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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Honey-Bee, by Anatole France
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Honey-Bee
+       1911
+
+Author: Anatole France
+
+Illustrator: Florence Lundborg
+
+Translator: Mrs. John Lane
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2008 [EBook #25405]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HONEY-BEE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HONEY-BEE
+
+By Anatole France
+
+A Translation By Mrs. John Lane
+
+Illustrated By Florence Lundborg
+
+John Lane MCMXI
+
+
+TO
+
+H. B. H. DEAR AND LIFE-LONG FRIEND
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+It is an honour, but, also, a great responsibility, to introduce through
+the dangerous medium of a translation one of the most distinguished
+writers of our time, and, probably, the greatest living master of style,
+to a new world--the world of childhood. One is conscious that it is as
+impossible to translate the charm and art of Anatole France as it is to
+describe in dull, colourless words the exquisite perfume of the rose.
+
+Such as this translation is I offer it with diffidence, realising that I
+have undertaken a difficult task. And yet I venture to do so for I long
+to make known to English and American children one of the loveliest and
+noblest of stories--a story overflowing with poetic imagination, wisdom
+and humour, divine qualities to which the heart of the child is always
+open as the flower to the dew.
+
+I want young children as well as others, older only by accident of
+years, but whose hearts are always young--which is the eternal youth--to
+know the greatest French writer of his day, when, by the magic of his
+pen, he, like them, becomes young, gentle and charming. I want them to
+learn to love his "Honey-Bee," newest and sweetest of those darlings of
+childhood who have come down to us from bygone ages, distant lands
+and half-forgotten races, but who in their eternal charm appeal to all
+children since children first heard those wonderful stories or pored
+over treasured books that awaken the ardent young imagination to love,
+beauty, romance and goodness.
+
+So, too, some day will "Honey-Bee" the golden-haired princess of the
+dear, good dwarfs, join her enchanting companions, Cinderella, Beauty
+and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince,
+Puss in Boots, Aladdin, and all the others of that immortal galaxy
+whose glorious destiny it has been to be beloved by childhood. May they
+welcome "Honey-Bee," youngest of all. And so the Master, supreme when he
+writes for men and women, will find open to him a new world, purer and
+more beautiful, in the hearts of English and American children.
+
+A. E. L.
+
+
+
+
+"HONEY-BEE"
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+     Which treats of the appearance of the country and serves as
+     Introduction
+
+The sea covers to-day what was once the Duchy of Clarides. No trace of
+the town or the castle remains. But when it is calm there can be seen,
+it is said, within the circumference of a mile, huge trunks of trees
+standing on the bottom of the sea. A spot on the banks, which now serves
+as a station for the customhouse officers, is still called "The Tailor's
+Booth," and it is quite probable that this name is in memory of a
+certain Master Jean who is mentioned in this story. The sea, which
+encroaches year by year, will soon cover this spot so curiously named.
+
+Such changes are in the nature of things. The mountains sink in the
+course of ages, and the depths of the seas, on the contrary, rise until
+their shells and corals are carried to the regions of clouds and ice.
+
+Nothing endures. The face of land and sea is for ever changing.
+Tradition alone preserves the memory of men and places across the ages
+and renders real to us what has long ceased to exist. In telling you of
+Clarides I wish to take you back to times that have long since vanished.
+Thus I begin:
+
+The Countess of Blanchelande having placed on her golden hair a little
+black hood embroidered with pearls....
+
+But before proceeding I must beg very serious persons not to read this.
+It is not written for them. It is not written for grave people who
+despise trifles and who always require to be instructed. I only venture
+to offer this to those who like to be entertained, and whose minds are
+both young and gay. Only those who are amused by innocent pleasures will
+read this to the end. Of these I beg, should they have little children,
+that they will tell them about my Honey-Bee. I wish this story to please
+both boys and girls and yet I hardly dare to hope it will. It is
+too frivolous for them and, really, only suitable for old-fashioned
+children. I have a pretty little neighbour of nine whose library I
+examined the other day. I found many books on the microscope and the
+zoophytes, as well as several scientific story-books. One of these I
+opened at the following lines: "The cuttle-fish _Sepia Officinalis_ is
+a cephalopodic mollusc whose body includes a spongy organ containing a
+chylaqueous fluid saturated with carbonate of lime." My pretty little
+neighbour finds this story very interesting. I beg of her, unless she
+wishes me to die of mortification, never to read the story of Honey-Bee.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+     In which we learn what the white rose meant to the Countess
+     of Blanchelande
+
+Having placed on her golden hair a little black hood embroidered with
+pearls and bound about her waist a widow's girdle, the Countess of
+Blanchelande entered the chapel where it was her daily custom to pray
+for the soul of her husband who had been killed in single-handed combat
+with a giant from Ireland.
+
+That day she saw a white rose lying on the cushion of her _prie-Dieu_;
+at sight of this she turned pale; her eyes grew dim; she bowed her head
+and wrung her hand. For she knew that when a Countess of Blanchelande is
+about to die she always finds a white rose on her _prie-Dieu_.
+
+Warned by this that her time had come to leave a world in which in
+so short a time she had been wife, mother and widow, she entered the
+chamber where her son George slept in the care of the nurses. He was
+three years old. His long eyelashes threw a lovely shadow on his cheeks,
+and his mouth looked like a flower. At sight of him, so helpless and so
+beautiful, she began to weep.
+
+"My little child," she cried in anguish, "my dear little child, you will
+never have known me and my image will fade for ever from your dear eyes.
+And yet, to be truly your mother, I nourished you with my own milk, and
+for love of you I refused the hand of the noblest cavaliers."
+
+So speaking she kissed a medallion in which was her own portrait and a
+lock of her hair, and this she hung about the neck of her son. A mothers
+tear fell on the little one's cheek as he stirred in his cradle and
+rubbed his eyes with his little hands. But the Countess turned her head
+away and fled out of the room. How could eyes about to be extinguished
+for ever bear the light of two dear eyes in which the soul was only
+beginning to dawn?
+
+She ordered a steed to be saddled and followed by her squire, Francoeur,
+she rode to the castle of Clarides.
+
+The Duchess of Clarides embraced the Countess of Blanchelande.
+
+"Loveliest! what good fortune brings you here?"
+
+"The fortune that brings me here is not good. Listen, my friend. We were
+married within a few years of each other, and similar fates have made
+us widows. For in these times of chivalry the best perish first, and in
+order to live long one must be a monk. When you became a mother I had
+already been one for two years. Your daughter Honey-Bee is lovely as the
+day, and my little George is good. I love you and you love me. Know then
+that I have found a white rose on the cushion of my _prie-Dieu_. I am
+about to die; I leave you my son."
+
+The Duchess knew what the white rose meant to the ladies of
+Blanchelande. She began to weep and in the midst of her tears she
+promised to bring up Honey-Bee and George as brother and sister, and to
+give nothing to one which the other did not share.
+
+Still in each other's arms the two women approached the cradle where
+little Honey-Bee slept under light curtains, blue as the sky, and
+without opening her eyes, she moved her little arms. And as she spread
+her fingers five little rosy rays came out of each sleeve.
+
+"He will defend her," said the mother of George.
+
+"And she will love him," the mother of Honey-Bee replied.
+
+"She will love him," a clear little voice repeated, which the Duchess
+recognised as that of a spirit which for a long time had lived under the
+hearth-stone.
+
+On her return to her manor the lady of Blanchelande divided her jewels
+among her women and having had herself anointed with perfumed ointments
+and robed in her richest raiment in order to honour the body destined to
+rise again at the Day of Judgment, she lay down on her bed and fell
+asleep never again to awaken.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+     Wherein begins the love of George of Blanchelande and Honey-
+     Bee of Claride
+
+Contrary to the common destiny which is to have more goodness than
+beauty, or more beauty than goodness, the Duchess of Clarides was as
+good as she was beautiful, and she was so beautiful that many princes,
+though they had only seen her portrait, demanded her hand in marriage.
+But to all their pleading she replied:
+
+"I shall have but one husband as I have but one soul."
+
+However, after five years of mourning she left off her long veil and her
+black robes so as not to spoil the happiness of those about her, and
+in order that all should smile and be free to enjoy themselves in her
+presence. Her duchy comprised a great extent of country; moorlands,
+overgrown by heather, covered the desolate expanse, lakes in which
+fishermen sometimes caught magic fish, and mountains which rose in
+fearful solitudes over subterraneous regions inhabited by dwarfs.
+
+She governed Clarides with the help of an old monk who, having escaped
+from Constantinople and seen much violence and treachery, had but little
+faith in human goodness. He lived in a tower in the company of birds and
+books, and from this place he filled his position as counsellor by the
+aid of a number of little maxims. His rules were these: "Never revive
+a law once fallen into disuse; always accede to the demands of a people
+for fear of revolt, but accede as slowly as possible, because no sooner
+is one reform granted than the public demands another, and you can be
+turned out for acceding too quickly as well as for resisting too long."
+
+The Duchess let him have his own way, for she understood nothing about
+politics. She was compassionate and, as she was unable to respect all
+men, she pitied those who were unfortunate enough to be wicked. She
+helped the suffering in every possible way, visited the sick, comforted
+the widows, and took the poor orphans under her protection.
+
+She educated her daughter Honey-Bee with a charming wisdom. Having
+brought the child up only to do good, she never denied her any pleasure.
+
+This good woman kept the promise she had made to the poor Countess
+of Blanchelande. She was like a mother to George, and she made no
+difference between him and Honey-Bee. They grew up together, and George
+approved of Honey-Bee, though he thought her rather small. Once, when
+they were very little, he went up to her and asked:
+
+"Will you play with me?"
+
+"I should like to," said Honey-Bee.
+
+"We will make mud pies," said George, which they proceeded to do. But
+as Honey-Bee made hers very badly, George struck her fingers with his
+spade. Whereupon Honey-Bee set up a most awful roar and the squire,
+Francoeur, who was strolling about in the garden, said to his young
+master:
+
+"It is not worthy of a Count of Blanchelande to strike young ladies,
+your lordship."
+
+Whereupon George was seized with an ardent desire to hit Francoeur also
+with his spade. But as this presented insurmountable difficulties, he
+resigned himself to do what was easier, and that was to stand with his
+nose against the trunk of a big tree and weep torrents.
+
+In the meantime Honey-Bee took care to encourage her own tears by
+digging her fists into her eyes; and in her despair she rubbed her nose
+against the trunk of a neighbouring tree. When night came and softly
+covered the earth, Honey-Bee and George were still weeping, each in
+front of a tree. The Duchess of Clarides was obliged to come and take
+her daughter by one hand and George by the other, and lead them back
+to the castle. Their eyes were red and their noses were red and their
+cheeks shone. They sighed and sobbed enough to break one's heart. But
+they ate a good supper, after which they were both put to bed. But as
+soon as the candle was blown out they re-appeared like two little ghosts
+in two little night-gowns, and they hugged each other and laughed at the
+top of their voices.
+
+And thus began the love of Honey-Bee of Clarides and George of
+Blanchelande.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+     Which treats of Education in general, and George of Blanche
+     lande's in particular
+
+So George grew up in the Castle side by side with Honey-Bee, whom he
+affectionately called his sister though he knew she was not.
+
+He had masters in fencing, riding, swimming, gymnastics, dancing,
+hunting, falconry, tennis, and, indeed, in all the arts. He even had a
+writing-master. This was an old cleric, humble of manner but very proud
+within, who taught him all manner of penmanship, and the more beautiful
+this was the less decipherable it became. Very little pleasure or profit
+did George get out of the old cleric's lessons, as little as out of
+those of an old monk who taught him grammar in barbarous terms. George
+could not understand the sense of learning a language which one knows as
+a matter of course and which is called one's mother tongue.
+
+He only enjoyed himself with Francoeur the squire, who, having knocked
+about the world, understood the ways of men and beasts, could describe
+all sorts of countries and compose songs which he could not write.
+Francoeur was the only one of his masters who taught George anything,
+for he was the only one who really loved him, and the only good lessons
+are those which are given with love. The two old goggle-eyes, the
+writing-master and the grammar-master, who hated each other with all
+their hearts, were, however, united in a common hatred of the old
+squire, whom they accused of being a drunkard.
+
+It is true that Francoeur frequented the tavern "The Pewter Pot"
+somewhat too zealously. It was here that he forgot his sorrows and
+composed his songs. But of course it was very wrong of him.
+
+Homer made better verses than Francoeur, and Homer only drank the water
+of the springs. As for sorrows the whole world has sorrows, and the
+thing to make one forget them is not the wine one drinks, but the good
+one does. But Francoeur was an old man grown grey in harness, faithful
+and trustworthy, and the two masters of writing and grammar should
+have hidden his failings from the duchess instead of giving her an
+exaggerated account of them.
+
+"Francoeur is a drunkard," said the writing-master, "and when he comes
+back from 'The Pewter Pot' he makes a letter S as he walks. Moreover,
+it is the only letter he has ever made; because if it please your Grace,
+this drunkard is an ass."
+
+The grammar-master added, "And the songs Francoeur sings as he staggers
+about err against all rules and are constructed on no model at all. He
+ignores all the rules of rhetoric, please your Grace."
+
+The Duchess had a natural distaste for pedants and tale-bearers. She did
+what we all would have done in her place; at first she did not listen to
+them but as they again began to repeat their tittle-tattle, she ended by
+believing them and decided to send Francoeur away. However, to give him
+an honourable exile, she sent him to Rome to obtain the blessing of the
+Pope. This journey was all the longer for Francoeur the squire because
+a great many taverns much frequented by musicians separated the duchy
+of Clarides from the holy apostolic seat. In the course of this story
+we shall see how soon the Duchess regretted having deprived the two
+children of their most faithful guardian.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+     Which tells how the Duchess took Honeybee and George to the
+     Hermitage, and of their encounter with a hideous old woman
+
+That morning, it was the first Sunday after Easter, the Duchess rode out
+of the castle on her great sorrel horse, while on? her left George of
+Blanchelande was mounted on a dark horse with a white star on his black
+forehead, and on her right Honey-Bee guided her milk-white steed with
+rose-coloured reins. They were on their way to the Hermitage to hear
+mass. Soldiers armed with lances formed their escort and, as they
+passed, the people crowded forward to admire them, and, indeed, all
+three were very fair to see. Under a veil of silver flowers and with
+flowing mantle the Duchess had an air of lovely majesty; while the
+pearls with which her coif was embroidered shone with a soft radiance
+that well-suited the face and soul of this beautiful lady. George by her
+side with flowing hair and sparkling eyes was very good to see. And on
+the other side rode Honey-Bee, the tender and pure colour of her face
+like a caress for the eyes; but most glorious of all her fair tresses,
+flowing over her shoulders, held by a circlet of gold surmounted by
+three gold flowers, seemed the shining mantle of her youth and beauty.
+The good people said, on seeing her:
+
+"What a lovely young damsel."
+
+The master tailor, old Jean, took his grandson Peter in his arms to
+point out |Honey-Bce to him, and Peter asked was she alive or was she an
+image of wax, for he could not understand how any one could be so white
+and so lovely, and yet belong to the same race as himself, little Peter
+with his good big weather-beaten cheeks, and his little home-spun shirt
+laced behind in country fashion.
+
+While the Duchess accepted the people's homage with gracious kindness,
+the two children showed how it gratified their pride, George by his
+blushes, Honey-Bee by her smiles, and for this reason the Duchess said
+to them:
+
+"How kindly these good people greet us. For what reason, George? And
+what is the reason, Honey-Bee?"
+
+"So they should," said Honey-Bee.
+
+"It's their duty," George added.
+
+"But why should it be their duty?" asked the Duchess.
+
+And as neither replied, she continued:
+
+"I will tell you. For more than three hundred years the dukes of
+Clarides, from father to son, have lance in hand protected these poor
+people so that they could gather the harvests of the fields they had
+sown. For more than three hundred years all the duchesses of Clarides
+have spun the cloth for the poor, have visited the sick, and have held
+the new-born at the baptismal font. That is the reason they greet you,
+my children."
+
+George was lost in deep thought: "We must protect those who toil on the
+land," and Honcy-Bee said: "One should spin for the poor."
+
+And thus chatting and meditating they went on their way through meadows
+starred with flowers. A fringe of blue mountains lay against the distant
+horizon. George pointed towards the east.
+
+"Is that a great steel shield I see over there?"
+
+"Oh no," said Honey-Bee, "it's a round silver clasp, as big as the
+moon."
+
+"It is neither a steel shield nor a silver clasp, my children," replied
+the Duchess, "but a lake glittering in the sunshine. The surface of
+this lake, which seen from here is as smooth as a mirror, is stirred by
+innumerable ripples. Its borders which appear as distinct as it cut in
+metal are really covered by reeds with feathery plumes and irises
+whose flower is like a human glance between the blades of swords. Every
+morning a white mist rises over the lake which shines like armour under
+the midday sun. But none must approach it for in it dwell the nixies who
+lure passers by into their crystal abodes."
+
+At this moment the bell of the Hermitage was heard.
+
+"Let us dismount," said the Duchess, "and walk to the chapel. It was
+neither on elephants nor camels that the wise men of the East approached
+the manger."
+
+They heard the hermit's mass. A hideous old crone covered with rags
+knelt beside the Duchesss, who on leaving the church offered her holy
+water.
+
+"Accept it, good mother," she said.
+
+George was amazed.
+
+"Do you not know," said the Duchess, "that in the poor you honour the
+chosen of our Lord Jesus Christ? A beggar such as this as well as the
+good Duke of Rochesnoires held you at the font when you were baptized;
+and your little sister, Honey-Bee, also had one of these poor creatures
+as godmother."
+
+The old crone who seemed to have guessed the boy's thoughts leaned
+towards him.
+
+"Fair prince," she cried mockingly, "may you conquer as many kingdoms as
+I have lost. I was the queen of the Island of Pearls and the Mountains
+of Gold; each day my table was served with fourteen different kinds of
+fish, and a negro page bore my train."
+
+"And by what misfortune have you lost your islands and your mountains,
+good woman?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"I vexed the dwarfs, and they carried me far away from my dominions."
+
+"Are the dwarfs so powerful?" George asked.
+
+"As they live in the earth," the old woman answered, "they know the
+virtue of precious stones, they work in metals, and they unseal the
+hidden sources of the springs."
+
+"And what did you do to vex them?" asked the Duchess.
+
+"On a December night," said the old woman, "one of them came to ask
+permission to prepare a great midnight banquet in the kitchen of
+the castle, which, vaster than a chapter-house, was furnished
+with casseroles, frying-pans, earthen saucepans, kettles, pans,
+portable-ovens, gridirons, boilers, dripping-pans, dutch-ovens,
+fish-kettles, copper-pans, pastry-moulds, copper-jugs, goblets of
+gold and silver, and mottled wood, not to mention iron roasting-jacks,
+artistically forged, and the huge black cauldron which hung from the
+pothook. He promised neither to disturb nor to damage anything. I
+refused his request, and he disappeared muttering vague threats. The
+third night, it being Christmas, this same dwarf returned to the chamber
+where I slept. He was accompanied by innumerable others, who pulled me
+out of bed and carried me to an unknown land in my nightgown. 'Such,'
+they said as they left me, 'such is the punishment of the rich who
+refuse even a part of their treasure to the industrious and kindly dwarf
+folk who work in gold and cause the springs to flow.'"
+
+Thus said the toothless old woman, and the Duchess having comforted her
+with words and money, she and the two children retraced their way to the
+castle.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+     Which tells of what can be seen from the Keep of Clarides
+
+It was one day shortly after this that Honey-Bee and George, without
+being observed, climbed the steps of the watch-tower which stands in
+the middle of the Castle of Clarides. Having reached the platform they
+shouted at the top of their voices and clapped their hands.
+
+Their view extended down the hillside divided into brown and green
+squares of cultivated fields. Woods and mountains lay dimly blue against
+the distant horizon.
+
+"Little sister," cried George, "little sister, look at the whole wide
+world!"
+
+"The world is very big," said Honey-Bee. "My teachers," said George,
+"have taught me that it is very big; but, as Gertrude our housekeeper
+says, one must see to believe."
+
+They went the round of the platform.
+
+"Here is something wonderful, little brother," cried Honey-Bee. "The
+castle stands in the middle of the earth and we are on the watch-tower
+in the middle of the castle, and so we are standing in the middle of the
+earth. Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+And, indeed, the horizon formed a circle about the children of which the
+watch-tower was the centre.
+
+"We are in the middle of the earth! Ha! ha! ha!" George repeated.
+
+Whereupon they both started a-thinking.
+
+"What a pity that the world is so big!" said Honey-Bee, "one might get
+lost and be separated from one's friends."
+
+George shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"How lucky that the world is so big! One can go in search of adventures.
+When I am grown up I mean to conquer the mountains that stand at the
+ends of the earth. That is where the moon rises; I shall seize her as
+she passes, and I will give her to you, Honey-Bee."
+
+"Yes," said Honey-Bee, "give her to me and I will put her in my hair."
+
+Then they busied themselves searching for the places they knew as on a
+map.
+
+"I recognise everything," said Honey-Bee, who recognised nothing, "but
+what are those little square stones scattered over the hillside?"
+
+"Houses," George replied. "Those are houses. Don't you recognise the
+capital of the Duchy of Clarides, little sister? After all, it is a
+great city; it has three streets, and one can drive through one of them.
+Don't you remember that we passed through it last week when we went to
+the Hermitage?"
+
+"And what is that winding brook?"
+
+"That is the river. See the old stone bridge down there?"
+
+"The bridge under which we fished for crayfish?"
+
+"That's the one; and in one of the niches stands the statue of the
+'Woman without a Head.' One cannot see her from here because she is too
+small."
+
+"I remember. But why hasn't she got a head?"
+
+"Probably because she has lost it."
+
+Without saying if this explanation was satisfactory, Honey-Bee gazed at
+the horizon.
+
+"Little brother, little brother, just see what sparkles by the side of
+the blue mountains? It is the lake."
+
+"It is the lake."
+
+They then remembered what the Duchess had told them of these beautiful
+and dangerous waters where the nixies dwell.
+
+"We will go there," said Honey-Bee.
+
+George was aghast. He stared at her with his mouth wide open.
+
+"But the Duchess has forbidden us to go out alone, so how can we go to
+this lake which is at the end of the earth?"
+
+"How can we go? I don't know. It's you who ought to know, for you are a
+man and you have a grammar-master."
+
+This piqued George who replied that one might be a man, and even a very
+brave man, and yet not know all the roads on earth. Whereupon Honey-Bee
+said drily with a little air of scorn which made him blush to his ears:
+
+"I never said _I_ would conquer the blue mountains or take down the
+moon. I don't know the way to the lake, but I mean to find it!"
+
+George pretended to laugh.
+
+"You laugh like a cucumber."
+
+"Cucumbers neither laugh nor cry."
+
+"If they did laugh they would laugh like you. I shall go along to the
+lake. And while I search for the beautiful waters in which the nixies
+live you shall stay alone at home like a good girl. I will leave you my
+needle-work and my doll. Take care of them, George, take good care of
+them."
+
+George was proud, and he was conscious of the humiliation with which
+Honey-Bee covered him.
+
+Gloomily and with head bowed he cried in a hollow voice:
+
+"Very well, then, we will go to the lake."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+     In which is described how George and Honey-Bee went to the
+     lake
+
+The next day after the midday meal, the Duchess having gone to her own
+room George took Honey-Bee by the hand. "Now come!" he said. "Where?"
+"Hush!"
+
+They crept down stairs and crossed the courtyard. After they had passed
+the postern, Honey-Bee again asked where they were going.
+
+"To the lake," George said resolutely. Honey-Bee opened her mouth wide
+but remained speechless. To go so far without permission and in satin
+shoes! For her shoes were of satin. There was no sense in it.
+
+"We must go and there is no need to be sensible."
+
+Such was George's proud reply. She had once humiliated him and now she
+pretended to be astonished.
+
+This time it was he who disdainfully sent her back to her dolls. Girls
+always tempt one on to adventures and then run away. So mean! She could
+remain. He'd go alone.
+
+She clung to his arm; he pushed her away.
+
+She hung about his neck.
+
+"Little brother," she sobbed, "I will follow you."
+
+He allowed himself to be moved by such touching repentance.
+
+"Come then, but not through the town; we may be seen. We will follow the
+ramparts and then we can reach the highway by a cross road."
+
+And so they went hand in hand while George explained his plans.
+
+"We will follow the road we took to the Hermitage and then we shall
+be sure to see the lake, just as we did the other day, and then we can
+cross the fields in a bee line."
+
+"A bee line" is the pretty rustic way of saying a straight line; and
+they both laughed because of the young girl's name which fitted in so
+oddly.
+
+Honey-Bee picked flowers along the ditches; she made a posy of
+marshmallows, white mullein, asters and chrysanthemums; the flowers
+faded in her little hands and it was pitiful to see them when Honey-Bee
+crossed the old stone bridge. As she did not know what to do with them
+she decided to throw them into the water to refresh them, but finally
+she preferred to give them to the "Woman without a head."
+
+She begged George to lift her in his arms so as to make her tall enough,
+and she placed her armful of wild flowers between the folded hands of
+the old stone figure.
+
+After she was far away she looked back and saw a pigeon resting on the
+shoulder of the statue.
+
+When they had been walking some time, said Honey-bee, "I am thirsty."
+
+"So am I," George replied, "but the river is far behind us, and I see
+neither brook nor fountain."
+
+"The sun is so hot that he has drunk them all up. What shall we do?"
+
+So they talked and lamented when they saw a peasant woman approach who
+carried a basket of fruit.
+
+"Cherries!" cried George. "How unlucky: I have no money to buy any."
+
+"I have money," said Honey-Bee.
+
+She pulled out of her pocket a little purse in which were five pieces of
+gold.
+
+"Good woman," she said to the peasant, "will you give me as many
+cherries as my frock will hold?"
+
+And she raised her little skirt with her two hands. The woman threw
+in two or three handfuls of cherries. With one hand Honey-Bee held the
+uplifted skirt and with the other she offered the woman a gold piece.
+
+"Is that enough?"
+
+The woman clutched the gold piece which would amply have paid not only
+for the cherries in the basket but for the tree on which they grew and
+the plot of land on which the tree stood.
+
+The artful one replied:
+
+"I'm satisfied, if only to oblige you, little princess."
+
+"Well then, put some more cherries in my brother's cap," said Honey-Bee,
+"and you shall have another gold piece."
+
+This was done. The peasant woman went on her way meditating in what old
+stocking or under what mattress she should hide her two gold pieces.
+
+And the two children followed the road eating the cherries and throwing
+the stones to the right and the left. George chose the cherries that
+hung two by two on one stem and made earrings for his little sister,
+and he laughed to see the lovely twin fruit dangle its vermillion beauty
+against her cheeks.
+
+A pebble stopped their joyous progress. It had got into Honey-Bee's
+little shoe and she began to limp. At every step she took, her golden
+curls bobbed against her cheek, and so limping she sat down on a bank
+by the roadside. Her brother knelt down and took off the satin shoe. He
+shook it and out dropped a little white pebble.
+
+"Little brother," she said as she looked at her feet, "the next time we
+go to the lake we'll put on boots."
+
+The sun was already sinking against the radiant sky; a soft breeze
+caressed their cheeks and necks, and so, cheered and refreshed, the two
+little travellers proceeded on their way. To make walking easier they
+went hand in hand, and they laughed to see their moving shadows melt
+together before them. They sang:
+
+    Maid Marian, setting forth to find
+    The mill, with sacks of corn to grind,
+        Her donkey, Jan, bestrode.
+    My dainty maiden, Marian,
+    She mounted on her donkey, Jan,
+        And took the mill-ward road.*
+
+
+     * Marian' s'en allant au moulin,
+     Pour y faire moudre son grain,
+          Ell monta sur son âne,
+     Ma p'tite mam'sell' Marianne!
+     Ell' monta sur son âne Martin
+          Pour aller au moulin.
+
+
+
+But Honey-Bee stopped:
+
+"I have lost my shoe, my satin shoe," she cried. And so it was. The
+little shoe, whose silken laces had become loose in walking, lay in the
+road covered-with dust. Then as she looked back and saw the towers of
+the castle of Clarides fade into the distant twilight her heart sank and
+the tears came to her eyes.
+
+"The wolves will eat us," she cried, "and our mother will never see us
+again and she will die of grief."
+
+But George comforted her as he put on her shoe.
+
+"When the castle bell rings for supper we shall have returned to
+Clarides. Come!"
+
+    The miller saw her coming nigh
+    And could not well forbear to cry,
+        Your donkey you must tether.
+    My dainty maiden, Marian,
+    Tether you here your donkey, Jan,
+        Who brought us twain together.*
+
+
+    * Le meunier qui la voit venir
+    Ne peut s'empêcher de lui dire:
+        Attachez là votre âne,
+    Ma p'tite Mam'sell' Marianne,
+    Attachez là votre âne Martin
+        Qui vous mène au moulin.
+
+"The lake, Honey-Bee! See the lake, the lake, the lake!"
+
+"Yes, George, the lake!"
+
+George shouted "hurrah" and flung his hat in the air. Honey-Bee was too
+proper to fling hers up also, so taking off the shoe that wouldn't stay
+on she threw it joyfully over her head.
+
+There lay the lake in the depths of the valley and its curved and
+sloping banks made a framework of foliage and flowers about its silver
+waves. It lay there clear and tranquil, and one could see the swaying of
+the indistinct green of its banks.
+
+But the children could find no path through the underbrush that would
+lead to its beautiful waters.
+
+While they were searching for one their legs were nipped by some geese
+driven by a little girl dressed in a sheepskin and carrying a switch.
+George asked her name.
+
+"Gilberte."
+
+"Well, then, Gilberte, how can one go to the lake?"
+
+"Folks doesn't go."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because..."
+
+"But supposing folks did?"
+
+"If folks did there'd be a path, and one would take that path."
+
+George could think of no adequate reply to this guardian of the geese.
+
+"Let's go," he said, "farther on we shall be sure to find a way through
+the woods."
+
+"And we will pick nuts and eat them," said Honey-Bee, "for I am hungry.
+The next time we go to the lake we must bring a satchel full of good
+things to eat."
+
+"That we will, little sister," said George. "And I quite agree with
+Francoeur, our squire, who when he went to Rome, took a ham with him, in
+case he should hunger, and a flask lest he should be thirsty. But hurry,
+for it is growing late, though I don't know the time."
+
+"The shepherdesses know by looking at the sun," said Honey-Bee; "but I
+am not a shepherdess. Yet it seems to me that when we left the sun was
+over our head, and now it is down there, far behind the town and castle
+of Clarides. I wonder if this happens every day and what it means?"
+
+While they looked at the sun a cloud of dust rose up from the high road,
+and they saw some cavaliers with glittering weapons ride past at full
+speed. The children hid in the underbrush in great terror. "They are
+thieves or probably ogres," they thought. They were really guards sent
+by the Duchess of Clarides in search of the little truants.
+
+The two little adventurers found a footpath in the underbrush, not a
+lovers' lane, for it was impossible to walk side by side holding hands
+as is the fashion of lovers. Nor could the print of human footsteps be
+seen, but only indentations left by innumerable tiny cloven feet.
+
+"Those are the feet of little devils," said Honey-Bee.
+
+"Or deer," suggested George.
+
+The matter was never explained. But what is certain is that the footpath
+descended in a gentle slope towards the edge of the lake which lay
+before the two children in all its languorous and silent beauty. The
+willows surrounded its banks with their tender foliage. The slender
+blades of the reeds with their delicate plumes swayed lightly over the
+water. They formed tremulous islands about which the water-lilies spread
+their great heart-shaped leaves and snow-white flowers. Over these
+blossoming islands dragon-flies, all emerald or azure, with wings of
+flame, sped their shrill flight in suddenly altered curves.
+
+The children plunged their burning feet with joy in the damp sand
+overgrown with tufted horse-tails and the reed-mace with its slender
+lance. The sweet flag wafted towards them its humble fragrance and the
+water plantain unrolled about them its filaments of lace on the margin
+of the sleeping waters which the willow-herb starred with its purple
+flowers.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+     Wherein we shall see what happened to George of Blanchelande
+     because he approached the lake in which the nixies dwel
+
+Honey-Bee crossed the sand between two clumps of willows, and the little
+spirit of the place leaped into the water in front of her, leaving
+circles that grew greater and greater and finally vanished. This spirit
+was a little green frog with a white belly. All was silent; a fresh
+breeze swept over the clear lake whose every ripple had the gracious
+curve of a smile.
+
+"This lake is pretty," said Honey-Bee, "but my feet are bleeding in
+my little torn shoes, and I am very hungry. I wish I were back in the
+castle."
+
+"Little sister," said George, "sit down on the grass. I will wrap your
+feet in leaves to cool them; then I will go in search of supper for you.
+High up along the road I saw some ripe blackberries. I will fetch you
+the sweetest and best in my hat. Give me your handkerchief; I will fill
+it with strawberries, for there are strawberries near here along the
+footpath under the shade of the trees. And I will fill my pockets with
+nuts."
+
+He made a bed of moss for Honey-Bee under a willow on the edge of the
+lake, and then he left her.
+
+Honey-Bee lay with folded hands on her little mossy bed and watched the
+light of the first stars tremble in the pale sky; then her eyes half
+closed, and yet it seemed to her as if overhead she saw a little dwarf
+mounted on a raven. It was not fancy. For having reined in the black
+bird who was gnawing at the bridle, the dwarf stopped just above the
+young girl and stared down at her with his round eyes. Whereupon he
+disappeared at full gallop. All this Honey-Bee saw vaguely and then she
+fell asleep.
+
+She was still asleep when George returned with the fruit he had
+gathered, which he placed at her side. Then he climbed down to the lake
+while he waited for her to awaken. The lake slept under its delicate
+crown of verdure. A light mist swept softly over the waters. Suddenly
+the moon appeared between the branches, and then the waves were strewn
+as if with countless stars.
+
+But George could see that the lights which irradiated the waters were
+not all the broken reflections of the moon, for blue flames advanced in
+circles, swaying and undulating as if in a dance. Soon he saw that the
+blue flames flickered over the white faces of women, beautiful faces
+rising on the crests of the waves and crowned with sea-weeds and
+sea-shells, with sea-green tresses floating over their shoulders and
+veils flowing from under their breasts that shimmered with pearls. The
+child recognised the nixies and tried to flee. But already their cold
+white arms had seized him, and in spite of his struggles and cries he
+was borne across the waters along the galleries of porphyry and crystal.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+     Wherein we shall see how Honey-Bee was taken to the dwarfs
+
+The moon had risen over the lake and the water now only showed broken
+reflections of its disc. Honey-Bee still slept. The dwarf who had
+watched her came back again on his raven followed this time by a crowd
+of little men. They were very little men. Their white beards hung down
+to their knees. They looked like old men with the figures of children.
+By their leathern aprons and the hammers which hung from their belts one
+could see that they were workers in metals. They had a curious gait,
+for they leaped to amazing heights and turned the most extraordinary
+somersaults, and showed the most inconceivable agility that made them
+seem more like spirits than human beings.
+
+Yet while cutting their most foolhardy capers they preserved an
+unalterable gravity of demeanour, to such a degree that it was quite
+impossible to make out their real characters.
+
+They placed themselves in a circle about the sleeping child.
+
+"Now then," said the smallest of the dwarfs from the heights of his
+plumed charger; "now then, did I deceive you when I said that the
+loveliest of princesses was lying asleep on the borders of the lake, and
+do you not thank me for bringing you here?"
+
+"We thank you, Bob," replied one of the dwarfs who looked like an
+elderly poet, "indeed there is nothing lovelier in the world than
+this young damsel. She is more rosy than the dawn which rises on the
+mountains, and the gold we forge is not so bright as the gold of her
+tresses."
+
+"Very good, Pic, nothing can be truer," cried the dwarfs, "but what
+shall we do with this lovely little lady?"
+
+Pic, who looked like a very elderly poet, did not reply to this
+question, probably because he knew no better than they what to do with
+this pretty lady.
+
+"Let us build a large cage and put her in," a dwarf by the name of Rug
+suggested.
+
+Against this another dwarf called Dig vehemently protested. It was Dig's
+opinion that only wild beasts were ever put into cages, and there was
+nothing yet to prove that the pretty lady was one of these.
+
+But Rug clung to his idea for the reason possibly that he had no other.
+He defended it with much subtlety. Said he:
+
+"If this person is not savage she will certainly become so as a result
+of the cage, which will be therefore not only useful but indispensable."
+
+This reasoning displeased the dwarfs, and one of them named Tad
+denounced it with much indignation. He was such a good dwarf. He
+proposed to take the beautiful child back to her kindred who must be
+great nobles.
+
+But this advice was rejected as being contrary to the custom of the
+dwarfs.
+
+"We ought to follow the ways of justice not custom," said Tad.
+
+But no one paid any further attention to him and the assembly broke into
+a tumult as a dwarf named Pau, a simple soul but just, gave his advice
+in these terms:
+
+"We must begin by awakening this young lady, seeing she declines to
+awake of herself; if she spends the night here her eyelids will be
+swollen to-morrow and her beauty will be much impaired, for it is very
+unhealthy to sleep in a wood on the borders of a lake."
+
+This opinion met with general approval as it did not clash with any
+other.
+
+Pic, who looked like an elderly poet burdened with care, approached the
+young girl and looked at her very intently, under the impression that a
+single one of his glances would be quite sufficient to rouse the dreamer
+out of the deepest sleep. But Pic was quite mistaken as to the power of
+his glance, for Honey-Bee continued to sleep with folded hands.
+
+Seeing this the good Tad pulled her gently by her sleeve. Thereupon she
+partly opened her eyes and raised herself on her elbow. When she found
+herself lying on a bed of moss surrounded by dwarfs she thought what she
+saw was nothing but a dream, and she rubbed her eyes to open them, so
+that instead of this fantastic vision she should see the pure light of
+morning as it entered her little blue room in which she thought she was.
+For her mind, heavy with sleep, did not recall to her the adventure of
+the lake. But indeed, it was useless to rub her eyes, the dwarfs did not
+vanish, and so she was obliged to believe that they were real.
+
+Then she looked about with frightened eyes and saw the forest and
+remembered.
+
+"George! my brother George!" she cried in anguish. The dwarfs crowded
+about her, and for fear of seeing them she hid her face in her hands.
+
+"George! George! Where is my brother George?" she sobbed.
+
+The dwarfs could not tell her, for the good reason that they did not
+know. And she wept hot tears and cried aloud for her mother and brother.
+
+Pau longed to weep with her, and in his efforts to console, he addressed
+her with rather vague remarks.
+
+"Do not distress yourself so much," he urged, "it would be a pity for
+so lovely a young damsel to spoil her eyes with weeping. Rather tell
+us your story, which cannot fail to be very amusing. We should be so
+pleased."
+
+She did not listen. She rose and tried to escape. But her bare and
+swollen feet caused her such pain that she fell on her knees, sobbing
+most pitifully. Tad held her in his arms, and Pau tenderly kissed her
+hand. It was this that gave her the courage to look at them, and she saw
+that they seemed full of compassion.
+
+Pic looked to her like one inspired, and yet very innocent, and
+perceiving that all these little men were full of compassion for her,
+she said:
+
+"Little men, it is a pity you are so ugly; but I will love you all the
+same if you will only give me something to eat, for I am so hungry."
+
+"Bob," all the dwarfs cried at once, "go and fetch some supper."
+
+And Bob flew off on his raven. All the same, the dwarfs resented this
+small girl's injustice in finding them ugly. Rug was very angry. Pic
+said to himself, "She is only a child, and she does not see the light
+of genius which shines in my eyes, and which gives them the power which
+crushes as well as the grace which charms."
+
+As for Pau, he thought to himself: "Perhaps it would have been better
+if I had not awakened this young lady who finds us ugly." But Tad said
+smiling:
+
+"You will find us less ugly, dear young lady, when you love us more."
+
+As he spoke Bob re-appeared on his raven. He held a dish of gold on
+which were a roast pheasant, an oatmeal cake, and a bottle of claret. He
+cut innumerable capers as he laid this supper at the feet of Honey-Bee.
+
+"Little men," Honey-Bee said as she ate, "your supper is very good. My
+name is Honey-Bee; let us go in search of my brother, and then we
+will all go together to Clarides where mama is waiting for us in great
+anxiety."
+
+But Dig, who was a kind dwarf, represented to Honey-Bee that she was not
+able to walk; that her brother was big enough to find his own way;
+that no misfortune could come to him in a country in which all the wild
+beasts had been destroyed.
+
+"We will make a litter," he added, "and cover it with leaves and moss,
+and we will put you on it, and in this way we will carry you to the
+mountain and present you to the King of the Dwarfs, according to the
+custom of our people."
+
+All the dwarfs applauded. Honey-Bee looked at her aching feet and
+remained silent. She was glad to learn that there were no wild beasts
+in the country. And on the whole she was willing to trust herself to the
+kindness of the dwarfs.
+
+They were already busy constructing the litter. Those with hatchets were
+felling two young fir trees with resounding blows. This brought back to
+Rug his original suggestion.
+
+"If instead of a litter we made a cage," he urged.
+
+But he aroused a unanimous protest. Tad looked at him scornfully.
+
+"You are more like a human being than a dwarf, Rug," he said. "But at
+least it is to the honour of our race that the most wicked dwarf is also
+the most stupid."
+
+In the meantime the task had been accomplished. The dwarfs leaped into
+the air and in a bound seized and cut the branches, out of which they
+deftly wove a basket chair. Having covered it with moss and leaves, they
+placed Honey-Bee upon it, then they seized the two poles, placed them on
+their shoulders and, then! off they went to the mountain.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+     In which we are faithfully told how King Loc received Honey-
+     Bee of Clarides
+
+They climbed a winding path along the wooded slope of the hill. Here and
+there granite boulders, bare and blasted, broke through the grey verdure
+of the dwarf oaks, and the sombre purple mountain with its bluish
+ravines formed an impassable barrier about the desolate landscape.
+
+The procession, preceded by Bob on his feathered steed, passed through
+a chasm overgrown with brambles. Honey-Bee, with her golden hair flowing
+over her shoulders, looked like the dawn breaking on the mountains,
+supposing, of course, that the dawn was ever frightened and called her
+mother and tried to escape, for all these things she did as she caught
+a confused glimpse of dwarfs, armed to the teeth, lying in ambush along
+the windings of the rocks.
+
+With bows bent or lance at rest they stood immovable. Their tunics of
+wild beast skins and their long knives that hung from their belts gave
+them a most terrible appearance. Game, furred and feathered, lay beside
+them. And yet these huntsmen, to judge only by their faces, did not
+seem very grim; on the contrary, they appeared gentle and grave like the
+dwarfs of the forest, whom they greatly resembled.
+
+In their midst stood a dwarf full of majesty. He wore a cock feather
+over his ear, and on his head a diadem set with enormous gems. His
+mantle raised at the shoulder disclosed a muscular arm covered with
+circlets of gold. A horn of ivory and chased silver hung from his belt.
+His left hand rested on his lance in an attitude of quiet strength, and
+his right he held over his eyes so as to look towards Honey-Bee and the
+light.
+
+"King Loc," said the forest dwarfs, "we have brought you the beautiful
+child we have found; her name is Honey-Bee."
+
+"You have done well," said King Loc. "She shall live amongst us
+according to the custom of the dwarfs."
+
+"Honey-Bee," he said, approaching her, "you are welcome." He spoke very
+gently, for he already felt very kindly towards her. He lifted himself
+on the tips of his toes to kiss her hand that hung at her side, and he
+assured her not only that he would do her no harm, but that he would try
+to gratify all her wishes, even should she long for necklaces, mirrors,
+stuffs from Cashmere and silks from China.
+
+"I wish I had some shoes," replied Honey-Bee. Upon which King Loc struck
+his lance against a bronze disc that hung on the surface of the rock,
+and instantly something bounded like a ball out of the depths of
+the cavern. Increasing in size it disclosed the face of a dwarf with
+features such as painters give to the illustrious Belisarius, but his
+leather apron proclaimed that he was a shoemaker. He was indeed the
+chief of the shoemakers.
+
+"True," said the king, "choose the softest leather out of our
+store-houses, take cloth-of-gold and silver, ask the guardian of my
+treasures for a thousand pearls of the finest water, and with this
+leather, these fabrics, and these pearls create a pair of shoes for the
+lady Honey-Bee."
+
+At these words True threw himself at the feet of Honey-Bee and measured
+them with great care.
+
+"Little King Loc," said Honey-Bee, "I want the pretty shoes you promised
+at once, because as soon as I have them I must return to Clarides to my
+mother." "You shall have the shoes," King Loc replied; "you shall have
+them to walk about the mountain, but not to return to Clarides, for
+never again shall you leave this kingdom, where we will teach you
+wonderful secrets still unknown on earth. The dwarfs are superior to
+men, and it is your good fortune that you are made welcome amongst
+them."
+
+"It is my misfortune," replied Honey-Bee. "Little King Loc, give me a
+pair of wooden shoes, such as the peasants wear, and let me return to
+Clarides."
+
+But King Loc made a sign with his head to signify that this was
+impossible. Then Honey-Bee clasped her hands and said, coaxingly:
+
+"Little King Loc, let me go and I will love you very much."
+
+"You will forget me in your shining world."
+
+"Little King Loc, I will never forget you, and I will love you as much
+as I love Flying Wind."
+
+"And who is Flying Wind?"
+
+"It is my milk-white steed, and he has rose-coloured reins and he eats
+out of my hand. When he was very little Francoeur the squire used to
+bring him to my room every morning and I kissed him. But now Francceur
+is in Rome, and Flying Wind is too big to mount the stairs."
+
+King Loc smiled.
+
+"Will you love me more than Flying Wind?"
+
+"Indeed I would," said Honey-Bee.
+
+"Well said," cried the King.
+
+"Indeed I would, but I cannot, I hate you, little King Loc, because you
+will not let me see my mother and George again."
+
+"Who is George?"
+
+"George is George and I love him."
+
+The friendship of King Loc for Honey-Bee had increased prodigiously in a
+few minutes, and as he had already made up his mind to marry her as soon
+as she was of age, and hoped through her to reconcile men and dwarfs, he
+feared that later on George might become his rival and wreck his plans.
+It was because of this that he turned away frowning, his head bowed as
+if with care.
+
+Honey-Bee seeing that she had offended him pulled him gently by his
+mantle.
+
+"Little King Loc," she said, in a voice both tender and sad, "why should
+we make each other unhappy, you and I?"
+
+"It is in the nature of things," replied King Loc. "I cannot take you
+back to your mother, but I will send her a dream which will tell her
+your fate, dear Honey-Bee, and that will comfort her."
+
+"Little King Loc," and Honey-Bee smiled through her tears, "what a good
+idea, but I will tell you just what you ought to do. You must send my
+mother a dream every night in which she will see me, and every night you
+must send me a dream in which I shall see her."
+
+And King Loc promised, and so said, so done. Every night Honey-Bee
+saw her mother, and every night the Duchess saw her daughter, and that
+satisfied their love just a little.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+     In which the marvels of the kingdom of the dwarfs are
+     accurately described as well as the dolls that were given to
+     Honey-Bee
+
+The kingdom of the dwarfs was very deep and extended under the greater
+part of the earth. Though one only caught a glimpse of the sky here
+and there through the clefts in the rocks, the roads, the avenues, the
+palaces and the galleries of this subterraneous region were not plunged
+in absolute darkness. Only a few spaces and caverns were lost in
+obscurity. The rest was illumined not by lamps or torches but by stars
+or meteors which diffused a strange and fantastic light, and this light
+revealed the most astonishing marvels. One saw stupendous edifices hewn
+out of the solid rocks, and in some places, palaces cut out of granite,
+of such height that their tracery of stone was lost under the arches of
+this gigantic cavern in a haze across which fell the orange glimmer of
+little stars less lustrous than the moon.
+
+There were fortresses in this kingdom, of the most crushing and
+formidable dimensions; an amphitheatre in which the stone seats formed
+a half-circle whose extent it was impossible to measure at a single
+glance, and vast wells with sculptured sides, in which one could descend
+forever and yet never reach the bottom. All these structures, so out of
+proportion it would seem to the size of the inhabitants, were quite in
+keeping with their curious and fantastic genius.
+
+Dwarfs in pointed hoods pricked with fern leaves whirled about these
+edifices in the airiest fashion. It was common to see them leap up to
+the height of two or three storeys from the lava pavement and rebound
+like balls, their faces meanwhile preserving that impressive dignity
+with which sculptors endow the great men of antiquity.
+
+No one was idle and all worked zealously. Entire districts echoed to
+the sound of hammers. The shrill discord of machinery broke against the
+arches of the cavern, and it was a curious sight to see the crowds of
+miners, blacksmiths, gold-beaters, jewellers, diamond polishers handle
+pickaxes, hammers, pincers and files with the dexterity of monkeys.
+However there was a more peaceful region.
+
+Here coarse and powerful figures and shapeless columns loomed in chaotic
+confusion, hewn out of the virgin rock, and seemed to date back to
+an immemorial antiquity. Here a palace with low portals extended its
+ponderous expanse; it was the palace of King Loc.
+
+Directly opposite was the house of Honey-Bee, a house or rather a
+cottage of one room all hung with white muslin. The furniture of
+pine-wood perfumed the room. A glimpse of daylight penetrated through a
+crevice in the rock, and on fine nights one could see the stars.
+
+Honey-Bee had no special attendants, for all the dwarf people were eager
+to serve her and to anticipate all her wishes except the single one to
+return to earth.
+
+The most erudite dwarfs, familiar with the pro-foundest secrets, were
+glad to teach her, not from books, for dwarfs do not write, but by
+showing her all the plants of mountains and plains, all the diverse
+species of animals, and all the varied gems that are extracted from the
+bosom of the earth. And it was by means of such sights and marvels that
+they taught her, with an innocent gaiety, the wonders of nature and the
+processes of the arts.
+
+They made her playthings such as the richest children on earth never
+have; for these dwarfs were always industrious and invented wonderful
+machinery. In this way they produced for her dolls that could move with
+exquisite grace, and express themselves according to the strictest rules
+of poetry. Placed on the stage of a little theatre, the scenery of which
+represented the shores of the sea, the blue sky, palaces and temples,
+they would portray the most interesting events. Though no taller than
+a man's arm some of them represented respectable old men, others men in
+the prime of life, and, others still, beautiful young girls dressed in
+white.
+
+Among them also were mothers pressing their innocent children to their
+hearts. And these eloquent dolls acted as if they were really moved by
+hate, love and ambition. They passed with the greatest skill from joy
+to sorrow and they imitated nature so well that they could move one to
+laughter or to tears. Honey-Bee clapped her hands at the sight. She had
+a horror of the dolls who tried to be tyrants. On the other hand she
+felt a boundless compassion for a doll who had once been a princess, and
+who, now a captive widow, had no other resource alas, by which to save
+her child, than to marry the barbarian who had made her a widow.
+
+Honey-Bee never tired of this game which the dolls could vary
+indefinitely. The dwarfs also gave concerts and taught her to play the
+lute, the viola, the theorbo, the lyre, and various other instruments.
+
+In short she became an excellent musician, and the dramas acted in the
+theatre by the dolls taught her a knowledge of men and life. King Loc
+was always present at the plays and the concerts, but he neither saw
+nor heard anything but Honey-Bee; little by little he had set his whole
+heart upon her. In the meantime months passed and even years sped by
+and Honey-Bee was still among the dwarfs, always amused and yet always
+longing for earth. She grew to be a beautiful girl. Her singular destiny
+had imparted something strange to her appearance, which gave her,
+however, only an added charm.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+     In which the treasures of King Loc are described as well as
+     the writer is able
+
+Six years to a day had passed since Honey-Bee had come to live with the
+dwarfs. King Loc called her into his palace and commanded his treasurer
+to displace a huge stone which seemed cemented into the wall, but which
+in reality was only lightly placed there. All three passed through the
+opening left by the great stone and found themselves in a fissure of
+rock too narrow for two persons to stand abreast. King Loc preceded the
+others along the dim path and Honey-Bee followed him holding to a tip of
+the royal mantle. They walked on for a long time, and at intervals the
+sides of the rocks came so close together that the young girl was seized
+with terror lest she should be unable to advance or recede, and so would
+die there. Before her, along the dark and narrow road floated the mantle
+of King Loc. At last King Loc came to a bronze door which he opened and
+out of which poured a blaze of light.
+
+"Little King Loc," said Honey-Bee, "I had no idea that light could be so
+beautiful!"
+
+And King Loc taking her by the hand led her into the hall out of which
+the light shone.
+
+"See!" he cried.
+
+Honey-Bee, dazzled, could sec nothing, for this immense hall, supported
+by high marble columns, was a glitter of gold from floor to roof.
+
+At the end on a dais made of glittering gems set in gold and silver, the
+steps of which were covered by a carpet of marvellous embroidery, stood
+a throne of ivory and gold under a canopy of translucent enamel, and
+on each side two palm-trees three thousand years old, in gigantic vases
+carved in some bygone time by the greatest artists among the dwarfs.
+King Loc mounted his throne and commanded the young girl to stand at his
+right hand.
+
+"Honey-Bee," said King Loc, "these are my treasures. Choose all that
+will give you pleasure."
+
+Immense gold shields hung from the columns and reflected the sunlight,
+and sent it back in glittering rays; swords and lances crossed had each
+a flame at their point.
+
+Tables along the walls were laden with tankards, flagons, ewers,
+chalices, pyxes, patens, goblets, gold cups, drinking horns of ivory
+with silver rings, enormous bottles of rock crystal, chased gold
+and silver dishes, coffers, reliquaries in the form of churches,
+scent-boxes, mirrors, candelabra and torch-holders equally beautiful in
+material and workmanship, and incense-burners in the shape of monsters.
+And on one table stood a chessboard with chessmen carved out of
+moonstones.
+
+"Choose," King Loc repeated.
+
+But lifting her eyes above these treasures, Honey-Bee saw the blue sky
+through an opening in the roof, and as if she had comprehended that the
+light of day could alone give all these things their splendour, she said
+simply:
+
+"Little King Loc, I want to return to earth."
+
+Whereupon King Loc made a sign to his treasurer who, raising heavy
+tapestries, disclosed an enormous iron-bound coffer covered with plates
+of open ironwork. This coffer being opened out poured thousands of rays
+of different and lovely tints, and each ray seemed to leap out of a
+precious stone most artistically cut. King Loc dipped in his hands
+and there flowed in glittering confusion violet amethysts and virgins'
+stones, emeralds of three kinds, one dark green, another called the
+honey emerald because of its colour, and the third a bluish green,
+also called beryl, which gives happy dreams; oriental topazes, rubies
+beautiful as the blood of heroes, dark blue sapphires, called the
+male sapphire, and the pale blue ones, called the female sapphire, the
+cymophanes, hyacinths, euclases, turquoises, opals whose light is softer
+than the dawn, the aquamarine and the Syrian garnet. All these gems
+were of the purest and most luminous water. And in the midst of these
+coloured fires great diamonds flashed their rays of dazzling white.
+
+"Choose, Honey-Bee," said King Loc. But Honey-Bee shook her head.
+
+"Little King Loc," she said, "I would rather have a single beam of
+sunlight that falls on the roof of Clarides than all these gems."
+
+Then King Loc ordered another coffer to be opened, in which were only
+pearls. But these pearls were round and pure; their changing light
+reflected all the colours of sea and sky, and their radiance was so
+tender that they seemed to express a thought of love.
+
+"Accept these," said King Loc
+
+"Little King Loc," Honey-Bee replied, "these pearls are like the glance
+of George of Blanchelande; I love these pearls, but I love his eyes even
+more."
+
+Hearing these words King Loc turned his head away. However he opened
+a third coffer and showed the young girl a crystal in which a drop of
+water had been imprisoned since the beginning of time; and when the
+crystal was moved the drop of water could be seen to stir. He also
+showed her pieces of yellow amber in which insects more brilliant than
+jewels had been imprisoned for thousands of years. One could distinguish
+their delicate feet and their fine antennae, and they would have resumed
+their flight had some power but shattered like glass their perfumed
+prison.
+
+"These are the great marvels of nature; I give them to you, Honey-Bee."
+
+"Little King Loc," Honey-Bee replied, "keep your amber and your crystal,
+for I should not know how to give their freedom either to the fly or the
+drop of water."
+
+King Loc watched her in silence for some time. Then he said, "Honey-Bee,
+the most beautiful treasures will be safe in your keeping. You will
+possess them and they will not possess you. The miser is the prey of his
+gold, only those who despise wealth can be rich without danger; their
+souls will always be greater than their riches."
+
+Having uttered these words he made a sign to his treasurer who presented
+on a cushion a crown of gold to the young girl.
+
+"Accept this jewel as a sign of our regard for you," said King Loc.
+"Henceforth you shall be called the Princess of the Dwarfs."
+
+And he himself placed the crown on the head of Honcy-Bee.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+     In which King Loc declares himself
+
+The dwarfs celebrated the crowning of their first princess by joyous
+revels. Harmless and innocent games succeeded each other in the huge
+amphitheatre; and the little men, with cockades of fern or two oak
+leaves fastened coquettishly to their hoods, bounded gaily across the
+subterranean streets. The rejoicings lasted thirty days. During
+the universal excitement Pic looked like a mortal inspired; Tad the
+kind-hearted was intoxicated by the universal joy; Dig the tender gave
+expression to his delight in tears; Rug, in his ecstasy, again demanded
+that Honey-Bee should be put in a cage, but this time so that the dwarfs
+need not be afraid to lose so charming a princess; Bob, mounted on his
+raven, filled the air with such cries of rapture that the sable bird,
+infected by the gaiety, gave vent to innumerable playful little croaks.
+
+Only King Loc was sad.
+
+On the thirtieth day, having given the princess and the dwarf people
+a festival of unparalleled magnificence, he mounted his throne, and so
+stood that his kind face just reached her car.
+
+"My Princess Honcy-Bee," he said, "I am about to make a request which
+you are at liberty either to accept or to refuse. Honey-Bee of Clarides,
+Princess of the Dwarfs, will you be my wife?"
+
+As he spoke, King Loc, grave and tender, had something of the gentle
+beauty of a majestic poodle.
+
+"Little King Loc," Honey-Bee replied, as she pulled his beard, "I am
+willing to become your wife for fun, but never your wife for good. The
+moment you asked me to marry you I was reminded of Francoeur, who when
+I was on earth used to amuse me by telling me the most ridiculous
+stories."
+
+At these words King Loc turned his head away, but not so soon but that
+Honey-Bee saw the tears in his eyes. Then Honey-Bee was grieved because
+she had pained him.
+
+"Little King Loc," she said to him, "I love you for the little King Loc
+you are; and if you make me laugh as Francoeur did, there is nothing
+in that to vex you, for Francoeur sang well and he would have been very
+handsome if it had not been for his grey hair and his red nose."
+
+"Honey-Bee of Clarides, Princess of the Dwarfs," the king replied, "I
+love you in the hope that some day you will love me. And yet without
+that hope I should love you just the same. The only return I ask for my
+friendship is that you will always be honest with me."
+
+"Little King Loc, I promise."
+
+"Well then, tell me truly, Honey-Bee, do you love some one else enough
+to marry him?"
+
+"Little King Loc, I love no one enough for that."
+
+Whereupon King Loc smiled, and seizing his golden cup he proposed, with
+a resounding voice, the health of the Princess of the Dwarfs. An immense
+uproar rose from the depths of the earth, for the banquet table reached
+from one end to the other of the Empire of the Dwarfs.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+     In which we are told how Honey-Bee saw her mother again, but
+     could not embrace her
+
+Honey-Bee, a crown on her head, was now more often sad and lost in
+thought than when her hair flowed loose over her shoulders, and when
+she went laughing to the forge and pulled the beards of her good friends
+Pic, Tad and Dig, whose faces, red from the reflected flames, gave her a
+gay welcome. But now these good dwarfs, who had once danced her on their
+knees and called her Honey-Bee, bowed as she passed and maintained a
+respectful silence. She grieved because she was no longer a child, and
+she suffered because she was the Princess of the Dwarfs.
+
+It was no longer a pleasure for her to see King Loc, since she had seen
+him weep because of her. But she loved him, for he was good and unhappy.
+One day, if one may say that there are days in the empire of the dwarfs,
+she took King Loc by the hand and drew him under the cleft in the rock,
+through which a sunbeam shone, along whose rays there danced a haze of
+golden dust.
+
+"Little King Loc," she said, "I suffer. You are a king and you love me
+and I suffer."
+
+Hearing these words from the pretty damsel, King Loc replied:
+
+"I love you, Honey-Bee of Clarides, Princess of the Dwarfs; and that
+is why I have held you captive in our world, in order to teach you our
+secrets, which are greater and more wonderful than all those you could
+learn on earth amongst men, for men are less skilful and less learned
+than the dwarfs."
+
+"Yes," said Honey-Bee, "but they are more like me than the dwarfs,
+and for that reason I love them better. Little King Loc, let me see my
+mother again if you do not wish me to die."
+
+Without replying King Loc went away. Honey-Bee, desolate and alone,
+watched the ray of light which bathes the whole face of nature and
+which enfolds all the living, even to the beggars by the wayside, in its
+resplendent waves. Slowly this ray paled, and its golden radiance faded
+to a pale blue light. Night had come upon earth. A star twinkled over
+the cleft in the rock.
+
+Then some one gently touched her on the shoulder, and she saw King Loc
+wrapped in a black cloak. He had another cloak on his arm with which he
+covered the young girl.
+
+"Come," said he.
+
+And he led her out of the under-world. When she saw again the trees
+stirred by the wind, the clouds that floated across the moon, the
+splendour of the night so fresh and blue, when she breathed again the
+fragrance of the herbage, and when the air she had breathed in childhood
+again entered her breast in floods, she gave a great sigh and thought to
+die of joy.
+
+King Loc had taken her in his arms; small though he was, he carried
+her as lightly as a feather, and they glided over the ground like the
+shadows of two birds.
+
+"You shall see your mother again, Honey-Bee. But listen! You know
+that every night I send her your image. Every night she sees your
+dear phantom; she smiles upon it, she talks to it and she caresses it.
+To-night she shall, instead, see you yourself. You will see her, but
+you must not touch her, you must not speak to her, or the charm will be
+broken and she will never again see you nor your image, which she does
+not distinguish from you."
+
+"Then I will be prudent, alas! little King Loc!... See! See!..."
+
+Sure enough the watch-tower of Clarides rose black on the hill.
+Honey-Bee had hardly time to throw a kiss to the beloved old stone walls
+when the ramparts of the town of Clarides, overgrown with gillyflowers
+already flew past; already she was ascending the terrace, where the
+glow-worms glimmer in the grass, to the postern, which King Loc easily
+opened, for the dwarfs are masters of metals, nor can locks, padlocks,
+bolts, chains or bars ever stop them.
+
+She climbed the winding stairs that led to her mother's room, and she
+paused to clasp her beating heart with both her hands. Softly the door
+opened, and by the light of a night lamp that hung from the ceiling she
+saw her mother in the holy silence that reigned, her mother frailer and
+paler, with hair grey at the temples, but in the eyes of her daughter
+more beautiful even than in past days as she remembered her riding
+fearlessly in magnificent attire. As usual the mother beheld her
+daughter as in a dream, and she opened her arms as if to caress her. And
+the child, laughing and sobbing, was about to throw herself into those
+open arms; but King Loc tore her away, and like a wisp of straw he bore
+her through the blue landscape to the Kingdom of the Dwarfs.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+     In which we shall see how King Loc suffered
+
+Seated on the granite step of the underground palace, Honey-Bee watched
+the blue sky through the cleft in the rock, I and saw the elder-trees
+turn their spreading white parasols to the light. She began to weep.
+
+"Honey-Bee," said King Loc as he took her hand in his, "why do you weep,
+and what is it you desire?" And as she had been grieving these many
+days, the dwarfs at her feet tried to cheer her with simple airs on the
+flute, the flageolet, the rebeck, and the cymbals. And other dwarfs, to
+amuse her, turned such somersaults one after the other that they pricked
+the grass with the points of their hoods with their cockades of leaves,
+and nothing could be more charming than to watch the capers of these
+tiny men with their venerable beards. Tad so kind and Dig so wise, who
+had loved her since the day they had found her asleep on the shore of
+the lake, and Pic, the elderly poet, gently took her arm and implored
+her to tell them the cause of her grief. Pau, a simple just soul,
+offered her a basket of grapes, and all of them gently pulled the edge
+of her skirt and said with King Loc:
+
+"Honey-Bee, Princess of the Dwarfs, why do you weep?"
+
+"Little King Loc," Honey-Bee replied, "and you, little men, my grief
+only increases your love, because you are good; you weep with me. Know
+that I weep when I think of George of Blanchelande, who should now be a
+cavalier, but whom I shall never see again. I love him and I wish to be
+his wife."
+
+King Loc took his hand away from the hand he had pressed.
+
+"Honey-Bee," he said, "why did you deceive me when you told me at the
+banquet that you loved no one else?"
+
+"Little King Loc," Honey-Bee replied, "I did not deceive you at the
+banquet. At that time I had no desire to marry George of Blanchelande,
+but to-day it is my dearest wish that he should ask to marry me. But he
+will never ask me, as I do not know where he now is, nor does he know
+where I am. And this is the reason I weep."
+
+At these words the musicians ceased playing; the acrobats interrupted
+their tumbling and stood immovable, some on their heads and some
+on their haunches; Tad and Dig shed silent tears on the sleeve of
+Honey-Bee; Pau, simple soul, dropped his basket of grapes, and all the
+little men gave vent to the most fearful groans.
+
+But King Loc, more unhappy than all under his splendid jewelled crown,
+silently withdrew, his mantle trailing behind him like a purple torrent.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+     In which an account is given of the learned Nur who was the
+     cause of such extraordinary joy to King Loc
+
+King Loc did not permit the young girl to observe his weakness; but when
+he was alone he sat on the ground and with his feet in his hands gave
+way to grief. He was jealous. "She loves him," he said to himself, "and
+she does not love me! And yet I am a king and very wise; great treasures
+are mine and I know the most marvellous secrets. I am superior to all
+other dwarfs, who are in turn superior to all men. She does not love
+me but she loves a young man who not only has not the learning of the
+dwarfs, but no other learning either.
+
+"It must be acknowledged that she does not appreciate merit--nor has she
+much sense. I ought to laugh at her want of judgment; but I love her and
+I care for nothing in the world because she does not love me."
+
+For many long days King Loc roamed alone through the most desolate
+mountain passes, turning over in his mind thoughts both sad and,
+sometimes, wicked. He even thought of trying by imprisonment and
+starvation to force Honey-Bee to become his wife. But rejecting this
+plan as soon as formed he decided to go in search of her and throw
+himself at her feet. But he could come to no decision, and at last he
+was quite at a loss what to do. The truth being that whether Honey-Bee
+would love him did not depend on him.
+
+Suddenly his anger turned against George of Blanchelande; and he hoped
+that the young man had been carried far away by some enchanter, and that
+at any rate, should he ever hear of Honey-Bee's love, he would disdain
+it.
+
+"Without being old," the king meditated, "I have already lived too long
+not to have suffered sometimes. And yet my sufferings, intense though
+they were, were less painful than those of which I am conscious to-day.
+With the tenderness and pity which caused them was mingled something
+of their own divine sweetness. Now, on the contrary, my grief has the
+baseness and bitterness of an evil desire. My soul is desolate and the
+tears in my eyes are like an acid that burns them."
+
+So thought King Loc. And fearing that jealousy might make him unjust
+and wicked he avoided meeting the young girl, for fear that in spite of
+himself, he might use towards her the language of a man either weak or
+brutal.
+
+One day when he was more than ever tormented by the thought that
+Honey-Bec loved George, he decided to consult Nur, the most learned
+of all the dwarfs, who lived at the bottom of a well deep down in the
+bowels of the earth.
+
+This well had the advantage of an even and soft temperature. It was
+not dark, for two little stars, a pale sun and a red moon, alternately
+illumined all parts. King Loc descended into the well and found Nur in
+his laboratory. Nur looked like a kind little old man, and he wore a
+sprig of wild thyme in his hood. In spite of his learning he had the
+innocence and candour characteristic of his race.
+
+"Nur," said the king as he embraced him, "I have come to consult you
+because you know many things."
+
+"King Loc," replied Nur, "I might know a good deal and yet be an idiot.
+But I possess the knowledge of how to learn some of the innumerable
+things I do not know, and that is the reason I am so justly famous for
+my learning."
+
+"Well, then," said King Loc, "can you tell me the whereabouts at present
+of a young man by the name of George of Blanchelande?"
+
+"I do not know and I never cared to know," replied Nur. "Knowing as I
+do the ignorance, stupidity and wickedness of mankind, I don't trouble
+myself as to what they say or do. Humanity, King Loc, would be entirely
+deplorable and ridiculous if it were not that something of value is
+given to this proud and miserable race, inasmuch as the men are endowed
+with courage, the women with beauty, and the little children with
+innocence. Obliged by necessity, as are also the dwarfs, to toil,
+mankind has rebelled against this divine law, and instead of being, like
+ourselves, willing and cheerful toilers, they prefer war to work, and
+they would rather kill each other than help each other. But to be just
+one must admit that their shortness of life is the principal cause of
+their ignorance and cruelty. Their life is too short for them to learn
+how to live. The race of the dwarfs who dwell under the earth is happier
+and better. If we are not immortal we shall at least last as long as
+the earth which bears us in her bosom, and which permeates us with her
+intimate and fruitful warmth, while for the races born on her rugged
+surface she has only the turbulent winds which sometimes scorch and
+sometimes freeze, and whose breath is at once the bearer of death and
+of life. And yet men owe to their overwhelming miseries and wickedness
+a virtue which makes the souls of some amongst them more beautiful than
+the souls of dwarfs. And this virtue, O King Loc, which for the mind is
+what the soft radiance of pearls is for the eyes, is pity. It is taught
+by suffering, and the dwarfs know it but little, because being wiser
+than men they escape much anguish. Yet sometimes the dwarfs leave their
+deep grottoes and seek the pitiless surface of the earth to mingle with
+men so as to love them, to suffer with them and through them, and thus
+to feel this pity which refreshes the soul like a heavenly dew. This
+is the truth concerning men, King Loc. But did you not ask me as to the
+exact fate of some one amongst them?"
+
+King Loc having repeated his question, Nur looked into one of the many
+telescopes which filled the room. For the dwarfs have no books, those
+which are found amongst them have come from men, and are only used as
+playthings. They do not learn as we do by consulting marks on paper,
+but they look through telescopes and see the subject itself of their
+inquiry. The only difficulty is to choose the right telescope and get
+the right focus.
+
+There are telescopes of crystal, of topaz and of opal; but those whose
+lens is a great polished diamond are more powerful, and permit them to
+see the most distant objects.
+
+The dwarfs also have lenses of a translucent substance unknown to men.
+These enable the sight to pass through rocks and walls as if they were
+glass. Others, more remarkable still, reconstruct as accurately as a
+mirror all that has vanished with the flight of time. For the dwarfs, in
+the depths of their caverns, have the power to recall from the infinite
+surface of the ether the light of immemorial days and the forms and
+colours of vanished times. They can create for themselves a phantasm
+of the past by re-arranging the splinters of light which were once
+shattered against the forms of men, animals, plants and rocks, so that
+they again flash across the centuries through the unfathomable ether.
+
+The venerable Nur excelled in discovering figures of antiquity and even
+such, inconceivable though it may seem, as lived before the earth
+had assumed the shape with which we are familiar. So it was really no
+trouble at all for him to find George of Blanchelande.
+
+Having looked for a moment through a very ordinary telescope indeed, he
+said to King Loc:
+
+"King Loc, he for whom you search is with the nixies in their palace of
+crystal, from which none ever return, and whose iridescent walls adjoin
+your kingdom."
+
+"Is he there?" cried the king, "Let him stay!" and he rubbed his hands.
+"I wish him joy."
+
+And having embraced the venerable dwarf, he emerged out of the well
+roaring with laughter.
+
+The whole length of the road he held his sides so as to laugh at his
+ease; his head shook, and his beard swung backwards and forwards on his
+stomach. How he laughed! The little men who met him laughed out of sheer
+sympathy. Seeing them laugh made others laugh. A contagion of laughter
+spread from place to place until the whole interior of the earth was
+shaken as if with a mighty and jovial hiccough. Ha! ha! ha!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+     Which tells of the wonderful adventure of George of
+     Blanchelande
+
+King Loc did not laugh long; indeed he hid the face of a very unhappy
+little man under the bed-clothes.
+
+He lay awake all night long thinking of George of Blanchelande, the
+prisoner of the nixies.
+
+So about the hour when such of the dwarfs as have a dairymaid for
+sweetheart go in her stead to milk the cows while she sleeps in her
+white bed with folded hands, little King Loc again sought the astute Nur
+in the depths of his well.
+
+"You did not tell me, Nur, what he is doing down there with the nixies?"
+
+The venerable Nur was quite convinced that the king was mad, though that
+did not alarm him because he knew if King Loc should lose his reason
+he would be a most gracious, charming, amiable and kindly lunatic. The
+madness of the dwarfs is gentle like their reason, and full of the most
+delicious fancies. But King Loc was not mad; at least not more so than
+lovers usually are.
+
+"I wish to speak of George of Blanchelande," he said to the venerable
+Nur, who had forgotten all about this young man as soon as possible.
+
+Thereupon Nur the wise placed a series of lenses and mirrors before
+the king in an order so exact that it looked like disorder, but
+which enabled him to show the king in a mirror the form of George of
+Blanchelande as he was when the nixies carried him away. By a lucky
+choice and a skilful adjustment of instruments the dwarf was able to
+reproduce for the love-sick king all the adventures of the son of that
+Countess to whom a white rose announced her end. And the following,
+expressed in words, is what the little man saw in all the reality of
+form and colour.
+
+When George was borne away in the icy arms of the daughters of the lake
+the water pressed upon his eyes and his breast and he felt that he was
+about to die. And yet he heard songs that sounded like a caress and his
+whole being was permeated by a sense of delicious freshness. When
+he opened his eyes he found himself in a grotto whose crystal columns
+reflected the delicate tints of the rainbow. At the end of the grotto
+was a great sea shell of mother-of-pearl iridescent with the tenderest
+colours, and this served as a dais to the throne of coral and seaweed
+of the Queen of the Nixies. But the face of the Sovereign of the waters
+shone with a light more tender than either the mother-of-pearl or the
+crystal. She smiled at the child which her women brought her, and her
+green eyes lingered long upon him.
+
+"Friend," she said at last, "be welcome into our world, in which you
+shall be spared all sorrow. For you neither dry lessons nor rough
+sports; nothing coarse shall remind you of earth and its toil, for you
+only the songs and the dances and the love of the nixies."
+
+And indeed the women of the green hair taught the child music and
+dancing and a thousand graces. They loved to bind his forehead with the
+cockle shells that decked their own tresses. But he, remembering his
+country, gnawed his clenched hands with impatience.
+
+Years passed and George longed with a passion unceasing to see the earth
+again, the rude earth where the sun burns and where the snow hardens,
+the mother earth where one suffers, where one loves, the earth where he
+had seen Honey-Bee, and where he longed to see her again. He had in the
+meantime grown to be a tall lad with a fine golden down on his upper
+lip. Courage came with the beard, and so one day he presented himself
+before the Queen of the Nixies and bowing low, said:
+
+"Madam, I have come, with your gracious permission, to take leave of
+you; I am about to return to Clarides."
+
+"Fair youth," the queen replied smiling, "I cannot grant you the leave
+you ask, for I guard you in my crystal palace, to make of you my lover."
+
+"Madam," he replied, "I am not worthy of so great an honour."
+
+"That is but your courtesy. What gallant cavalier ever believes that he
+has sufficiently deserved his lady's favour. Besides you are still too
+young to know your own worth. Let me tell you, fair youth, that we do
+but desire your welfare; obey your lady and her alone."
+
+"Madam, I love Honey-Bee of Clarides. I will have no other lady but
+her."
+
+"A mortal maid!" the queen cried, turning pale, but more beautiful
+still, "a coarse daughter of men, this Honey-Bee! How can you love such
+a thing?"
+
+"I do not know, but I know that I love her."
+
+"Never mind. It will pass."
+
+And she still held the young man captive by means of the allurements of
+her crystal abode.
+
+He did not comprehend the devious thing called a woman; he was more
+like Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes than Tannhauser in the
+enchanted castle. And that is why he wandered sadly along the walls of
+the mighty palace searching for an outlet through which to escape; but
+he only saw the splendid and silent empire of the waves sealing his
+shining prison. Through the transparent walls he watched the blooming
+sea anemones and the spreading coral, while over the delicate streams of
+the madrepores and the sparkling shells, purple, blue, and gold fishes
+made a glitter of stars with a stroke of their tails. These marvels he
+left unheeded, for, lulled by the delicious songs of the nixies, he
+felt little by little his will broken and his soul grow weak. He was all
+indolence and indifference when one day he found by chance in a gallery
+of the palace, an ancient well-worn book bound in pigskin and studded
+with great copper nail-heads. The book, saved from some wreck in
+mid-ocean, treated of chivalry and fair ladies, and related at great
+length the adventures of heroes who went about the world redressing
+wrongs, protecting widows and succouring orphans for the love of justice
+and in honour of beauty. George flushed and paled with wonder, shame,
+and anger as he read these tales of splendid adventures. He could not
+contain himself.
+
+"I also," he cried, "will be a gallant knight. I also will go about the
+world punishing the wicked and succouring the unfortunate for the good
+of mankind and in the name of my lady Honey-Bee."
+
+With sword drawn and his heart big with valour he dashed across the
+crystal dwellings. The white ladies fled and swooned before him like the
+silver ripples of a lake. Their queen alone beheld his approach without
+a tremor; she turned on him the icy glance of her green eyes.
+
+"Break the enchantment which binds me," he cried, running towards her.
+"Open to me the road to earth. I wish to fight in the light of the
+sun like a cavalier. I wish to return to where one loves, to where one
+suffers, to where one struggles! Give back to me the life that is real
+and the light that is real. Give mc back my prowess! If not, I will kill
+you, you wicked woman!"
+
+With a smile she shook her head as if to refuse. Beautiful she was and
+serene. With all the strength that was in him George struck her; but his
+sword broke against her glittering breast.
+
+"Child!" she said, and she commanded that he be cast into a dungeon
+which formed a kind of crystal tunnel under her palace, and about which
+sharks roamed with wide-stretched monstrous jaws armed with triple rows
+of pointed teeth. At every touch it seemed as if they must crush the
+frail glass wall, which made it impossible to sleep in this strange
+prison.
+
+The extremity of this under-sea tunnel rested on a bed of rock which
+formed the vaulting of the most distant and unexplored cavern in the
+empire of the dwarfs.
+
+And this is what the two little men saw in a single hour and quite as
+accurately as if they had followed George all the days of his life.
+The venerable Nur, having described the dungeon scene in all its tragic
+gloom, addressed the King in much the same way as the Savoyards speak to
+the little children when they show their magic lanterns.
+
+"King Loc," he said, "I have shown you all you wished to see, and now
+that you know all I can add nothing more. It's nothing to me whether
+you liked what you saw; it is enough to know that what you saw was the
+truth. Science neither cares to please nor to displease. She is inhuman.
+It is not science but poetry that charms and consoles. And that is why
+poetry is more necessary than science. Go, King Loc, and get them to
+sing you a song."
+
+And without uttering a word King Loc left the well.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+     In which King Loc undertakes a terrible journey
+
+Having left the well of wisdom, King Loc went to his treasure house and
+out of a casket, of which he alone had the key, he took a ring which
+he placed on his finger. The stone set in the ring emitted a brilliant
+light, for it was a magic stone of whose power we shall learn more
+further on. Thereupon King Loc went to his palace, put on a travelling
+cloak and thick boots and took a stick; then he started on a journey
+across crowded streets, great highways, villages, galleries of porphyry,
+torrents of rock-oil, and crystal grottoes, all of which communicated
+with each other through narrow openings.
+
+He seemed lost in deep meditation and he uttered words that had no
+meaning. But he trudged on doggedly. Mountains obstructed his path
+and he climbed the mountains. Precipices opened under his feet and he
+descended into the precipices; he forded streams, he crossed horrible
+regions black with the fumes of sulphur. He trudged across burning
+lava on which his feet left their imprint; he had the appearance of a
+desperately dogged traveller. He penetrated into gloomy caverns into
+which the water of the ocean oozed drop by drop, and flowed like tears
+along the sea wrack, forming pools on the uneven ground where countless
+crustaceans increased and multiplied into hideous shapes. Enormous
+crabs, crayfish, giant lobsters and sea spiders crackled under the
+dwarfs feet, then crawled away leaving some of their claws behind, and
+in their flight rousing horrible molluscs and octopuses centuries old
+that suddenly writhed their hundred arms and spat fetid poison out of
+their bird-beaks. And yet King Loc went on undaunted. He made his way
+to the ends of these caverns, through the midst of a heaped up chaos of
+shelled monsters armed with spikes, with double saw-edged nippers, with
+claws that crept stealthily up to his neck and bleared eyes on swaying
+tentacles. He crept up the sides of the cavern by clinging to the rough
+surface of the rocks and the mailed monsters crept with him, but he
+never faltered until he recognised by touch a stone that projected from
+the centre of the natural arch. He touched the stone with his magic
+ring and suddenly it rolled away with a horrible crash, and at once a
+glory of light flooded the cavern with its beautiful waves and put to
+flight the swarming monsters bred in its gloom.
+
+As King Loc thrust his head into the opening through which daylight
+poured, he saw George of Blanchelande in his glass dungeon where he was
+lamenting grievously as he thought of Honey-Bee and of earth. For King
+Loc had undertaken this subterranean journey only to deliver the captive
+of the nixies.
+
+But seeing this huge dishevelled head, frowning and bearded, watching
+him from under his tunnel, George believed himself to be menaced by a
+mighty danger and he felt for the sword at his side forgetting that he
+had broken it against the breast of the woman with the green eyes. In
+the meantime King Loc examined him curiously.
+
+"Bah," said he to himself, "it is only a child!" And indeed he was only
+an ignorant child, and it was because of his great ignorance that he had
+escaped from the deadly and delicious kisses of the Queen of the Nixies.
+Aristotle with all his wisdom might not have done so well.
+
+"What do you want, fathead?" George cried, seeing himself defenceless,
+"why harm me if I have never harmed you?"
+
+"Little one," King Loc replied in a voice at once jovial and testy, "you
+do not know whether or not you have harmed me, for you are ignorant of
+effects and causes and reflections, and all philosophy in general. But
+we'll not talk of that. If you don't mind leaving your tunnel, come this
+way."
+
+George at once crept into the cavern, slipped down the length of the
+wall, and as soon as he had reached the bottom he said to his deliverer:
+
+"You are a good little man; I shall love you for ever; but do you know
+where Honey-Bee of Clarides is?"
+
+"I know a great many things," retorted the dwarf, "and especially that I
+don't like people who ask questions."
+
+Hearing this George paused in great confusion and followed his guide in
+silence through the dense black air where the octopuses and crustaceans
+writhed. King Loc said mockingly:
+
+"This is not a carriage road, young prince."
+
+"Sir," George replied, "the road to liberty is always beautiful, and I
+fear not to be led astray when I follow my benefactor."
+
+Little King Loc bit his lips. On reaching the gallery of porphyry
+he pointed out to the youth a flight of steps cut in the rock by the
+dwarfs, by which they ascend to earth.
+
+"This is your way," he said, "farewell."
+
+"Do not bid me farewell," George replied, "say I shall see you again.
+After what you have done my life is yours."
+
+"What I have done," King Loc replied, "I have not done for your sake,
+but for another's. It will be better for us never to meet again, for we
+can never be friends."
+
+"I would not have believed that my deliverance could have caused me such
+pain," George said simply and gravely, "and yet it does. Farewell."
+
+"A pleasant journey," cried King Loc, in a gruff voice.
+
+Now it happened that these steps of the dwarfs adjoined a deserted stone
+quarry less than a mile from the castle of Clarides.
+
+"This young lad," King Loc murmured as he went on his way, "has neither
+the wisdom nor the wealth. Truly I cannot imagine why Honey-Bee loves
+him, unless it is because he is young, handsome, faithful and brave."
+
+As he went back to the town he laughed to himself as a man does who has
+done some one a good turn. As he passed Honey-Bee's cottage he thrust
+his big head into the open window just as he had thrust it into the
+crystal tunnel, and he saw the young girl, who was embroidering a veil
+with silver flowers.
+
+"I wish you joy, Honey-Bee," he cried.
+
+"And you also, little King Loc, seeing you have nothing to wish for and
+nothing to regret."
+
+He had much to wish for, but, indeed, he had nothing to regret. And it
+was probably this which gave him such a good appetite for supper. Having
+eaten a huge number of truffled pheasants he called Bob.
+
+"Bob," said he, "mount your raven; go to the Princess of the Dwarfs and
+tell her that George or Blanchelande, long a captive of the nixies, has
+this day returned to Clarides."
+
+Thus he spoke and Bob flew off on his raven.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+     Which tells of the extraordinary encounter of Jean the
+     master tailor, and of the blessed song the birds in the
+     grove sang to the duchess
+
+When George again found himself on the earth on which he was born, the
+very first person he met was Jean, the master tailor, with a red suit of
+clothes on his arm for the steward of the castle. The good man shrieked
+at sight of his young master.
+
+"Holy St. James," he cried, "if you are not his lordship George of
+Blanchelande who was drowned in the lake seven years ago, you are either
+his ghost or the devil in person."
+
+"I am neither ghost nor devil, good Jean, but I am truly that same
+George of Blanchelande who used to creep to your shop and beg bits
+of stuff out of which to make dresses for the dolls of my sister
+Honey-Bee."
+
+"Then you were not drowned, your lordship," the good man exclaimed. "I
+am so glad! And how well you look. My little Peter who climbed into my
+arms to see you pass on horseback by the side of the Duchess that Sunday
+morning has become a good workman and a fine fellow. He is all of that,
+God be praised, your lordship. He will be glad to hear that you are not
+at the bottom of the sea, and that the fish have not eaten you as he
+always declared. He was in the habit of saying many pleasant things
+about it, your lordship, for he is very amusing. And it is a fact that
+you are much mourned in Clarides. You were such a promising child. I
+shall remember to my dying day how you once asked me for a needle to
+sew with, and as I refused, for you were not of an age to use it without
+danger, you replied you would go to the woods and pick beautiful green
+pine needles. That is what you said, and it still makes me laugh.
+Upon my soul you said that. Our little Peter, also, used to say clever
+things. Now he is a cooper and at your service, your lordship."
+
+"I shall employ no one else. But give me news of Honey-Bee and the
+Duchess, Master Jean."
+
+"Alack, where do you come from, your lordship, seeing that you do not
+know that it is now seven years since the Princess Honey-Bee was stolen
+by the dwarfs of the mountain? She disappeared the very day you were
+drowned; and one can truly say that on that day Clarides lost its
+sweetest flowers. The Duchess is in deep mourning. And it's that which
+makes me say that the great of the earth have their sorrows just as well
+as the humblest artisans, if only to prove that we are all the sons of
+Adam. And because of this a cat may well look at a king, as the saying
+is. And by the same token the good Duchess has seen her hair grow white
+and her gaiety vanish. And when in the springtime she walks in her black
+robes along the hedgerow where the birds sing, the smallest of these is
+more to be envied than the sovereign lady of Clarides. And yet her grief
+is not quite without hope, your lordship; for though she had no tidings
+of you, she at least knows by dreams that her daughter Honey-Bee is
+alive."
+
+This and much else said good man Jean, but George listened no longer
+after he heard that Honey-Bee was a captive among the dwarfs.
+
+"The dwarfs hold Honey-Bee captive under the earth," he pondered; "a
+dwarf rescued me from my crystal dungeon; these little men have not all
+the same customs; my deliverer cannot be of the same race as those who
+stole my sister."
+
+He knew not what to think except that he must rescue Honey-Bee.
+
+In the meantime they crossed the town, and on their way the gossips
+standing on the thresholds of their houses asked each other who was
+this young stranger, but they all agreed that he was very handsome.
+The better informed amongst them, having recognised the young lord of
+Blanchelande, decided that it must be his ghost, wherefore they fled,
+making great signs of the cross.
+
+"He must be sprinkled with holy water," said one old crone, "and he will
+vanish leaving a disgusting smell of sulphur. He will carry away Master
+Jean, and he will of course plunge him alive into the fire of hell."
+
+"Softly! old woman," a citizen replied, "his lordship is alive and much
+more alive than you or I. He is as fresh as a rose, and he looks as if
+he had come from some noble court rather than from the other world. One
+does return from afar, good dame. As witness Francoeur the squire who
+came back from Rome last midsummer day."
+
+And Margaret the helmet-maker, having greatly admired George, mounted
+to her maiden chamber and kneeling before the image of the Holy Virgin
+prayed, "Holy Virgin, grant me a husband who shall look precisely like
+this young lord."
+
+So each in his way talked of George's return until the news spread
+from mouth to mouth and finally reached the ears of the Duchess who was
+walking-in the orchard. Her heart beat violently and she heard all the
+birds in the hedge-row sing:
+
+
+           "Cui, cui, cui,
+          Oui, oui, oui,
+     Georges de Blanchelande,
+          Cui, cui, cui.
+     Dont vous avez nourri l'enfance
+          Cui, cui, cui,
+          Est ici, est ici, est ici!
+          Oui, oui, oui."
+
+Francoeur approached her respectfully and said: "Your Grace, George de
+Blanchelande whom you thought dead has returned. I shall make it into a
+song." In the meantime the birds sang:
+
+     "Cucui, cui, cui, cui, cui,
+     Oui, oui, oui, oui, oui, oui,
+     Il est ici, ici, ici, ici, ici, ici."
+
+And when she saw the child who had been to her as a son, she opened her
+arms and fell senseless at his feet.
+
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+     Which treats of a little satin shoe
+
+Everybody in Clarides was quite convinced that Honey-Bee had been stolen
+by the dwarfs. Even the Duchess believed it, though her dreams did not
+tell her precisely. "We will find her again," said George. "We will
+find her again," replied Francoeur. "And we will bring her back to her
+mother," said George.
+
+"And we will bring her back," replied Francoeur. "And we will marry
+her," said George.
+
+"And we will marry her," replied Francoeur. And they inquired among the
+inhabitants as to the habits of the dwarfs and the mysterious
+circumstances of Honey-Bee's disappearance.
+
+And so it happened that they questioned Nurse Maurille who had once been
+the nurse of the Duchess of Clarides; but now as she had no more milk
+for babies Maurille instead nursed the chickens in the poultry yard. It
+was there that the master and squire found her. She cried: "Psit! Psit!
+psit! psit! lil--lil--lil--lil--psit, psit, psit, psit!" as she threw
+grain to the chicks.
+
+"Psit, psit, psit, psit! Is it you, your lordship? Psit, psit, psit! Is
+it possible that you have grown so tall--psit! and so handsome? Psit,
+psit! Shoo! shoo, shoo! Just look at that fat one there eating the
+little one's portion! Shoo, shoo, shoo! The way of the world, your
+lordship. Riches go the rich, lean ones grow leaner, while the fat ones
+grow fatter. There's no justice on earth! What can I do for you, my
+lord? May I offer you each a glass of beer?"
+
+"We will accept it gladly, Maurille, and I must embrace you because you
+nursed the mother of her whom I love best on earth."
+
+"That's true, my lord, my foster child cut her first tooth at the age
+of six months and fourteen days. On which occasion the deceased duchess
+made me a present. She did indeed."
+
+"Now, Maurille, tell us all you know about the dwarfs who carried away
+Honey-Bee."
+
+"Alas, my lord, I know nothing of the dwarfs who carried her away. And
+how can you expect an old woman like me to know anything? It's ages ago
+since I forgot the little I ever knew, and I haven't even enough memory
+left to remember where I put my spectacles. Sometimes I look for them
+when they're on my nose. Try this drink; it's fresh."
+
+"Here's to your health, Maurille; but I was told that your husband knew
+something about the disappearance of Honey-Bee."
+
+"That's true, your lordship. Though he never was taught anything he
+learnt a great deal in the pothouses and the taverns. And he never
+forgot anything. Why if he were alive now and sitting at this table he
+could tell you stories until to-morrow. He used to tell me so many that
+they quite muddled my head and even now I can't tell the tail of one
+from the head of the other. That's true, your lordship."
+
+Indeed, it was true, for the head of the old nurse could only be
+compared to a cracked soup-pot. It was with the greatest difficulty that
+George and Francoeur got anything good out of it. Finally, however, by
+means of much repetition they did extract a tale which began somewhat as
+follows:
+
+"It's seven years ago, your lordship, the very day you and Honey-Bee
+went on that frolic from which neither of you ever returned. My deceased
+husband went up the mountain to sell a horse. That's the truth. He fed
+the beast with a good peck of oats soaked in cider to give him a firm
+leg and a brilliant eye; he took him to market near the mountain. He had
+no cause to regret his oats or his cider, for he sold his horse for
+a much better price. Beasts are like human beings; one judges them by
+their appearance. My deceased husband was so rejoiced at his good stroke
+of business that he invited his friends to drink with him, and glass in
+hand he drank to their health.
+
+"You must know, your lordship, that there wasn't a man in all Clarides
+could equal my husband when glass in hand he drank to the health of
+his friends. So much so that on that day, after a number of such
+compliments, when he returned alone at twilight he took the wrong
+road for the reason that he could not recognise the right one. Finding
+himself near a cavern he saw as distinctly as possible, considering his
+condition and the hour, a crowd of little men carrying a girl or a boy
+on a litter. He ran away for fear of ill-luck; for the wine had not
+robbed him of prudence. But at some distance from the cavern he dropped
+his pipe, and on stooping to pick it up he picked up instead a little
+satin shoe. When he was in a good humour he used to amuse himself by
+saying, 'It's the first time a pipe has changed into a shoe.' And as it
+was the shoe of a little girl he decided that she who had lost it in the
+forest was the one who had been carried away by the dwarfs and that it
+was this he had seen. He was about to put the shoe into his pocket when
+a crowd of little men in hoods pounced down on him and gave him such a
+thrashing that he lay there quite stunned."
+
+"Maurille! Maurille!" cried George, "it's Honey-Bee's shoe. Give it to
+me and I will kiss it a thousand times. It shall rest for ever on my
+heart, and when I die it shall be buried with me."
+
+"As you please, your lordship; but where will you find it? The dwarfs
+took it away from my poor husband and he always thought that they only
+gave him such a sound thrashing because he wanted to put it in his
+pocket to show to the magistrates. He used to say when he was in a good
+humour----"
+
+"Enough--enough! Only tell me the name of the cavern!"
+
+"It is called the cavern of the dwarfs, your lordship, and very well
+named too. My deceased husband----"
+
+"Not another word, Maurille! But you. Francoeur, do you know where this
+cavern is?"
+
+"Your lordship," replied Francoeur as he emptied the pot of beer, "you
+would certainly know it if you knew my songs better. I have written
+at least a dozen about this cavern, and I've described it without even
+forgetting a single sprig of moss. I venture to say, your lordship, that
+of these dozen songs, six are of great merit. And even the other six are
+not to be despised. I will sing you one or two...."
+
+"Francoeur," cried George, "we will take possession of this cavern of
+the dwarfs and rescue Honey-Bee."
+
+"Of course we will!" replied Francoeur.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+     In which a perilous adventure is described
+
+That night when all were asleep George and Francoeur crept into the
+lower hall in search of weapons. Lances, swords, dirks, broadswords,
+hunting-knives and daggers glittered under the time-stained
+rafters--everything necessary to kill both man and brute. A complete
+suit of armour stood upright under each beam in an attitude as resolute
+and proud as if it were still filled with the soul of the brave man it
+had once decked for mighty adventures. The gauntlet grasped the lance in
+its ten iron fingers, while the shield rested against the plates of the
+greaves as if to prove that prudence is necessary to courage, and that
+the best fighter is armed as well for defence as for attack.
+
+From among all these suits of armour George chose the one that
+Honey-Bee's father had worn as far away as the isles of Avalon and
+Thule. He donned it with the aid of Francoeur, nor did he forget the
+shield on which was emblazoned the golden sun of Clarides. As for
+Francoeur, he put on a good old steel coat of mail of his grandfather's
+and on his head a casque of a bygone time, to which he attached a ragged
+and moth-eaten tuft or plume. This he chose merely as a matter of fancy
+and to give himself an air of rejoicing, for, as he justly reasoned,
+gaiety, which is good under every circumstance, is especially so in the
+face of great dangers.
+
+Having thus armed themselves they passed under the light of the moon
+into the dark open country. Francoeur had fastened the horses on
+the edge of a little grove near the postern, and there he found them
+nibbling at the bark of the bushes; they were swift steeds, and it took
+them less than an hour to reach the mountain of the dwarfs, through a
+crowd of goblins and phantoms.
+
+"Here is the cave," said Francoeur.
+
+Master and man dismounted and, sword in hand, penetrated into the
+cavern. It required great courage to attempt such an adventure; but
+George was in love and Francoeur was faithful, and this was a case in
+which one could say with the most delightful of poets:
+
+"What may not friendship do with Love for guide!"
+
+Master and man had trudged through the gloom for nearly an hour when
+they were astonished to see a brilliant light. It was one of the meteors
+which we know illumines the kingdom of the dwarfs. By the light of this
+subterranean luminary they discovered that they were standing at the
+foot of an ancient castle.
+
+"This," said George, "is the castle we must capture."
+
+"To be sure," said Francceur; "but first permit me to drink a few drops
+of this wine which I brought with me as a precaution, because the better
+the wine the better the man, and the better the man the better the
+lance, the better the lance the less dangerous the enemy."
+
+George, seeing no living soul, struck the hilt of his sword sharply
+against the door of the castle. He looked up at the sound of a little
+tremulous voice, and he saw at one of the windows a little old man with
+a long beard, who asked:
+
+"Who are you!"
+
+"George of Blanchelande."
+
+"And who do you want?"
+
+"I have come to deliver Honey-Bee of Clarides whom you unjustly hold
+captive in your mole-hill, hideous little moles that you are!"
+
+The dwarf disappeared and again George was left alone with Francoeur who
+said to him:
+
+"Your lordship, possibly I may exaggerate if I remark that in your
+answer to the dwarf you have not quite exhausted all the persuasive
+powers of eloquence."
+
+Francoeur was afraid of nothing, but he was old; his heart like his head
+was polished by age, and he disliked to offend people.
+
+As for George he stormed and clamoured at the top of his voice.
+
+"Vile dwellers in the earth, moles, badgers, dormice, ferrets, and
+water-rats, open the door and I'll cut off all your ears."
+
+But hardly had he uttered these words when the bronze door of the castle
+slowly opened of itself, for no one could be seen pushing back its
+enormous wings.
+
+George was seized with terror and yet he sprang through the mysterious
+door because his courage was even greater than his terror. Entering the
+courtyard he saw that all the windows, the galleries, the roofs, the
+gables, the skylights, and even the chimney-pots, were crowded with
+dwarfs armed with bows and cross-bows.
+
+He heard the bronze door close behind him and suddenly a shower of
+arrows fell thick and fast on his head and shoulders, and for the
+second time he was filled with a great fear, and for the second time he
+conquered his fear.
+
+Sword in hand and his shield on his arm he mounted the steps until
+suddenly he perceived on the very highest, a majestic dwarf who stood
+there in serene dignity, gold sceptre in hand and wearing the royal
+crown and the purple mantle. And in this dwarf he recognised the little
+man who had delivered him out of his crystal dungeon.
+
+Thereupon he threw himself at his feet and cried weeping:
+
+"O my benefactor, who are you? Are you one of those who have robbed me
+of Honey-Bee, whom I love?"
+
+"I am King Loc," replied the dwarf. "I have kept Honey-Bee with me
+to teach her the wisdom of the dwarfs. Child, you have fallen into my
+kingdom like a hail-storm in a garden of flowers. But the dwarfs, less
+weak than men, are never angered as are they. My intelligence raises me
+too high above you for me to resent your actions whatever they are. And
+of all the attributes that render me superior to you that which I guard
+most jealously is justice. Honey-Bee shall be brought before me and I
+will ask her if she wishes to follow you. This I do, not because you
+desire it, but because I must."
+
+A great silence ensued and Honey-Bee appeared attired all in white and
+with flowing golden hair. No sooner did she see George than she ran
+and threw herself in his arms and clasped his iron breast with all her
+strength.
+
+Then King Loc said to her:
+
+"Honey-Bee, is it true that this is the man you wish to marry?"
+
+"It is true, very true that this is he, little King Loc," replied
+Honey-Bee. "See, all you little men, how I laugh and how happy I am."
+
+And she began to weep. Her tears fell on her lover's face, but they were
+tears of joy; and with them were mingled tiny bursts of laughter and a
+thousand endearing words without sense, like the lisp of a little child.
+She quite forgot that the sight of her joy might sadden the heart of
+King Loc.
+
+"My beloved," said George, "I find you again such as I had longed for:
+the fairest and dearest of beings. You love me! Thank heaven, you
+love me! But, Honey-Bee, do you not also love King Loc a little, who
+delivered me out of the glass dungeon in which the nixies held me
+captive far away from you?"
+
+Honey-Bee turned to King Loc.
+
+"Little King Loc, and did you do this?" she cried. "You loved me, and
+yet you rescued the one I love and who loves me----"
+
+Words failed her and she fell on her knees, her head in her hands.
+
+All the little men who witnessed this scene deluged their cross-bows
+with tears. Only King Loc remained serene. And Honcy-Bee, overcome by
+his magnanimity and his goodness, felt for him the love of a daughter
+for a father.
+
+She took her lover's hand.
+
+"George," she said, "I love you. God knows how much I love you. But how
+can I leave little King Loc?"
+
+"Hallo, there?" King Loc cried in a terrible voice, "now you are my
+prisoners!"
+
+But this terrible voice he only used for fun and just as a joke, for he
+really was not at all angry. Here Francoeur approached and knelt before
+him.
+
+"Sire," he cried, "may it please your Majesty to let me share the
+captivity of the masters I serve?"
+
+Said Honey-Bee, recognising him:
+
+"Is it you, my good Francoeur? How glad I am to see you again. What a
+horrid cap you've got on! Tell me, have you composed any new songs?"
+
+And King Loc took them all three to dinner.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+     In which all ends well
+
+The next morning Honey-Bee, George and Francoeur again arrayed
+themselves in the splendid garments prepared for them by the dwarfs, and
+proceeded to the banquet-hall where, as he had promised, King Loc,
+in the robes of an Emperor, soon joined them. He was followed by his
+officers fully armed, and covered with furs of barbarous magnificence,
+and in their helmets the wings of swans. Crowds of hurrying dwarfs came
+in through the windows, the air-holes and the chimneys, and rolled under
+the benches.
+
+King Loc mounted a stone table one end of which was laden with flagons,
+candelabra, tankards, and cups of gold of marvellous workmanship. He
+signed to Honey-Bee and to George to approach.
+
+"Honey-Bee," he said, "by a law of the nation of the dwarfs it is
+decreed that a stranger received in our midst shall be free after seven
+years. You have been with us seven years, Honey-Bee, and I should be a
+disloyal citizen and a blameworthy king should I keep you longer. But
+before permitting you to go I wish, not having been able to wed you
+myself, to betroth you to the one you have chosen. I do so with joy for
+I love you more than I love myself, and my pain, if such remains, is
+like a little cloud which your happiness will dispel. Honey-Bee of
+Clarides, Princess of the Dwarfs, give me your hand, and you, George of
+Blanchelande, give me yours."
+
+Placing the hand of George in the hand of Honey-Bee he turned to his
+people and said with a ringing voice:
+
+"Little men, my children, you bear witness that these two pledge
+themselves to marry one another on earth. They shall go back together
+and together help courage, modesty, and fidelity to blossom, as roses,
+pinks, and peonies bloom for good gardeners."
+
+At these words the dwarfs burst into a mighty shout, but not knowing
+if they ought to grieve or to rejoice, they were torn by conflicting
+emotions.
+
+King Loc, again turning to the lovers, said as he pointed to the
+flagons, the tankards, all the beautiful art of the goldsmith:
+
+"Behold the gifts of the dwarfs. Take them, Honey-Bee, they will remind
+you of your little friends. It is their gift to you, not mine. What I am
+about to give you, you shall know before long."
+
+A lengthy silence ensued.
+
+With an expression sublime in its tenderness, King Loc gazed at
+Honey-Bee, whose beautiful and radiant head, crowned by roses, rested on
+her lover's shoulder.
+
+Then he continued:
+
+"My children, it is not enough to love passionately; you must also
+love well. A passionate love is good doubtless, but a beautiful love
+is better. May you have as much strength as gentleness; may it lack
+nothing, not even forbearance, and let even a little compassion be
+mingled with it. You are young, fair and good; but you are human,
+and because of this capable of much suffering. If then something of
+compassion does not enter into the feelings you have one for the other,
+these feelings will not always befit all the circumstances of your life
+together; they will be like festive robes that will not shield you from
+wind and rain. We love truly only those we love even in their weakness
+and their poverty. To forbear, to forgive, to console, that alone is the
+science of love."
+
+King Loc paused, seized by a gentle but strong emotion.
+
+"My children," he then continued; "may you be happy; guard your
+happiness well, guard it well."
+
+While he addressed them Pic, Tad, Dig, Bob, True, and Pau clung to
+Honey-Bee's white mantle and covered her hands and arms with kisses and
+they implored her not to leave them. Thereupon King Loc took from his
+girdle a ring set with a glittering gem. It was the magic ring which had
+unclosed the dungeon of the nixies. He placed it on Honey-Bee's finger.
+
+"Honey-Bee," he said, "receive from my hand this ring which will permit
+you, you and your husband, to enter at any hour the kingdom of the
+dwarfs. You will be welcomed with joy and succoured at need. In return
+teach the children that will be yours not to despise the little men, so
+innocent and industrious, who dwell under the earth."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Honey-Bee, by Anatole France
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