The joy was universal; but the moment they beheld Laidronette, everybody looked distressed. She was neither embraced nor caressed by any of her relations, and the only thing they had to say to her was, that she had grown very much uglier, and that they advised her not to appear at the ball; but that if she wished to see it, they would manage to find some hole for her to peep through. She replied that she had come there neither to dance nor to hear the music; that she had been so long in the Lonely Castle, that she could not resist quitting it, to pay her respects to the King and the Queen; that she was most painfully aware they could not endure the sight of her, and that she would therefore return to her wilderness, where the trees, the flowers, and the fountains did not reproach her with her ugliness, when she wandered amongst them. When the King and Queen saw she was so much hurt, they told her, with some reluctance, that she might stay two or three days with them; but, as she was a girl of high feeling, she answered that it would give her more pain to leave them if she passed so much time in their good company. They were too anxious for her departure, to press her to stay, and therefore coldly observed that she was quite right.
The Princess Bellotte, for a wedding gift, presented her with an old riband, which she had worn all the winter in a bow on her muff,[1] and the king Bellotte was going to marry gave her some zinzolin taffety[2] to make a petticoat with. If she is to be believed, she would willingly have thrown the riband and the rag of zinzolin in the faces of the generous donors; but she had so much good sense, prudence, and judgment, that she exhibited no ill-temper. So, with her faithful nurse, she left the Court to return to her Castle, her heart so full of grief, that she never spoke a word the whole journey.
One day, as she was walking in one of the most gloomy avenues in the forest, she saw at the foot of a tree a large green serpent,[3] which, rearing its head, said to her: "Laidronette,
- ↑ The muffs worn by persons of fashion at that period were ornamented with a bow of riband in front.
- ↑ A mixture of silk and red worsted. Zinzolin by itself was much used in the working of tapestry.
- ↑ From her description of the monster at page 307, it would appear that Madame D'Aulnoy adopted the word serpent in the sense of the German and old English
