Chương Chương 2 · The Princess Loses Herself

. The Princess Loses Herself

I have said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story

begins. And this is how it begins.

One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was

constantly gathering itself together into raindrops, and pouring down

on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of

water from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of

course go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could

no longer amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to

describe to you one half of the toys she had. But then, you wouldn't

have the toys themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't

get tired of a thing before you have it. It was a picture, though,

worth seeing--the princess sitting in the nursery with the sky ceiling

over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist

would like to draw this, I should advise him not to meddle with the

toys. I am afraid of attempting to describe them, and I think he had

better not try to draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand

things I can't, but I don't think he could draw those toys. No man

could better make the princess herself than he could, though--leaning

with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head hanging down,

and her hands in her lap, very miserable as she would say herself, not

even knowing what she would like, except it were to go out and get

thoroughly wet, and catch a particularly nice cold, and have to go to

bed and take gruel. The next moment after you see her sitting there,

her nurse goes out of the room.

Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks

about her. Then she tumbles off her chair and runs out of the door,

not the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the

foot of a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never

anyone had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps,

and that was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out

what was at the top of it.

Up and up she ran--such a long way it seemed to her!--until she came to

the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end

of a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each

side. There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on

to the end, where she turned into another passage, also full of doors.

When she had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors

about her, she began to get frightened. It was so silent! And all

those doors must hide rooms with nobody in them! That was dreadful.

Also the rain made a great trampling noise on the roof. She turned and

started at full speed, her little footsteps echoing through the sounds

of the rain--back for the stairs and her safe nursery. So she thought,

but she had lost herself long ago. It doesn't follow that she was

lost, because she had lost herself, though.

She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be

afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms

everywhere, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little

feet ran, and a lump of tears was growing in her throat. But she was

too eager and perhaps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her

hope failed her. Nothing but passages and doors everywhere! She threw

herself on the floor, and burst into a wailing cry broken by sobs.

She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be

expected of a princess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and

brushed the dust from her frock. Oh, what old dust it was! Then she

wiped her eyes with her hands, for princesses don't always have their

handkerchiefs in their pockets, any more than some other little girls I

know of. Next, like a true princess, she resolved on going wisely to

work to find her way back: she would walk through the passages, and

look in every direction for the stair. This she did, but without

success. She went over the same ground again an again without knowing

it, for the passages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner,

through a half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the

wrong way: instead of going down, it went up. Frightened as she was,

however, she could not help wishing to see where yet further the stair

could lead. It was very narrow, and so steep that she went on like a

four-legged creature on her hands and feet.