When she had a little recovered herself, she ordered her attendants to drive him away, and not give him a single copper; whereupon his look of mortified discomfiture wrought her punishment and his revenge, for it sent her into violent hysterics, from which she was with difficulty recovered.

But so anxious was the king that the suggestion should have a fair trial, that he put himself in a rage one day, and, rushing up to her room, gave her an awful whipping.  Yet not a tear would flow.  She looked grave, and her laughing sounded uncommonly like screaming—­that was all.  The good old tyrant, though he put on his best gold spectacles to look, could not discover the smallest cloud in the serene blue of her eyes.

IX

Put Me in Again!

It must have been about this time that the son of a king, who lived a thousand miles from Lagobel, set out to look for the daughter of a queen.  He travelled far and wide, but as sure as he found a princess, he found some fault with her.  Of course he could not marry a mere woman, however beautiful; and there was no princess to be found worthy of him.  Whether the prince was so near perfection that he had a right to demand perfection itself, I cannot pretend to say.  All I know is, that he was a fine, handsome, brave, generous, well-bred, and well-behaved youth, as all princes are.

In his wanderings he had come across some reports about our princess; but as everybody said she was bewitched, he never dreamed that she could bewitch him.  For what indeed could a prince do with a princess that had lost her gravity?  Who could tell what she might not lose next?  She might lose her visibility, or her tangibility; or, in short, the power of making impressions upon the radical sensorium; so that he should never be able to tell whether she was dead or alive.  Of course he made no further inquiries about her.

One day he lost sight of his retinue in a great forest.  These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back the bran.  Then the princes get away to follow their fortunes.  In this way they have the advantage of the princesses, who are forced to marry before they have had a bit of fun.  I wish our princesses got lost in a forest sometimes.

One lovely evening, after wandering about for many days, he found that he was approaching the outskirts of this forest; for the trees had got so thin that he could see the sunset through them; and he soon came upon a kind of heath.  Next he came upon signs of human neighbourhood; but by this time it was getting late, and there was nobody in the fields to direct him.