Part 15

Then the prince and Hilda joyously embraced each other and kissed the good queen’s hand, and they all went back, and the inhabitants of the country crowded around their carriage, rejoicing. When they were again in the palace, festivals were held for the court, the servants, and the subjects, which lasted three weeks; then Hilda and the prince were married, and when Princess Hilda stood at the altar in her bridal veil, she threw her arms around her mother’s neck and whispered in her ear, “Though I have a husband, I will never, never leave you.”

And she never did leave the queen, who always loved her just as dearly as when she was a little child in her arms. The heart thread remained so fine that no one except the queen could see it; it was so long that Princess Hilda never felt it when she was in the kingdom; but if she travelled in foreign countries, her mother always went with her, so that the heart thread was never pulled.

Years passed away, the queen grew older and older, till at last she was so aged that life became a burden. Now she herself called Death, whom she had once driven away, and when he appeared before her somewhat timidly, said to him: “Friend Death, you can take me now. I am ready.”

“But the heart thread?” Death objected. “I cannot tear it, and I have no instructions to take the princess with me.”

Then the weary queen thought of again appealing to the fairy of the children, who had so kindly aided her a long, long time ago. She went up on the tower of her palace after sunset, and when the storks carrying the children began to fly past, she called one and begged him to tell the fairy of the children that the queen earnestly desired to speak to her.

The stork delivered the message on his return home, and the next day the fairy of the children appeared before the queen. The fairy had not changed at all. She still had the same tall figure, sparkling eyes, and gray hair, was robed in blue, with a little white lace cap on her noble head; but the queen was no longer the beautiful young woman of former days, but a shrivelled old dame, with dull eyes and snow-white hair. The fairy gazed compassionately at her a little while, then she stroked her white head and wrinkled cheeks, asking gently, “What do you want of me, dear child?”

“Dear fairy of the children,” pleaded the queen in a faint voice, “the heart thread has lasted well, but now it is time to break it. You alone can do it. Please part it, that Death may lead me to rest. For I am tired.”

“My child,” replied the fairy of the children, “the heart thread no one can unbind, I no better than Death. But you need have no anxiety on that account. Go trustfully to rest, and rely on me. Your child shall have no discomfort from it.”

“I do trust you,” said the queen, kissing the kind hand of the fairy of the children. The fairy pressed a kiss upon her forehead, nodded, and vanished from her sight.

About midnight Death appeared again, and said curtly: “It is all arranged. You can come with me.” In the morning the queen was found dead in her bed. The Princess Hilda, who was now queen, grieved very deeply, but was gradually comforted, as children always are when they lose their parents. Yet from that time she could never resolve to leave her kingdom, for if she crossed the frontiers, her heart began to ache strangely and drew her back to her mother’s marble tomb, which she visited daily. And when she, too, grew very old, and at last died, she was buried in the same grave beside her mother, and the gold heart thread, unseen by human beings, extended forever from the heart of the dead mother to the heart of the dead daughter.

THE SECRET EMPIRE

Early one morning, after a stormy night, the workmen in a great seaport found a little girl upon the shore. She was lying with nothing on but a little shirt, dripping wet upon the sands, and gave no sign of life. At some distance from the beach they saw the top of a mast rising from the water. A large ship had gone down with all on board, and the waves had brought to land only this one little girl.

A compassionate laborer took her up, wrapped her in his cotton blouse and carried her quickly to the neighboring office of a tidewaiter, where her wet shirt was removed. She was laid on a bench and covered up. As soon as she grew warm, she opened her eyes, and began to cry.

Everybody in the office admired the child’s delicate form, beautiful little rosy face, big blue eyes, and fair silken curls. The little shirt was made of the finest cambric, and embroidered with a gold coronet. Even without this mark it was evident that the child cast by the shipwreck on a foreign shore was of aristocratic birth, and had been carefully tended.

When the baby cried, the men standing around were very sorry, but they did not know what to do, for they did not understand how to take care of little children; and, besides, they did not have on hand what was necessary to satisfy its wants. The child had not yet cut all its teeth, and could only stammer a few words in an unknown tongue.

The men consulted together, and soon agreed that the baby must be hungry and need, first of all, food and clothes. There was nothing in the office except some horrible brandy. But close by there was a sailors’ tavern, where they could get some milk and biscuits, which the little girl ate readily. When she had had some food, she stopped crying and fell asleep.

The tidewaiter was obliged to attend to his duties and could not stay with the child. The kind laborer who had carried her into the office also had to work, for he was a poor man, and if he lost a day’s work, he and his family would have nothing to eat the next day. Yet he could not make up his mind to leave the lovely little girl. Rolling up the wet shirt, he put it carefully in his big blue calico handkerchief, and slipped it into the wide pocket of his trousers. Then he again wrapped the poor, naked little creature in his blouse and in a woollen blanket, which the tidewaiter lent him, and went home with his precious burden in his shirt sleeves, though he did not consider it quite the proper thing for a respectable workingman and the father of a family.

“Hitherto you have given me children,” he said to his wife, as he placed the little one in her hands, “now I will give you one.”

The woman gazed at the present with astonishment and no special pleasure; she thought that her own five children were enough. But when her husband told her how he had found the little girl, her mother heart was touched with pity and she said: “Where five are fed, a sixth can eat too. We will keep the little one, if no one claims her.”

So the little girl was adopted into the workman’s family, and the next Sunday he went to report it. The magistrate pondered over the name that should be given to the stranger child. A gale from the north had driven her ship on the shore. It had probably come from the north. Yet the child might have been born in the south. So he called her by a name half Greek, which is a southern, and half Danish, which is a northern language, Margarita Bölgebarn, that is, Pearl, the child of the waves, and urged her foster-father to take great care of the little shirt, with the tiny embroidered gold crown, in which she was found, as with its help perhaps the child’s relatives might some day be discovered.

Many ships had been wrecked during that stormy night, and it was never known which one had carried the child. No one appeared to claim it, so it remained with the workman and grew up with his children. Rita—as they called Margarita to shorten her name—grew finely, although she did not fare well with him. It was very hard for the man to support himself and his family. They were often on short commons, and when there was not enough to eat for all, Rita had to wait until the others left something for her, and frequently went without entirely. Her foster-mother was not a bad woman, but poverty had made her hard, and her own flesh and blood came nearer to her than the foundling whom she had adopted. She did not grudge her a little place in the miserable home, but she was not allowed to cost anything; for the father’s scanty earnings did not permit it.

Rita slept in the same bed with the two youngest children, who pulled the scanty coverlets over them and left Rita half uncovered, so that in the winter nights she was bitterly cold, and nestled closely to her foster-sisters to get some warmth from their bodies. She turned over often, because this was the only way she could warm her right and left side in turn; but this disturbed her bed-fellows, and they cuffed and kicked her. She bore it, and only wept secretly, because it was still dark, and no one could see her. She was dressed in the clothes of her foster-sisters, after they could not or would not wear them any longer. So she usually went barefoot, and wore shabby, patched, shapeless garments. But though she looked like a scarecrow, every one who saw her noticed her remarkable beauty. Her little bare feet, though sunburnt and soiled by the mud of the streets, were as exquisite in form as if chiselled by the hand of a skilful sculptor; her face was fair, rosy, and lovely; her large blue eyes were soft and dreamy, and her silken curls, carelessly as they were arranged, seemed like sunbeams playing around her beautiful head. Wherever she went, people stood still in the streets and looked after her. They thought she must be some aristocratic girl, who, for a whim, had disguised herself as a beggar child.

This did not escape the notice of her foster-sisters, and they envied her for her beauty, and because she attracted attention wherever she appeared. They made her feel more and more plainly that she was a foundling living on their charity. Everybody vied in giving her orders, and required her to obey them. Everybody made her serve as a maid-servant waits upon strict employers. She had to sweep the rooms, and once a week scrub and polish the floor. She had to light the fire in the kitchen every morning, and every evening, until late at night, clean the shoes of her foster-parents, her four foster-sisters, and even her foster-brother. She was obliged to do all the errands, and if there was no money in the house, let herself be scolded because she did not pay the debts and beg them to let her have still more on credit. She was so scantily dressed that the neighbors took pity on her and gave her all sorts of things, some shoes, another a skirt, a third a waist, a fourth a shawl, each one what she had and could spare. She went hungry, too, and when they saw it, people secretly gave her in the houses, the shops, and at school, a bit of bread and end of sausage, an apple, or a piece of Dutch cheese. As she was always gentle and kind, never spoke in a loud voice, never quarrelled, never uttered an improper or a coarse word, her foster-sisters jeered at her and scornfully called her the princess. For they all knew that she was found in a fine little shirt with a small gold crown embroidered on it; they had seen the pretty garment themselves, though their father kept it carefully wrapped in paper in a drawer, and did not often bring it out to show any one, and when they thought that perhaps Rita really was a royal child, they were provoked, yet at the same time it gave them a spiteful pleasure to have a princess subject to the children of a plain workman, and obliged to do the most menial tasks for them.

From the time Rita was old enough to understand her position, she, too, thought constantly about her origin, and busied herself waking and sleeping about the secret of the little gold crown embroidered on her shirt. She had an eager longing to see and touch the dainty linen; but she did not dare to ask, for once, when she did so, her foster-father roughly refused, saying harshly, “Don’t think about it; it would only fill your head with silly notions.”

She had gradually learned where she had been found, and often went to the shore, sat down on the sand, and gazed out over the sea to the spot where the ship which had brought her here had sunk, and where perhaps her parents were resting at the bottom of the water. Then deep sorrow overwhelmed her, and tears filled her eyes. She felt as if she must plunge into the waves, go down into the depths to her own kindred, and never return to her poverty and toil. She did not long for wealth and splendor, only for a mother’s love. How wonderfully delightful it must be to be embraced by a mother’s arms, allowed to kiss and caress her, and know that she was her own little girl! This joy she had never known, and she envied her foster-sisters who, in other ways, had so little for which to be envied.

When she was fourteen years old she had to begin to earn something. At first she sewed jute coffee-bags, but after a few days the superintendent herself said to her, “Rita, this labor is too coarse for you, you can do something better,” and without consulting her foster-family she sent her to a milliner, where Rita liked her work very much, for there she had to make, of fine straw or lace, pretty hats for women, with velvet and silk, ribbons, flowers, and feathers, which she had much natural taste in arranging. They tried the hats on her for customers to see, and as everything was becoming, and the most expensive the most so, the ladies bought them very readily. She soon received good wages, which she took home honestly to her foster-mother, who in return treated her somewhat more kindly.

Rita was reserved and always liked to be alone. Her foster-sisters and her companions in the workroom thought this was pride, and resented it. She was only absorbed in her own thoughts, because her mind was constantly dwelling upon the little gold crown, the ship at the bottom of the sea, and those who were drowned in it. On Sundays and holidays she either stayed in a corner of the room, dreaming, or went to walk alone, usually on the shore, but often, too, in a little wood not far from the city. The other members of the family did not trouble themselves, but took their pleasure without her, and this suited her exactly.

One Sunday, soon after Easter, she again went into the wood to enjoy the early spring. A short time after leaving the road and passing under the trees, she saw a squirrel playing merrily in the top of a tree, jumping from branch to branch, peeping at her with its bright eyes, and then leaping to the next tree. Rita followed, that she might enjoy his graceful sport longer. The little creature sprang on before her, Rita pursued, and without knowing it, still led by the squirrel, reached the middle of the wood, a place where the trees grew very close together, which she had not yet seen. Suddenly she no longer saw the squirrel, and searched everywhere for him with her eyes, unable to imagine where he could be. While turning her head in every direction, she saw at the foot of a large beech a hole, half hidden by moss and large ferns. Rita cautiously approached to peep in, when the treacherous covering of plants gave way under her feet, and with a cry she slipped down the opening. She closed her eyes and thought this would be the end of her. She fell a long, long distance, till it seemed as if she was resting on a warm bosom, and clasped by loving arms. Rita opened her eyes, and what she saw astonished her so greatly that she thought she must be dreaming.

She was standing on the threshold of a lofty, spacious hall, more magnificent than anything she had ever seen or believed possible. The walls were covered with white silk tapestry, countless chandeliers filled the whole space with brilliant light, and she did not know which to admire first: the huge mirrors, the gilded chairs with white silk seats, the tables with mosaic tops inlaid with gems, or the throng of people in glittering uniforms and magnificent costumes who filled the hall. Rita had no time to inspect all this splendor. By her side stood a tall lady with a very proud bearing and a wonderfully beautiful face, dressed in a white silk gown, embroidered with silver threads, and a veil fastened with a diadem on her golden hair, which fell over her back to the edge of her skirt. This lady had caught Rita in her arms when she fell into the depths. She bent the knee before her three times in low curtseys, bowed her head, then rose, took Rita by the hand, and led her into the hall.

At the moment she crossed the threshold, solemn music sounded, an officer of gigantic height uttered a command, halberds were dropped with a loud noise on the polished floor, and between two ranks of tall soldiers of the guards in splendid uniforms, who stood like walls, Rita walked slowly with her companion through the whole length of the hall to a golden throne at the end, which stood on a platform covered with cloth of gold beneath a purple canopy. The white-robed lady, by a wave of her hand, invited Rita to ascend the three steps of the platform and seat herself upon the throne. When the young girl had taken her place, the music ceased, the lady lifted from a small table, which stood beside the throne, a silk dress, embroidered with silver, which she put on Rita, a blue velvet mantle, lined with ermine, which she threw over her shoulders, and a crown of gold and diamonds the size of a pigeon’s egg, which she set on her head. Then, again bending the knee before her, she said in a voice which sounded like a silver bell, “Welcome to your kingdom, royal mistress.”

She moved aside, and now ladies in rich court dresses, with long trains and brilliant jewels, and gentlemen in uniforms covered with gold lace, wearing swords by their sides and orders on their breasts, approached and paid homage to Rita. The ladies kissed her hand, the gentlemen pressed their lips to the edge of her ermine mantle. About a hundred or more ladies and gentlemen greeted Rita in this submissive manner.

For a long time Rita did not dare to open her lips. At last, when the courtiers had paid their homage, she turned to the white-robed lady standing beside the throne and asked timidly: “Where am I? What does all this mean?”

“You are in your kingdom, royal mistress,” replied the lady, “and your loyal subjects are happy to be permitted to offer you their homage.”

“I don’t understand,” answered Rita, bewildered; “you are mistaken. I am only a poor milliner—”

“Not so, royal mistress,” said the lady; “whatever you may be considered in a foreign country does not matter. Here you are our illustrious young empress, and at heart you know it perfectly well, and have always known it.”

“Then the little gold crown on my shirt—”

“Is the sign of your rank, royal mistress.”

“But explain to me—what does it all mean—who are you?”

The lady made a sign, the guards with clanking steps drew back to the walls of the hall, the courtiers formed a wide semicircle around the room, the ladies in the front row, the gentlemen behind them, and in the midst of a deep silence she began:—

“Royal mistress, I am the White Lady, the attendant fairy of your illustrious family, whose duty it is to watch over all who are of your royal blood. Do not believe that I have neglected this duty. But foes who are more powerful than I have prevented me from performing it as I ought and wished to do. Know that you are the daughter of the emperor and empress of Thule, and their lawful heiress. Here are the portraits of your noble parents. They welcome from their frames their lovely descendant.”

The White Lady pointed with outstretched hand to the wall behind the throne. Rita turned eagerly and saw at the right and left of the purple canopy the life-size portraits of a handsome man in crown and imperial mantle, and a woman who looked like a being from the heavenly world. At the sight she began to weep bitterly, and the whole court sobbed with her. The White Lady waited until she was calm again and then went on:—

“For ten long years your father had reigned gloriously in Thule, like his father, his grandfather, and thirty-three ancestors before them for a thousand years. Then one day the King of the Pole, without any cause, declared war against him and with his army of ugly dwarfs invaded Thule. The Pole King is a great magician, who reigns over the polar bears and the whales, and when he chooses can produce such cold that the air freezes and sends thunderbolts from the northern lights, which kill every living creature. Our regiments could not withstand his thunderbolts and polar bears, our ships could not resist his cold and his whales. He conquered Thule, and your parents could do nothing except fly with you, royal mistress, and their court on their last ship. But even on the sea the wicked wizard pursued them, he conjured up a terrible storm which struck them here, drove their ship on the shore, and wrecked it. The waves swallowed all on board, I was permitted by the higher powers to save only you, royal mistress. This is the sorrowful history of your illustrious family.”

She was silent, and Rita, too, remained silent a long time, for she was much excited by all she heard and saw. After some time she calmed herself and asked: “What is to be done now? Will you not take me back to my kingdom of Thule?”

“Alas!” replied the White Lady, “that is not possible. Between here and your kingdom lie three seas and four broad countries, with soldiers and fortresses on their frontiers, besides five ice mountains, six burning deserts, and seven raging rivers. And even if we crossed all these obstacles on the way to Thule, we should find there the King of the Pole, who would do you some harm.”

“Then must I stay here always?” asked Rita, anxiously.

The White Lady sighed, and the whole court did the same.