warehouses. In addition, his own house caught fire and burned to the ground, the family escaping with only the clothes on their backs. They were forced to move into a gardener’s cottage that was their only remaining property, and t
he merchant started from poverty all over again.
The children worked to help their father, but they often became discouraged, especially when there was not quite enough to eat. Only Ugly faced every setback with unfailing courage and cheerfulness, heartening her brothers and sisters, comforting them when they were sorrowful, raising a laugh when things looked bleakest. She always knew how to say the right thing and to give events an optimistic twist.
The merchant had to travel a great deal to rebuild his business. One winter evening he was returning home from a distant city, having sold all his goods and packed his mule with the money he earned. It began to snow. By the time the merchant reached the loneliest stretches of road, a raging blizzard had developed. As he passed under a wall of beetling cliffs by a river, suddenly an avalanche came crashing down and killed his pack mule, toppling it and all it carried into the icy torrent below.
Bruised, battered, lost, and half dead with cold, the merchant stumbled on alone for hours through the blinding snow. He wanted nothing more than to lie down in the snow and go to sleep, but he knew he would never get up again; so he struggled doggedly on, until suddenly he bumped into a tall iron gate.
Feeling too weak to change direction and keep walking, the merchant clung to the bars of the gate and gasped for breath. Then he felt the gate swing open. A broad avenue lay before him. It seemed that the snow fell less thickly there, so the merchant walked down its length toward a large palace that could be seen dimly in the distance. As he advanced, the snow ceased to fall. The temperature grew warmer and warmer. When he arrived in the palace gardens, he found a lush paradise with many green plants, fruit trees, and flowers enriching a soft, warm breeze with their delicious scents.
The bronze doors of the palace stood open. The merchant entered and found himself in an elegant hall, richly furnished, lighted by a thousand candles in crystal chandeliers. A cheery fire burned on the hearth. Before it stood a table laden with delicate foods and fine wines in golden vessels. No servants or other persons were anywhere to be seen, so the merchant didn’t wait for an invitation. He sat down and helped himself to the refreshments.
After he had eaten, he wandered through other rooms of the palace and was astonished by all the wonders he found there. Being a merchant, he knew the value of the furnishings, paintings, and ornaments that he saw. Most were virtually priceless, and all were arranged with exquisite taste. He marveled greatly to see all these treasures lying unguarded; yet he encountered no one. The palace seemed completely uninhabited.
He came to a bedchamber where a huge bed was beautifully made up with blue satin sheets and a soft peach-colored quilt invitingly turned down. The weary merchant climbed into the bed for what he told himself would be just a catnap. But it was so deliciously comfortable that he immediately fell fast asleep and didn’t awaken until the following afternoon.
As he sat up, he saw a blue velvet bathrobe laid out for him on the foot of the bed and heard water running in the adjoining bathroom. There he found a square, sunken marble bathtub filled with scented water of exactly the right temperature, with perfumed soap and thick towels laid ready; but no servants were to be seen. After bathing, he returned to the bedroom and found a little table set up by the window with a dainty breakfast laid on an antique lace cloth, and fresh flowers in a crystal vase. All was done without the slightest sound, by unseen hands. The merchant felt uneasy about this mysterious service, but he enjoyed everything that was offered to him.
After breakfast he roamed again through some of the rooms, looking at their treasures. In a hall of art objects he came across a small pedestal supporting a bunch of seven roses, exquisitely sculpted and cast in pure gold.
“If I had this object alone,” he thought, “I’d be rich enough to renew all my business. Perhaps the seven roses are meant for me, symbolizing my seven daughters.” In such manner he reasoned, convincing himself that because so much else in this magic palace seemed to be free, he might take a bit of treasure for his own.
He picked up the golden roses from their pedestal and tucked them into his coat. Immediately, there was a great thunderclap. All at once a terrible Beast stood before him, seven feet high and nearly as broad, with a snout like a wild boar, protruding tusks, tiny porcine eyes, and huge hands with long claws. The merchant fell on his knees, crying, “Have mercy, Beast! Don’t kill me! I have a large family dependent on me! I didn’t mean to take your gold—see, here it is, I’ll put it back.”
“Of course you meant it,” growled the Beast. “And because you touched it, you can’t put it back. Thievery is a poor way to repay my hospitality.”
“What can I do to make it up to you, then?” asked the trembling merchant.
“Take the golden roses for the sake of your dependents, and in return send me one of your daughters. I’ll lend you a magic carriage that will take you to your home, and bring her back here within three hours of your arrival. I am lonely and I long for a female companion. Remember, you must place one of your daughters in my coach before three hours pass, or I will come down on your house and fetch you.”
“Yes, yes, Beast, I promise to do exactly as you ask,” quavered the merchant. “You have my word as an honorable man of business.”
“See to it, then,” snarled the Beast, “and I will overlook this one occasion when you have seemed not to be an honorable man of business.” Another thunderclap, a sizzle of lighting, and the beast disappeared.
The merchant ran to the entranceway and found a closed carriage waiting there, drawn by a pair of black horses with silvered hooves. Holding the reins on the coachman’s seat was a strange figure entirely muffled in black, the face masked, even the hands covered. As soon as the merchant stepped into the carriage, it set off at great speed. As there were no windows, he could see nothing of his progress.
When at last the carriage halted, he opened the door and found himself in front of his own cottage. His children rushed out to meet him, amazed at his rich equipage, the silent, black-swathed coachman, the magnificent horses, the beautiful golden roses that he held in his hand.
“We’re rich again!” one of the boys cried.
“Father, have you made a new fortune?” Ugly asked.
“Alas, my children, I have brought you prosperity, but at a terrible price.” While the silent carriage waited and the clock ticked the hours away, he told them the whole story.
When he had finished, Ugly said, “Well, there’s no question about who must go to the Beast. I will be the one.”
The others raised a chorus of protest, for Ugly was much loved. Yet not one of the other girls offered herself.
“It makes sense,” Ugly said. “I am the one who will never win a husband and so will bring no assets into the family. Here is my opportunity to contribute to our prosperity.” This was how merchants’ children were taught to think.
“But the Beast will probably tear you limb from limb, then cook you and eat you!” cried the youngest brother. This was how youngest children were taught to think.
“If that’s so, then I must face it bravely,” Ugly said. “I’ll go and pack my clothes now.” She went to gather her few belongings. All the family burst into tears, including the merchant. They clustered around Ugly as she boarded the Beast’s carriage, kissing and petting her between sobs, telling her how sorely she would be missed. The merchant secretly hoped the Beast would find her acceptable and would not come rampaging after him to punish him for not having sent a prettier daughter.
Ugly wept throughout most of her journey but eventually dried her reddened eyes, thinking that she should prevent any additional uglification. When the carriage stopped at last, she timidly opened the door. She saw a magnificent palace soaring before her eyes into a soft summer-blue sky, even though she had left her home in winter.
She entered the great bronze doors and looked around, expecting at any moment to be seized and torn limb from limb by the hideous Beast. Instead, a delicious dinner was laid for her on the table. No living creature
appeared. She ate, then explored the palace. She found each room more beautiful than the last, and equally empty of life.
When she felt unutterably weary, she chose a bedroom hung with white silk, with an ivory bedstead and green satin bedding. She got into the bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.
When she awoke, her bath was ready, beautiful new garments were laid out for her, and her breakfast was provided by unseen hands, as her father had described. She spent the day playing games in the game room, wandering in the gardens, looking at the views from various windows, and skimming some of the books in the library. Always she anticipated the terrifying appearance of the Beast, but it didn’t happen. She began to relax and enjoy herself.
Not until a week had passed did the Beast decide to reveal himself. He appeared at first in the garden, some distance away from her, swathed in a red velvet cloak and hood that partly concealed his form. He stood still and allowed her to approach him gradually, as one might attract a wild forest creature through its own curiosity.
When Ugly came close enough, he addressed her quietly. “So, little lady, you meet the Beast at last. Are you frightened?”
“A little,” said Ugly.
“I must say you frighten me a little, too,” said the Beast. “You’re not the most attractive lady in the world, are you?”
“I have always been called Ugly, because that’s what I am,” she answered. “I hope this won’t anger you. I can see by your possessions that you have a taste for beautiful things.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said the Beast, “or so I’ve been told. Do you mind if I walk along with you?”
Finding the Beast so polite and gentlemanly, Ugly felt somewhat reassured. As they strolled along, the Beast pointed out to her some of his rarer plants and offered her some exotic fruits to taste. She began to think his company rather pleasant, though she couldn’t yet bring herself to look directly at his frightful face.
Feminist Fairy Tales Page 5