In the midst of
this horrible scene, the princess was deeply moved to
see a pair of wild geese trying very hard to save
their young ones, their little chicks who didn't even
have wings yet. As they tried to carry them here and
there, they flew distractedly while the fire came
towards them closer and closer. They had very little
hope of saving themselves or their young ones. As the
fire was about to catch the nest, the old male bird
made a last desperate attempt and saved himself by
flying to a point of safety, leaving the family
behind. The mother goose threw herself as a guard
over her little ones, and with all of them screaming
wildly, they were burned in the flames that closed
over them.
The princess
watched all this, and as she rode away safely, was
both moved and angered by what she had witnessed.
"How selfish and unreliable these males
are!" she said to herself "I'm sure they
are the same all the world over, whether they are
birds or beasts or men. I'll have nothing to do with
them ever. I'll never trust them." And she made
up her mind then and there never to marry, ever.
Her followers, who
had been frantically looking for her, soon caught up
with her, and they all went home.
From that day on,
the princess wore a serious face, shunned all males,
and told her parents that she would never marry
anyone. The old parents were very upset over this,
and begged of her to tell them what had made her take
such a drastic decision. She was silent and gave them
no explanations. Soon everybody came to know that the
princess was not for marriage, and the number of
suitors soon fell off.
One day a
well-known artist happened to visit the raja's court
and painted some exquisite pictures for the palace.
But just as he was getting ready to leave, he caught
a glimpse of the princess and wanted to put all that
beauty into a painting. So he begged the princess to
give him a few sittings, which she reluctantly did.
He painted with great pleasure a faithful likeness of
her face and figure. And when he finished the
painting, instead of giving it to her, he quietly
took it with him when he left the city.
He visited next
another raja, who was a great lover of paintings, and
sold the painting of the princess to him for a large
sum of money. The picture was hung up in the raja's
great hall where everyone who saw it admired it and
talked about it. They were enchanted by the beauty of
the princess and wondered who she could be.
The king's only
son and heir had been away hunting all this time and
returned home, saw the painting in the hall, and fell
madly in love with the image on the canvas without
even asking who the original was. When he did ask,
nobody knew who or where she was. The lovesick prince
lost all pleasure in his daily rounds, shunned
company, fell into a gloomy silence, and moped away
in his corner of the palace. The father was very
unhappy to see his son depressed and soon learned the
cause of it. He felt anxious for his son's health and
sent messengers in search of the artist. But the
artist had long since left the country and gone away
to foreign lands, as artists tend to do.
The prince's
health and temper grew steadily worse and he was
angry with anyone who came near him. One day the old
prime minister, a trusted friend of the royal family,
happened to arouse him from his gloomy reverie, and
the prince was so furious that he at once sentenced
him to death. The young prince's word was law in that
palace, and the old man had no way of escaping his
fate. When the raja heard of it, he summoned the
prince and persuaded him to put off the execution for
a few days, so that the prime minister might arrange
his affairs and transfer his powers to someone else.
The old minister was allowed to go home to his family
for the time.
Though he didn't
wish to talk about it to anyone, his family knew all
about the fate that awaited him. His youngest
daughter, his favorite in the family, talked to him
soothingly, comforted him, and wormed out of him the
secret of the prince's rage and sorrow.
Now this young
woman was very clever and resourceful. She soon found
a way of getting her father out of his difficulty.
She went to the young prince, and somehow succeeded
in getting an audience. She begged him very hard to
spare her father's life for a certain length of time,
so that she herself could go abroad and find the
woman in the wonderful painting that was the cause of
all this trouble.
This pleased the
prince very much. The young woman's scheme sounded
quite plausible. He saw some hope of realizing what
was so far only a wisp of a dream. So he relented and
withdrew his terrible order, and the old minister
returned to his duties in the palace. The raja was
very pleased at this turn of events and wished the
young daughter of his minister every success.
Now the minister's
daughter was herself a good artist. She made a
faithful copy of the great artist's painting. She
then dressed herself as a man and set out on her
travels disguised as a wandering artist. She hardly
knew where to go or whom to ask, but she loved her
father and was determined to save his life. So she
traveled for months in different directions, showed
the picture of the princess wherever she halted, and
asked everyone she met, but no one could identify the
person in the painting. After a year's weary
wandering, she arrived at a distant and strange
country, and there, to her great joy, everyone who
saw the picture knew who the person in the picture
was. They all exclaimed at what a true and speaking
likeness the painting was of the daughter of their
own raja. And they all spoke of her as "The
Princess Who Was Determined Never To Marry."
"Never to
marry?" asked the minister's daughter.
"What's wrong with her? Did something terrible
happen?"
"Nobody
knows," they said, "not even her
parents."
This news damped
her enthusiasm somewhat. If the princess had turned
against marriage, how was she, a mere stranger, to
succeed in getting her married to the prince who was
dying for her?
Still, she was a
brave girl and was willing to try more than one way
of reaching the princess. She rented a house near the
palace and opened her studio there. Every day she set
up her easel near a large window that looked out on
the palace and worked away with her paints and
brushes, till the courtiers and finally the king
himself wanted to know more about her. One day the
raja summoned her to the court to show him her
paintings. When he saw them, he liked them a lot,
bought some of them, and invited her to do some
pictures for the special palace he was building for
his only daughter. Meanwhile, the minister's daughter
had the opportunity to see the princess several
times, and she was now sure the princess was the true
original of the painting that had so enthralled the
prince and nearly driven him out of his senses.
When the walls in
the new palace were ready, the artist began to paint
all sorts of lovely designs and figures on them,
decorating even the ceilings and arches. The raja and
his court came often to see them and to admire her
artistry. Each picture was a study in itself, and
each had a story that the artist recounted in her own
winning manner. All this drew the ladies of the court
to these pictures. Some of these women were friends
and attendants of the princess. The minister's
daughter thought these women, if anyone, would surely
know the reason why the princess shunned all males
and despised marriage. So she set to work on them and
won them over with her art and courtesy till one of
them opened up to her. She was a confidante of the
princess, and she told the artist the secret story of
the princess's adventure in the forest and her
disillusionment with all males in nature.
This was all the
minister's daughter wanted to know. On one of the
walls of the living room, she drew a picture that was
just the reverse of what the princess had seen in the
forest. It was a wonderful picture that showed the
utter fickleness of females and the devotion of a
male. She substituted a pair of antelopes for the
geese, and in the place of the princess she painted a
very handsome young prince, so young, so brave and
handsome, that he would win the heart of any woman.
As soon as this
picture was ready, the minister's daughter persuaded
the friends of the princess to ask her to come and
have a look at it. One day, to her great joy, the
princess did honor her with a visit. She went from
picture to picture and greatly admired the artist's
skill. She at last came to the picture of the
antelopes and the prince, and she was arrested by it.
She stood there for a while lost in thought, and then
turned to the artist and said, "What's the story
in this picture?"
"O
princess," replied the daughter of the prime
minister, seizing her chance, "this picture is
about something that really happened to the prince of
our country. He was out hunting in the forest and he
saw this scene in a forest fire, which convinced him
of the fickleness of all females and the faithfulness
of males. This may not interest you very much, but it
concerns us greatly in our country. This incident has
brought such a change in the prince's life. Since
this happened, he has shunned all women as faithless
and refuses to marry anyone. This decision on the
part of his son and heir causes our raja great grief
and has cast a gloom over the whole court. Nobody
knows what to do about it."
"How very
strange!" cried the princess, hardly letting the
artist finish her story. "Can males then be
faithful and females false? I, for one, always
believed that males were false and faithless in all
of nature. But now I see there are two sides even to
that question. After all, I've observed only one
instance and made up my mind too quickly. I'll have
to rethink the whole question."
"Oh, I'm glad
to hear you say so, my princess," said the
artist, obviously delighted by this turn, "but
how I wish our good prince too would see his mistake
as you do yours. But you are not stubborn as he
is."
"Someone
should point it out to him, I think," said the
princess, "and perhaps, like me, he might change
his mind. As I have benefited from an incident in his
life, he might profit from one in mine. Please feel
free to tell him about my case and see whether it
will change his mind."
"Surely I
shall, with the greatest pleasure, as soon as I get
home," replied the artist, her heart fluttering
with joy at this unexpected success.
From that day on,
through word of mouth, everyone in the kingdom came
to know that the princess had conquered her aversion
to marriage and was once again open to offers, and
suitors began to crowd the capital. But the princess
refused their attentions and seemed displeased with
all of them---for a new reason. Her chief pleasure
was in looking at the pictures the artist had painted
on her new walls and talking to her endlessly about
the prince, in whom she had become greatly
interested.
The minister's
daughter knew what to do. She fanned the flames by
telling the princess all sorts of vivid stories about
the prince's manliness and virtues. She did it so
thoroughly that the princess one day could no longer
contain herself and wanted very much to see him. This
was the very thing the minister's daughter had hoped
for. She readily promised the princess that she would
return to her own country and do everything she could
to bring the prince back. She would tell him the
princess's story and make him eager to see her and
talk to her.
Great was the joy
of the old prime minister, her father, and the young
prince when the minister's daughter returned home and
told them everything she had accomplished. The old
man hugged her and called her the savior of his life.
The young prince loaded her with gifts. The prince
didn't waste a day in preparing for his journey. He
set out with a grand cavalcade and a magnificent
train of followers for the court of the princess's
father, and we needn't tell you that the princess
accepted him right away as a worthy suitor. The
wealth of two kingdoms was poured into the splendor
of a gala wedding.
