Fairy dreams or, Wanderings in Elf-land
the drapery of her tent, and everywhere upon it glittered the gold dust
which powdered her hair.
“O the lovely flower! O my tulip queen!” whispered Rudolf, sinking
upon his knee. The tulip maiden said not a word, but only smiled
more lovingly, and fixed more earnestly her great eyes upon those of
the prince, as she sat upright upon the couch, making her gorgeous
gold-sprinkled robe flash and glitter as she moved.
“O queenly tulip! will you come with me and be the flower of my life?”
whispered the prince, rising and moving timidly toward her.
Still the maiden spoke not; only moved gracefully forward as a flower
upon its stem.
“Thus then I make you mine,” exclaimed Rudolf, drawing from his breast
the magic veil, and throwing it over the head of the maiden.
But no sooner had the pure white tissue touched the dark and glowing
hair, than it became smirched and soiled, and the maiden fell back
upon her couch of petals, which now looked withered, broken, and
decaying; her rich robe showed that it was soiled and rent in many
places; her pure white skin was covered with blotches and pimples, and
the delicate color of her cheeks deepened to a swarthy, lurid red; her
languid eyes lost all their beauty, and glowed with a sullen fire;
her graceful figure lost its elasticity, and instead of soft repose,
expressed only a careless indolence and slothful abandonment. The air
grew suffocating with a heavy perfume, so powerful as to be quite
nauseous.
Prince Rudolf gazed a moment in horror; then, snatching the veil now
limp and soiled, he rushed from the pavilion. But outside all seemed
changed. The golden paths appeared to writhe about like great serpents,
twisting themselves together, and utterly bewildering him who tried to
follow them: all the millions of tulips in the flower beds were nodding
and waving distractedly upon their stems, clashing their stiff leaves
together, till the air seemed filled with the threatening music of an
approaching army.
For a few moments, Prince Rudolf rushed at random hither and thither,
backward and forward, round and round, but without making the least
progress toward the gate. Suddenly remembering the spear which the Sage
Althoso had given him, and which he had all this time carried fastened
to his belt without thinking of it, he drew it and struck furiously all
about him, at the paths, the beds, and the warlike tulips.
Immediately every thing resumed its former condition, and became
beautiful and quiet as when the prince first entered the garden.
Hastening along the now stationary path, Rudolf soon found himself
before the entrance gate. But the stiff leaves did not now yield
before him; on the contrary, turning their sharp edges toward him, one
close above the other, they presented an impenetrable barrier. Rudolf
laughing, touched them with the point of his spear, and instantly they
drooped, languid and broken upon their stems.
The prince leaped through, and found himself again in the wild forest,
but all trace of a path had disappeared; and the bewildered youth might
have exhausted himself in useless struggles, had not the loud neighing
of Sunbeam, who had become very impatient, directed the prince to the
place where he had left him. Again mounting his horse, Rudolf rode
slowly on, thinking deeply of what he had just seen. Taking the veil
from his breast, he regarded it sorrowfully, thinking it quite ruined;
but, to his surprise, it was fresh and pure as when Althoso first gave
it to him. “Thanks, dear veil,” murmured the prince, replacing it in
his bosom; and, fixing his eyes vacantly upon Sunbeam’s head, he again
rode on many a long mile, till the stopping of the horse caused him to
look around.
To his great surprise he found himself in a dense jungle. The very
trees were different from any thing he had seen before. Oaks, walnuts,
and birches had disappeared, and instead, on every side, rose the
stately palm, the graceful banana, and the gigantic ferns of the
tropics. Around and among these trees climbed flaunting vines, loaded
with scarlet flowers, while innumerable birds of the most gorgeous
plumage, but of harsh and startling note, flitted about, looking like
flying blossoms from the drooping vines.
Sunbeam had stopped in the centre of a little open space, shaded by the
nodding heads of the palms; and the creepers, which had leaped across
from side to side, forming a living canopy to this little glade. On
every side further progress was stopped by the dense foliage, except
one little path just wide enough for the prince to pass, but not for
Sunbeam. Leaving the horse, who neighed uneasily at seeing his master
disappear, Rudolf entered the narrow path, which was bordered on each
side by immense vines of the cactus plant interlacing themselves
overhead, and so loaded with flowers that not a stem or thorn was
visible. The pathway was illuminated, and the fiery hue of the flowers
exhibited by the light of myriads of fireflies who flitted in every
direction, now darting into the royal purple heart of a speciocissimus;
now poising themselves on the pink corolla of a truncatus, now bending
lightly the silvery stamens of a gloriosus, and then settling upon the
tangled curls of the prince’s head. All at once the path ended at the
entrance of a glade, similar to that which he had first entered; only
in this, the very ground was covered with cactus blossoms, placed so
closely together as to leave no trace of earth or vine visible, and
forming a carpet such as no weaver on earth could equal. All around the
sides and overhead climbed the vines and swung the blossoms, screamed
the birds, and flitted the fireflies.
As prince Rudolf stood entranced at the entrance of this flower palace,
he was saluted by a shower of silvery pollen, which was thrown in his
face and all over him, while a loud peal of shrill laughter made him
wipe his eyes and look hastily round. Just above his head, in a loop of
the strong vine, he saw a slender figure clad in a gauzy green dress,
trimmed round the skirt and neck with a border of scarlet blossoms, a
wreath of which also crowned the long, dark hair which flowed loosely
about her pliant form and encircled her slender waist.
Holding the vine lightly with one hand, the laughing, teasing girl
stripped from the blossoms near her the silvery pollen, and dashed it
in the upturned face of the prince, who, entering into the frolic with
the thoughtless gayety of a boy, pelted her in turn with whole handfuls
of flowers which he stripped from the vines near him, at first
carefully through fear of the thorns, but more recklessly when he
perceived, that, instead of standing out from the stem, these obliging
spines folded themselves close down upon it, and thus were perfectly
harmless. At last, Rudolf began to pursue the laughing, mocking
maiden up and down the ladder-like vines, sometimes almost grasping
her fluttering robe, then seeing her place herself at one bound far
beyond his reach, only to peep laughingly out at him from her flowery
hiding-place. At last, weary and hopeless of success, prince Rudolf
descended to the ground, and, throwing himself upon the flower carpet,
pretended to be asleep.
Soon he perceived by a light crackling of the branches that the
green-robed maiden was also descending and approaching him. Presently,
through his half-closed eyes, he could distinguish her flitting about
her gleaming bower, until at last she threw herself down also to repose
after the mad chase.
Taking carefully from his bosom the gauzy veil, the prince silently
approached the maiden, who now slept, or at least pretended to, and
with a sudden movement threw it over her graceful figure.
The effect, though different, was as startling as with the tulip
princess. From the wreath upon her head, from the girdle about her
waist, from the borders of her robe, sharp, piercing thorns projected
in every direction, rending and tearing the poor veil into tatters,
while the closed eyes of the maiden flew open to emit rays of furious
anger, while her full red lips curved themselves into a scornful,
withering smile; and with those pretty fingers, which had so
gracefully thrown flowers at the prince, but which were now armed each
with a long, claw-like talon, she sought to rend away the veil, which
embarrassed her motions, that she might rush upon the astonished youth.
Rudolf did not wait for her to free herself, but, seizing a fragment
of the veil, he turned and rushed into the flowery passage, which was
now dark and gloomy, for the fireflies had all hidden themselves; and
from between the gay flowers at the sides, overhead, and underfoot,
long thorns projected venomously, and would have entirely stopped any
progress on the part of the prince, had he not laid about on every side
with his spear, and thus succeeded, though not without the greatest
difficulty, in regaining the spot where he had left Sunbeam, whom he
found surrounded by furious parrots, macaws, and other tropical birds,
who, flinging themselves at him, hit him with their long beaks, and
tore him with their talons, so that the poor creature’s cries filled
the whole forest.
With great difficulty and by the free use of his spear, Rudolf
succeeded in driving them away, and then, perceiving a slight opening
in the jungle, he threw himself into it; and finally, just as the last
rays of daylight were dying away, he and Sunbeam found themselves,
faint, weary, and exhausted, torn with thorns and wounded by fierce
birds, once more upon the turfy road, which they had so unfortunately
quitted. Taking some food and a little silver cup from his wallet,
the prince threw himself upon the ground beside a cool spring, whose
trickling music had betrayed its vicinity, and, having eaten, drank,
and bathed, pillowed his head upon Sunbeam’s shoulder, and slept
peacefully all through the night.
With the first blush of morning, prince Rudolf arose and refreshed
himself with a simple repast, and a long draught of water from the
little rivulet, whose icy coldness in that sultry summer weather
much surprised him. “I will follow the stream a little way, and see
whence it draws this pure, cold water, while poor Sunbeam finishes his
breakfast.”
Murmuring these words half aloud, the prince fastened the bridle in
such a manner that the horse should have full liberty to graze, yet be
prevented from escaping, and proceeded slowly along the bank of the
little stream, which, murmuring and complaining, grew more and more
narrow, and tempted the youth from one bend to another, by promising
to diminish to its fountainhead within a short distance.
At last, just as Rudolf, somewhat vexed at his frequent
disappointments, was about to turn back, a gleam of some large object
like a house shone through the trees in the rays of the rising sun, and
the prince hastened to turn a sharp, projecting bend of the stream,
to see more clearly what this white building could be in the lonely
forest. As he turned the angle of the stream he started in astonishment.
Close beside the fountain of the rivulet rose a white marble pavilion,
its slender columns sculptured to represent lily stems, with the
flowers rising as a wreath about the light and graceful roof.
In the centre of the marble floor stood a chair and footstool, also of
marble, and seated upon it, as upon a throne, was a fair and stately
woman, upright and immovable, her abundant flaxen hair braided and
carried about her head in the form of a crown, which seemed indeed a
far more fitting ornament to her queenly beauty than a simple wreath.
Her robe was of a stiff, white silk, embroidered with gold thread;
upon her arms and throat were golden ornaments set with pearls; in
her beautiful hand, white and cold as marble, she held as a sceptre a