Funestine and Other Adventures in Romancia Page 3

  “I want you, my dear Timandre,” she added, “to be more touched by my character than my beauty. A beautiful face is striking and very pleasing, but it is like a fresh and beautiful flower that a ray of sunlight a little too ardent fades in a moment; even when it can be protected from the accidents that might spoil it, it cannot avoid the effects that the number of the years inflicts upon it. Don’t be chagrined, however; I shall not always wear the veil that afflicts you; I want to test your fidelity, and when I am sure of it, I will render you master of my person, as you are of my heart.”

  The prince found so much reason in what the queen said that he dared not insist, in spite of the vivacity of his desires. He had been on the ship for four or five hours when he perceived a palace on the bank of the canal that Gracious told him had been organized to receive him. It was built of diamonds of a surprising size and beauty. The ships came to moor there.

  Timandre disembarked with the queen and her retinue in order to enter the superb building; he praised its structure and magnificence more than once. After several eulogies he was taken into a drawing room where there was a table served with the most exquisite dishes. Gracious sat down there beside the prince, with a part of her court. At the end of the meal she played the lute and sang in such a fashion that if Timandre had not been the most amorous of men he would have become so instantly. In spite of the prodigious range of her voice it was soft and perfectly accurate.

  A ball followed that magnificent meal, composed of a magnificent youth of both sexes. Gracious danced and danced, always with Timandre. The prince had never experienced such sweet moments.

  He spent others during six months that were no less agreeable, for new pleasures were invented every day to prevent him from getting bored. He loved and he was loved; however, his happiness lacked possessing his dear Gracious and the pleasure of seeing in her eyes the tenderness that she testified to him continually.

  One evening, when he was walking along the canal bank with her, he implored her to complete his happiness, since she was convinced of the violence and the sincerity of his passion. He pressed her so urgently that she could not refuse him, but his prayer was not granted immediately; the day was set and awaited with an equal impatience by both of the lovers.

  When it arrived they gave one another their hands and swore an eternal love in a little temple surrounded by trees and consecrated to sensual pleasure. Amour and Hymen were reconciled at that moment, and were with the two spouses all day; after the ceremony they were taken to an apartment carpeted with jasmine and orange-blossom; two carbuncles placed beside a beautiful bed spread a bright light there, but Gracious ordered her maidservants to take them away. The prince consented to that with difficulty, but in the end, the pleasure that was taken away from him did not prevent him from delivering himself with an inconceivable joy to those he had awaited with so much impatience.

  No night have ever seemed so short; he saw the daylight arrive, and imagined that it had commenced its career sooner than usual. He consoled himself, however, in the hope of finally seeing the face of the woman he loved so ardently. He hastened therefore to open the curtains and cast his eyes upon the queen, who was sleeping profoundly.

  But great gods, how astonished he was! The person who had inspired so much amour in him had the face of a little she-monkey, which was making grimaces even in sleep that were very pleasant, but which appeared so frightful to Timandre that he was consternated. He went pale and cold, and conceived for the queen an aversion as strong as the amour he had felt had been violent. He repented, but too late, of having engaged in an adventure that had appeared charming, and whose consequences were so deplorable. He swore that if he could get out of it, he would never allow himself to be seduced by appearances again.

  “How deceptive they are!” he exclaimed. “Who would have believed that such a beautiful body could have such an ugly head?”

  Those words woke the queen. She heard them, and although she had to do herself justice, she was sharply stung by them. All women like to be flattered; the truth only pleases them to the extent that it does not seek to destroy the opinion they have of their beauty. One can therefore imagine the chagrin of Gracious, who had that weakness to a greater extent than any other person of her sex. She looked at the prince and knew the horror that he had for her. What despair for a woman in love, to sense that she only inspires hatred!

  Instantly, she formed the design to avenge herself, and executed it without delay. Her wand was by the side of the bed; she picked it up and, touching Timandre, she said to him: “Ingrate, since I can no longer inspire amour in you, become so different yourself that you can never please anyone whatsoever.”

  As soon as she had finished speaking, the prince became a pink and blue butterfly. The fay metamorphosed him thus by a sort of injustice, attributing to his inconstancy what she ought only to have imputed to her own deformity. He did not change his way of thinking in changing his form. Gracious left him the memory of what he had been, and expelled him from the palace and the garden of graces.

  He drew away from it rapidly in order not to see any longer the monster who had just metamorphosed him, and he flew for several months without knowing where he was going. He was sad and chagrined, and no longer hoped to savor any pleasure, but he dreaded nevertheless that cruel fate might cut the thread of his days; the smallest bird made him tremble.

  All human beings resemble one another on that point; it is in vain that they proclaim their woe and the desire for death; there is not one who does not seek to prolong life. Timandre took as much care of his days as if he had been the most fortunate of mortals.

  After having flown for a long time he found himself at the entrance to a wood, the trees of which appeared to be several centuries old. He paused to rest there, and after a few moments saw a young woman of sixteen or seventeen pass by, whom nature had ornamented with a beauty so perfect that the mother of the amours could not have surpassed it. A linen dress and a few cornflowers that she had arranged with great care in her hair were her entire adornment. All the charms of which she partook did not appear to render her vain; an air of mildness and modesty gave rise to a prejudice in her favor.

  What a difference there is, Timandre said to himself, as he considered her, between that beautiful young woman and those at Gracious’s court! She does not borrow any assistance of artistry in order to please, yet she is capable of setting the entire world ablaze. The others, on the contrary, in spite of the cares that they give themselves, can only have an effect with difficulty, because there is nothing natural about them; their speech and expressions are studied; they affect in their words and actions a liberty that seems to permit everything to those who approach them.

  While making those reflections, the prince perceived that he was following the beautiful person involuntarily, and that a secret penchant was commencing to take possession of his heart. He drew as near to her as possible, and finally came to alight on the flowers of her bouquet.

  Bleuette—that was the young woman’s name—found the butterfly so familiar and so prettily patterned that she left it where it was. She continued on her way, and shortly thereafter she went into a little house, the furniture of which was simple, clean and of exquisite taste. A garden ornamented with flowers and filled with fruit trees, surrounded by a hawthorn hedge, allowed a glimpse of a meadow irrigated and rendered agreeable by several streams bordered by two rows of willows.

  The prince was more enchanted by that rural spot than he had been by the beautiful abode of the queen of the Graces. He perceived in that simple dwelling a little old woman, who appeared as respectable by virtue of her air of mildness and good will as by the number of her years. She was spinning when Bleuette came in, but as soon as she saw her she set her spindle down and held out her arms to her.

  “There you are then, my dear daughter,” she said to her, embracing her. “What anxiety you have caused me! Please, in future, don’t go away for so long. Persons of your age, and as beautiful as you,
are often subject to deplorable encounters when a prudent mother does not accompany them.”

  “I’ll take advantage of your advice,” said Bleuette, “but I haven’t encountered anything dangerous during my walk; only this butterfly offered itself to my eyes, and I want to conserve it for a long time, because it’s beautiful, and I imagine that it has no desire to quit me.”

  She did, in fact, take good care of it, and did not fail to put a large bouquet of flowers beside it every day, in order that it could repose there. Timandre often sighed as he gazed at her, and thought himself very unfortunate in loving her, in being so close to her and only being a butterfly. He had never seen a young woman so lovable and so well brought up.

  The old woman, who, appearances suggested, was not of distinguished birth, often astonished the unfortunate prince by her speech and the instruction that she gave to her daughter. She banished therefrom the air of severity of which the majority of mothers make use when they speak to their children. The good woman said that it was necessary to instruct the young while amusing them. She had neither the ill-humor nor the infirmities of old age; a tranquil and contented air was distributed throughout her person; she did not fatigue her daughter with long stories of times past or untimely remonstrations.

  One day, when Bleuette was walking in the meadow with her butterfly, she heard Fatima calling her—for it was Fatima that had retired to that solitude; she had bought the little house in which she lived with part of the gold that Silent had given her, and used the rest to live tranquilly with her dear Bleuette—and she ran to the house to find out what she wanted.

  “I’m very afflicted, my daughter,” the woman said to her. “In trying to take my distaff from this shelf, I knocked over that bottle that you see on the floor. It was filled with a liquid given to me by the same lady that made me a present of the leaf I told you about. A single drop of that liquid can destroy the greatest enchantments.”

  In order to console her, Bleuette said to her: “You have no malevolent fays for neighbors, why regret that liquid?”

  Timandre heard that conversation and had no doubt that, since the liquid had such a great virtue, it could restore him to his original form. He therefore flew immediately to the place where it had spilled, and instantly, a dense smoke rose up in the room. When it had dissipated, the prince found that he was as he had been before his metamorphosis—which is to say, the most lovable of all men.

  Fatima and Bleuette were very frightened on seeing him appear, and it was with great difficulty that the prince prevented them from running away.

  “Have no fear,” he said to them, “and deign to listen to me for a moment.”

  They finally consented to that, and then he told them what had happened to him, his name and his birth.

  Fatima expressed the joy she felt at the end of his enchantment, but begged him very honestly not to stay with her any longer and to return to Abdal’s court, which was only four leagues away

  “Pardon me, Sire, “if I urge you so strongly to depart, but my daughter is young and so are you; I don’t doubt her virtue, or yours, but it’s always necessary to fear malicious gossip.”

  The prince dared not contradict her, but he only determined to go away from his other half in the hope of seeing her again soon. “Adieu, sage Fatima,” he said to her. “I shall go to find the king, my father, and render a son to him whom he is perhaps no longer expecting to see; but I shall also inform him of to whom he owes the obligation of my return. I shall beg him at the same time to allow me to unite my destiny with that of the charming Bleuette.”

  Fatima was not flattered by the honor that the prince wanted to bestow on her daughter; she had examples of several great lords who had married persons of obscure birth because they were very amorous, and who had scorned them later. However, she thanked him very politely.

  As for Bleuette, she blushed deeply in receiving Timandre’s adieu; she felt something for him that she had not yet known, which rendered her eyes more touching than they had been previously. She sighed involuntarily as she watching the prince draw away.

  He heard that sigh and, flattering himself that he was the cause of it, he believed himself to be the most fortunate of men. He arrived not long afterwards at the court, and surprised both the king and the queen, who loved him tenderly. There was public rejoicing to celebrate his return; no one received orders for that, the amity alone that people had for the prince caused all labor to cease and obliged the great and the humble to testify the joy that they felt.

  Silent, having heard that news, emerged from his solitude expressly to congratulate the king. As he entered the king’s apartment he encountered a lady whose appearance and majestic bearing astonished him. After having saluted him, she told him to follow her if he were curious to learn things that would interest him infinitely. Silent obeyed her, and went with her into a clump of trees in Abdal’s garden. The lady sat down there and invited him to sit beside her.

  She said to him: “I am the fay Favorable.8 A short time after the death of the queen, your wife, I passed through your estates; I saw you there and I admired the sagacity with which you governed them. I also saw the little Princess Zelima, your daughter; I read in the stars that she would be the most perfect creature in the world if the care of her education were confided to someone capable of it. Touched by seeing hr surrounded by women devoid of virtue and principles, I made the resolution to remove her from their hands.

  “In order to do that I took the form of a black dog, and I removed her from her cradle. I gave her the gift of succeeding perfectly in everything that she attempted: she can sing, dance, and play all sorts of instruments as if she had had the most excellent masters. Then I confided her to Fatima—she is the woman who gave you a leaf of which I had made her a present, and to which you owe your life. I recommended the princess to her and ordered her at the same time to pass her off as her daughter. I knew her character and had been witness to the grandeur of her soul and the rectitude of her heart on several occasions.

  “Fatima descends from virtuous parents, who were not noble, in truth, but her way of thinking is proof that one can have sentiments of virtue and elevation without being of illustrious birth. She has brought Zelima up with extreme care and has given her an education that responds perfectly to the grandeur of her extraction. She is beautiful and well made; Prince Timandre is extremely amorous for her. He merits her tenderness and your esteem; you cannot do better than to unite them. I am not telling you anything but the truth; I will take you to the princess.”

  Silent would have taken for a dream everything that the fay said to him if she had not instantly caused an ebony chariot to emerge from the ground, drawn by flame-colored pigeons, in which the king placed himself with her, and which took them to Fatima’s house. He recognized Zelima there; she had all the features of the queen, her mother, and also a cornflower on the left foot that she had had since birth and which had caused her to be given the name Bleuette.

  Silent made himself known to his lovely daughter and made her a thousand caresses, which she received with a respect full of tenderness. He gave the good Fatima the praise of which she was so worthy, and offered her everything that depended on him.

  “I do not want any other recompense,” she said to him, “than the pleasure of not being separated from the princess.”

  He granted her that request, and assured her that he would heap her with benefits; but she was only touched by the permission that he gave her to accompany her dear Bleuette everywhere,

  The princess embraced her, and begged her always to conserve the same tenderness for her of which she had given her so much evidence. Fatima was as sensible to her caresses as one can be. She recognized Favorable as the lady who had given her Zelima, the sorrel leaf and the bottle for enchantments.

  The four individuals spent a few moments together, and then separated. The fay took Silent back to Abdal’s palace and disappeared, saying: “You’ll see me again when you least expect it.”


  He gave her a great many thanks, even when he could no longer see her, and went go to see the king in order to congratulate him on the return of Timandre, whose story Favorable had told him. He told him that he had also found his daughter again, that she was as beautiful as his son was handsome, and that it only depended on him whether they would be united by blood as they were by amity. The king, flattered by that proposition, consented to it with pleasure, but Timandre, who was present and who had already received permission from his father to marry the charming Bleuette, implored him to remember that without her he could not be happy.

  Seeing the king embarrassed, Silent took him to one side and told him that Zelima and Bleuette were the same person, but that it was necessary not to tell his son yet, in order to surprise him agreeably.

  Abdal, charmed by the news, approached the prince and told him that there was no longer any question of thinking about a young woman whose status was so different from his, and that it was absolutely necessary that he dispose himself to marry Zelima. He went out with Silent as he spoke and ordered the captain of his guards to prevent the prince from leaving his apartment.

  The king’s speech tendered Timandre furious. He employed all sorts of means to deceive the vigilance of the man guarding him or to corrupt him, but in vain.

  On the other hand, Silent sent for the princess and told her that in two days she was to marry an amiable prince, the successor to a great empire. A young woman to whom a young and charming husband is promised usually learns that news without dolor, but Zelima was very afflicted by it. Timandre had made such a strong impression on her heart that she felt that she would never be able to forget him. Not daring to reveal her sentiments to her father, however, she disposed herself to obey hm. It was not without lamenting her destiny more than once in secret, and that of Abdal’s son.