The Sleeping Beauty (Evans)/Chapter 11

by Charles Perrault

CHAPTER XI

In that very moment the charm was broken and the castle awoke.

Instead of the profound silence there came a hustle and confusion of noise. Clocks began to strike, doors began to slam, dogs began to bark, cocks began to crow and hens to cluck; a breeze sprang up outside and set the branches of the trees swaying and creaking; the doves began to coo upon the roofs, the swallows to twitter under the eaves, flies came out and buzzed about the window, mice squeaked in the wainscot and ran scampering along the rafters. The fountain in the garden leapt up sixty feet into the air, and the goldfish swam among the water-lily leaves; ants left their nests and foraged about the paths, the butterflies danced and fluttered over the flowers, which lifted their heads as though to drink in the rays of the sun. In every tree in the garden a thrush woke up and began to sing; sparrows chirped, jays screamed, blue-tits chattered, and the chiff-chaff uttered his strange note. In the woods a cuckoo called and blackbird fluted to blackbird in the hedge. In. the stables the horses awoke and champed at their stalls; the cat jumped down and ran after a mouse which crept out from under the straw. The sentry at the courtyard gate woke up and rubbed his eyes and came smartly to attention, looking round uneasily, for he thought he had only been asleep for a few minutes and was afraid that somebody

might have seen him who would report him to the sergeant. The pikemen also woke with a start, and the sergeant woke too, and bellowed an order in a loud and angry voice, for he was, ashamed of himself for sleeping in front of his men.

The young squire who was going hawking fitted his falcon’s hood and mounted his steed; the page-boy with the hound went off to his master. On the topmost tower of the castle the royal standard, which had been drooping against the flagstaff, filled out and waved freely in the breeze.

The hedge which had grown up to surround the enchanted castle broke in and disappeared ; peacocks squalled and strutted on the lawns, martins flitted to and from their nests under the eaves, pigs began to grunt, oxen to low, sheep to bleat, rooks to caw and children to laugh and sing. In short, all the sounds which we hear every day and all the time and never notice, began again and seemed so loud in contrast to the deadly silence that they almost cracked the ears.

And in every room in the castle the people who had been lying asleep for a hundred years woke up and went on with what they had been doing just as though nothing had happened. In the kitchen the flames of the fire leapt up with a hiss and a roar. The kettle began to boil, the stew-pot to bubble, and the meat before the fire to steam and hiss as the little boy turned the spit.

“Take that,” cried the cook, giving the scullion the clout she had promised a hundred years before. “Take that for a lazy knave.”

“Goodness,”” yawned the maid who had been plucking the black hen; “I wonder what made me drop off to sleep like that? Well, well, it’s to be hoped the cook didn’t see me!” And my word, how she made the feathers fly!

Miaou! cried the cat in disgust as he made a pounce at the mouse-hole he had been watching, for the little mouse

who had poked his nose out a hundred years before drew it back like a flash and scampered away.

“Dear me!” said the servant who was washing the dishes; “I do believe I have been to sleep with this crock in my hand. It’s a mercy I didn’t let it fall!” And he went on with his scouring, It was the same thing in the dairy where the maids had fallen asleep while they were skimming the cream and churning the butter. And the cream was not sour for all that a hundred years had passed,

nor was the butter rank. But a fly which had been sleeping on the edge of one of the milk-pans woke up and flew down to taste the milk, and fell in and was drowned, so he was

none the better because the spell had been taken off the castle.

In the Queen’s ante-chamber the maids-of-honour and the ladies-in-waiting sat up and yawned and stretched themselves. Each one of them thought that she was the only one who had fallen asleep, and they all began to explain at the same time that they had only closed their eyes for forty seconds, “It was the heat,” they all said to each other. “The sun is very hot for this time of year.”

In the King’s council chamber the King and all his ministers woke up with a start. The ministers rubbed their eyes and looked very sheepish, for each of them thought that he was alone in being caught napping.

“Your Majesty was saying . . . ?” said the Prime Minister respectfully, leaning forward.

“I was saying . . .” said the King, “What was I saying?” And he stretched out his arms and yawned. “I crave your pardon, my lords. I do believe I’ve been asleep. Heigho! but my joints are stiff.”

“It was but an after-dinner nap,” said the Prime Minister. “Your Majesty is overspent with the hard hunting yesterday. Is it your Majesty’s will that we should proceed with our business, or shall the Council rise until to-morrow?”

“Go on, my lords, go on,” cried the King heartily. “My little nap has wonderfully refreshed me. What say you, shall we pass that bill we were discussing a few minutes ago?”

But at this moment a page came into the room with a message from the Queen, and as soon as he received it the King left his seat in the council chamber and went to her.

Alone, among all the people in the castle, the Queen had realised immediately she awoke from her charmed sleep, exactly what had happened. She remembered the words of the fairy godmother, and she knew that what she had foretold had come to pass, and that the sleep from which she and everybody else in the castle had just awakened had lasted a hundred years.

Her first thought was of her daughter, the Princess Briar-Rose. Where was she, and what had happened to her? If she, too, had merely fallen asleep, all was well, but suppose the doom first spoken by the thirteenth fairy had taken effect?

In a few words she told the King all that was in her mind, and without delay messengers were sent all over the castle to look for the Princess.

In the meantime Briar-Rose and the young Prince were talking together in the ruined tower. For the first time she heard the story of the enchantment, and her eyes grew round with wonder as she listened to her lover’s account of the strange things that had happened in the castle. When he told of the great hedge and its cruel thorns, and of the many young men who died in trying to force their way through it, her eyes filled with tears,

“How great their courage was,” she sighed. “Oh, if only I could bring them back to life.”

But the Prince kissed her tears away, and hastened past that part of his tale, and presently she was smiling again and happy, because she understood that everything had happened as it was bound to happen.

Then the Prince took her hand and raised her from the couch on which she had slept so long, and they went down the winding stair together and came to the battlements, where they found a score of breathless people who had been running up and down in search of her.

And how surprised these people were to find her in that place, accompanied by a young man they had never seen before! She seemed to have grown more beautiful than ever during her long sleep, and they were amazed by her loveliness.

And how may we describe the joy of the King and Queen when they saw their daughter again and knew that the good fairy had kept her word? The King was so delighted that all he could say was “Bless my soul! bless my soul!” And the Queen could say nothing at all, for she was weeping for joy.

What a feast there was that night! In spite of the hundred years that had gone by it was still the Princess’s birthday, and she was in reality no more than fifteen years old, for time had stood still for her. So she had her birthday feast just the same, and it was her betrothal feast too, for the King joined the hands of the young Prince and his daughter and gave them his blessing.

 

THE END

 

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