The Sleeping Beauty

In short, they talked four hours together, and yet they said not half of what they had to say.

In the meanwhile, all the palace awakened, and as all of them were not in love, they felt most desperately hungry after 100 years without a bite to eat. The chief lady of honor grew very impatient, and told the princess aloud that supper was served up. The prince helped the princess to rise. She was entirely dressed, and very magnificently too, but His Royal Highness took care not to tell her that she was dressed in the fashion of one hundred years ago, like his great-grandmother. She looked not a bit less charming and beautiful for all that.

They went into the great hall of mirrors, where they ate supper, and were served by the princess’ officers. The orchestra played old tunes, but very nice ones, and after supper, without losing any time, the priest married them in the chapel of the castle, and the chief lady of honour drew the curtains. They had but very little sleep – the princess had had too much of it recently, and the prince left her the next morning to return to the city, where the king was anxiously waiting for him.

The morning after the handsome prince had married the Sleeping Beauty, he left her and returned home to the city where his father, the king, was anxiously waiting for him.When he reached home, the prince said that he had lost his way in the forest as he was hunting, and that he had slept in the cottage of a farmer, who gave him cheese and brown bread. He did not say a word about the Sleeping Beauty, let alone how he had married her.

The king, his father, who was a good man, believed him, but his mother could not be persuaded it was true; and seeing that he went almost every day a-hunting, and that he always had some excuse ready for so doing, though he had slept out three or four nights together, she began to suspect that he was married, for he lived with the princess for over two whole years, and they had two children – the eldest of which, who was a daughter, was named Morning, and the youngest, who was a son, they called Day.

The queen spoke several times to her son, to ask him how he passed his time. He never dared to trust her with his secret. He feared her, though he loved her, for she was of the race of the ogres, and the king would never have married her had it not been for her money; it was even whispered about the court that she had ogreish inclinations, and that, whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to stop herself pouncing on them and gobbling them up for a snack. And so the prince would never tell her one word about his beautiful wife and two little children.

The king died about two years later, and although the prince was very sad, he became Lord and master, both of the people and of himself. A month later, he announced his marriage to the cheering crowds; and he led his beloved wife, the former Sleeping Beauty, in a great procession to the palace. They made a magnificent entry into the capital city, she riding between her two children. Now she became his queen.

Soon after, the king went to make war with the Emperor Contalabutte, his neighbour. He left his wife, the Sleeping Beauty, and his two children, Prince Day and Princess Morning, in the care of his mother. His war went on all summer, and after a while his mother said to the Sleeping Beauty: “Why don’t you go to visit your old palace in the forest, my dear, and see that everything is in order there? I will look after little Princess Morning and little Prince Day.”

Sleeping Beauty went to visit her old palace in the forest to see that everything was in order there, and she left the great city, and little Princess Morning and little Prince Day in the care of the king’s mother, for she did not know that she was an ogress who craved to eat little children for dinner.

As soon as Sleeping Beauty was gone, the queen went into the palace kitchen. She said: “I have an idea to eat little Morning for my dinner tomorrow.”

“Ah! madam!” cried the chief cook of the kitchen.

“I will have it so,” replied the queen (and this she spoke in the tone of an ogress who had a strong desire to eat fresh meat) “and I will eat her with cranberry sauce.”

The poor man, knowing very well that he must not play tricks with ogresses, took his great knife and went up into little Morning’s chamber. She was then four years old, and came up to him jumping and laughing, to take him about the neck, and ask him for some sugar-candy. Upon which he began to weep, the great knife fell out of his hand, and he went into the back yard, and killed a little lamb, and dressed it with such good sauce that his mistress assured him that she had never eaten anything so good in her life. He had at the same time taken up little Morning, and carried her to his wife, to conceal her in a hut he had at the bottom of the courtyard.

About eight days afterward the wicked queen said to the chief cook of the kitchen: “I will eat little Day for my supper.He answered not a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done before. He went to find out little Day, and saw him with a little sword in his hand, with which he was fencing with a great monkey, the child being then only three years of age. He took him up in his arms and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber along with his sister, and in the room of little Day cooked up a young goat, very tender, which the ogress again found to be wonderfully good.

So far all was well, but one evening this wicked queen said to her chief cook of the kitchen: “I will eat Sleeping Beauty with the same sauce I had with her children.”

It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able to deceive her. The young queen was turned of twenty, not reckoning the hundred years she had been asleep; and how to find in a beast of the size, shape and firmness puzzled him. He decided that to save his own life, he must cut Sleeping Beauty’s throat; and so he went to her palace in the forest with the meaning to do just that. He put himself into as foul a mood as he possibly could, and came into Sleeping Beauty’s room in the palace with his dagger in his hand.

When he saw her beautiful face, he could not bring himself to kill her, but told her, with a great deal of respect, the orders he had received from the queen mother.“Do it, do it,” said she, stretching out her neck. “Execute your orders, and then I shall go and see my children, my poor children, whom I so much and so tenderly loved.”

For after hearing of the queen’s orders, she thought that they must be dead.

“No, no, madam,” cried the poor chief cook of the kitchen, all in tears, “you shall not die, and yet you shall see your children again, but you must go home with me to my lodgings, where I have concealed them, and I shall deceive the queen once more by giving her in your place a young deer for her dinner.”

And so he led her to his house, where leaving her to embrace her children, and cry along with them, he went and dressed a young deer, which the queen had for her supper, and devoured it with the same appetite as if it had been Sleeping Beauty. She was so delighted with her cruelty, and she had invented a story to tell the king, on his return, how the mad wolves had eaten up his wife and her two children.

One evening, as she was, according to her custom, rambling round about the courts and yards of the palace to see if she could smell any fresh meat, she heard in a ground room, little Prince Day crying, for his mamma was sending him to bed without supper because he had been naughty; and she heard at the same time, little Morning begging pardon for her brother.

The ogress presently knew the voice of Sleeping Beauty and her children, and being quite mad that she had been tricked, commanded the next morning, by break of day (with a most horrible voice, which made everybody tremble), that they should bring into the middle of the great court a large tub; which she ordered to be filled with toads, vipers, snakes, and all sorts of serpents, in order to have thrown into it Sleeping Beauty and her children, the chief cook of the kitchen, his wife and maid – all whom she had given orders should be brought there with their hands tied behind them.

They were brought out, and the executioners were just going to throw them into the tub, when the king (who was not so soon expected) entered the court on horseback (for he came post) and asked, with the utmost astonishment, what was the meaning of that horrible spectacle.

No one dared to tell him. When the ogress, all enraged to see what had happened, threw herself head first into the tub, and was instantly gobbled up by the ugly creatures she had ordered to be thrown into it for the others. The king was very sorry, for the ogress had been his own mother; but he soon comforted himself with his beautiful wife and his pretty children, and they lived happily ever after.