The Laughing Prince | Page 9

Danilo declared. "Whatever the outcome I'm going to find Peerless Beauty and see for myself why all men fear her."
When the old woman saw that Danilo was determined, she gave up pleading with him and pointed out a faint trail in the forest which, she told him, would lead him to Peerless Beauty's castle.
He slept that night in the old woman's hut and early next morning set out on the forest trail. By afternoon he reached the castle.
"What do you want?" the guards demanded roughly.
"I want to see Peerless Beauty."
"Have you gold?" they asked him.
Danilo showed them his bag of ducats.
They led him into a hall of the castle and told him to put his gold on a table. If he did so, perhaps Peerless Beauty would show herself and perhaps she wouldn't.
Danilo did as the guards directed and then faced a curtain behind which, they told him, Peerless Beauty was seated. The curtain opened a little, but instead of showing her face Peerless Beauty extended only one finger. However, that finger was so ravishingly beautiful that Danilo almost fainted with delight. He would have stayed gazing on that one enchanting finger for hours if the guards had not taken him roughly by the shoulders and thrown him out of the castle.
"Come again when you've got more gold!" they shouted after him.
Like a man in a dream Danilo rode back to the old woman's hut.
"Now, my son, are you satisfied?" she asked him. "Are you ready now to go home and settle down like a sensible young man?"
"Oh, granny!" Danilo raved. "Such a finger! I must see that finger again if it cost me my whole fortune!"
He slept that night in the old woman's hut and the next day returned to his native village. There he got another bag of the golden ducats which his father had left him and at once started back to the castle of Peerless Beauty.
This time that heartless maiden stripped him again of his gold, showed him two of her enchanting fingers, and as before had her guards throw him out of the castle.
"Come again when you've got more gold!" they shouted after him.
That's exactly what the poor young man did. He went back and back until the fortune that his father had left him was entirely squandered. And all he had seen of Peerless Beauty up to that time were the fingers of one hand! Shouldn't you suppose that now with all his wealth lost he would get over his foolish infatuation? Well, he didn't.
"I must go back again!" he kept telling himself.
His gold was gone but he still had his father's house. It was a big old house with garrets and cellars.
"Perhaps if I hunt I shall find some treasures hidden away in odd corners," Danilo said.
So he hunted upstairs and down. He opened old boxes and rummaged about among the dark rafters. One day he came upon a funny looking little cap.
"I wonder whose this was," he thought to himself.
He went to a mirror and tried the cap on. Then a strange thing happened. The moment the cap touched his head, Danilo disappeared.
"Ah!" he cried, "it's a magic cap and the moment I put it on I become invisible! Now I can slip into Peerless Beauty's chamber and see her lovely face!"
With his magic cap pulled tightly down over his forehead, he set off once more for Peerless Beauty's castle. Sure enough he was able to pass unseen the guards at the gate, he was able to go boldly into the great hall, and beyond it through the curtain into Peerless Beauty's own chamber.
The Beauty was seated with her back to the curtain and a serving maid was combing out her hair for the night. It was lovely hair and it fell down over Beauty's shoulders like a mantle of gold. At mere sight of it Danilo was so overcome with emotion that he sighed.
"What's that?" Beauty cried. "There's some one in my chamber!"
The serving maid looked under the bed and behind the chairs and in the corners.
"There's no one here, my lady."
"That's strange!" Beauty said. "I feel as though some one were looking at me."
When Danilo saw the actual face of the enchanted maiden, it was all he could do to keep from crying aloud. She was so unutterably beautiful that he almost swooned away in ecstacy.
Presently the maiden went to bed and fell into an uneasy sleep. The light of a single candle shed a faint radiance over her face making it lovelier than ever. Through all the long hours of night Danilo stood perfectly still, gazing at her, afraid almost to breathe lest he should disturb her.
"Unless I win her for wife," he thought to himself, "I shall nevermore be happy!"
When morning came the maiden awoke with a start