United States or Liechtenstein ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I found them," replied Florina, and refused to answer more. "Some one has given them to you that you might join in treason against your father and the kingdom. "Am I likely to do this? I, a poor princess, kept in captivity for two years, with you as my gaoler?" "In captivity," repeated the queen. "Why, then, do you dress yourself so fine, and adorn your chamber with flowers?"
"Then if you will promise to-night to keep the opium cup out of his way, these pearls and diamonds," and she took a handful of them from her sack, "shall assuredly be yours." The valet promised; and then Florina broke her fourth egg, out of which came a pie composed of birds, which, though they had been plucked, baked, and made ready for the table, sang as beautifully as birds that are alive.
He called his valet, inquired who was sleeping in the Chamber of Echoes, and heard that it was the little peasant-girl who had sold to Troutina the emerald bracelet. Then he rose up, dressed himself hastily, and went in search of her. She was sitting mournfully on the floor, with her hair hiding her face, and her eyes swollen with tears; but he knew at once his faithful Florina.
"Florina, your sister is come to see and bring you marriage presents, for she is now the wife of King Charming." Florina, doubting no more her lover's loss, fell down in a swoon, and the queen immediately went to tell her father that she was mad for love, and must be watched closely lest she should in some way disgrace herself.
Florina obeyed, and told her whole history, and how she was travelling over the world in search of the Blue Bird. The little woman listened attentively, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, became, instead of an old woman, a beautiful fairy. "Incomparable Florina, the king you seek is no longer a bird; my sister Soussio has restored him to his proper shape, and he reigns in his own kingdom.
Meantime King Charming eagerly awaited her re-appearance, but he saw her no more; and by the queen's orders, every one about him spoke all the evil they could of poor Florina, but he refused to believe one word. "No," said he, "nature could not have united a base nature to such a sweet innocent face.
I will rather suppose that she is maligned by her stepmother and by Troutina, who is so ugly herself that no wonder she bears envy towards the fairest woman in the world." Meanwhile Florina, shut up in her tower, lamented bitterly. "Ah, would I had been sent here before I saw this amiable prince, who was so kind to me! It is to prevent my meeting him again, that the queen treats me so cruelly.
She dared not open the window, though she heard continually his wings fluttering round it. For more than a month she waited; but the serving-maid watched her night and day. At last, overcome with weariness, the girl fell asleep, and then Florina opened her little window, and sang in a low voice "Blue Bird, Blue Bird, Come to my side."
"You cannot," said Soussio; and, touching him, he found himself fixed as if his feet were glued to the pavement. "You may turn me into stone!" exclaimed he; "but I will love no one, except Florina." Soussio employed persuasions, threats, promises, entreaties. Troutina wept, groaned, shrieked, and then tried quiet sulkiness; but the king uttered not a word.
He began to speak in a singing voice, and then uttering a doleful cry, fled away as far as possible from the fatal palace of Soussio. But, though he looked only a blue bird, the king was his own natural self still, and remembered all his misfortunes, and did not cease to lament for his beautiful Florina.
Word Of The Day