Fairy Tales
Page 7
for the miraculous image
that comes when the story’s over.
The end of this thing here must be
a miracle, for it makes me
suffer to wait so. Hey, Father!
King:
This is getting painful. Come home.
Prince:
My home will be forever here.
I feel every single moment
like a kiss. The passage of time
touches my cheeks caressingly,
my senses draw toward this perfume.
I will cling to this world here
as she to me. I will not come
away, not ever.
King:
And what if I order you now?
Prince:
You’ve neither say nor power here.
I give myself the final word.
I confer the power on me
that says not to listen to you.
Forgive me, Father, in me is
a rebellious, youthful impulse,
one you had too when you were young.
I’ll stay and wait here till life stirs.
King:
Well must I too. But this hand has
yet to be extended, has yet
to forgive you for your speech.
Prince:
It is so infinitely dear
to forgive, so sweet to the one
who does so over and over.
That you’d likely forgive me
I knew for certain.
King:
What blather!
Prince:
I will forget that this strikes me
as very strange, so that even
anticipation keeps silent
and her conduct is still concealed
by a question. Yes, I am here
in a place so well beloved
that I can perhaps be patient.
But I am bothered by one thought:
Just where is Cinderella now?
Eh? What if she doesn’t return?
What if she totally forgot
just where her empathy belongs?
This is improbable but not
unlikely. That which is likely
is a wide world, and that a thing
happened was already likely,
even while seeming unlikely,
is almost beyond my grasp too.
And what is likely beyond me
is still as good as being likely.
So be it. I will get a grip
on myself. It befits someone,
especially men, to be proud.
But what is the fear in pride then,
what affects it so? And such pride,
what could it be worth to yourself?
No, I wish to weep, that this child
far from me so long has a chance.
I want to think that only this
will ever be.
King:
I fear while I stand here idle,
my state totters. Let it sink
into chaos. The fairy tale
draws to an end and tickles
my fancy; afterward will I
be the divine order once more.
Government enjoys its sleep too,
and the father of the law is
only human.
Prince:
I would willingly hold my breath
to hear her step all the better.
Yet she has such a light footstep
that even this inkling can’t tell
when she approaches. O, she draws
near, here to this impatient sense,
whose muscles tear themselves apart
to feel her near. The way being near
can be so sweet when it concerns
the lover, and how brutal she is
when something bad intrudes on us.
Here only something lovely should
really be intruding, and yet
this is never the way of love.
She’s silent where she must forget;
she doesn’t have this loud echo
that signals falsehood. O, she is
rich, and words aren’t necessary
to remember her by; surely,
O surely this dearest creature
cannot be far. My feeling says
this with spirit. Just the patience
to not evade who bides her time
is the one thing I think about.
I must stand here, standing as firm
as if some word could order me.
Lovers happily wait. To dream
of the beloved makes time fly.
What is time but just a quarrel
of impatience now becalmed?
What’s that shining there upon me?
He comes down from the gallery.
King:
I don’t know what is the matter,
why I’m married to silence here.
I’m too old for marriage. Reason
scolds me, points its finger at me,
laughing out loud, but what’s so wrong?
Of course I’m old and have a right
to be foolish. The indulgence
goes very sprightly with white hair
in general. I indulge my son
to play the guardian bravely.
Out of caprice, which at my age,
you know, limps behind. I’ll drop it,
as the spirit of youth would want.
I’m falling asleep—fatigue sits
well in my silver hair, like sleep
to a mind old and head-shaking.
Prince (below, with a shoe in his hand):
I see this thing as a portent
to approaching glory and love.
It’s a shoe for a shapely foot.
It speaks of a pleasing nature
as if it had a mouth, a gift
for eloquence. And these fine jewels
do not belong to her sisters,
who have turned to stone over there.
Where would they get such a foot too,
so narrowly shaped for this shoe?
Just whom could it belong to then?
I don’t want to face this question.
It scares me. Could it really be?
Does it belong to the girl? No,
I torture myself needlessly.
Who would give her silver and gold,
who would give her such royal jewels?
And yet some inkling speaks to me
of Cinderella, which reveals
her strange behavior, her distance,
her style. Magic, as I well know,
is a possibility here.
I want to want it, for I can’t
hold it, cannot get a grasp.
He climbs up the staircase reflectively, stalking Cinderella above in a maid’s dress, carrying the Fairy Tale’s gifts in her arms.
Cinderella:
Could you still be here yet, my Prince?
Prince:
I am still here, my charming child,
only to behold you once more.
What have you there?
Cinderella:
See, it’s a beautiful dress! Look
greedily at this majesty.
Such would bring joy to a king’s eye.
Prince:
Who gave you that?
Cinderella:
O that wouldn’t interest you much.
I don’t even know exactly.
It’s enough this sweet thing is mine
and that I can put it on now
if I wanted to. But—
Prince:
But—
Cinderella:
I no more do.
Prince:
What has made you so strangely cold?
Who clouded the lake of your soul
with silt, so that it looks so dark?
Cinderella:
I myself, and so just be still,
please put aside your nobl
e wrath.
There will be no more hurting here.
Only—
Prince:
What? Tell me, love!
Cinderella:
Only that something still pains me:
among all these lovely things here
something is still missing. I must be
missing the left shoe—ah, that’s it,
that’s it, of course.
Prince:
Well, of course—and is this one yours?
Cinderella:
How can you ask? It is just like
its brother here on the table.
So then I have this splendid gift
in full, and so I can go forth.
Prince:
Wearing that around your body,
right, that around your fair body?
Cinderella:
No, don’t!
Prince:
What’s gotten into you suddenly?
Cinderella:
So suddenly—what is it then?
Prince:
That you don’t love me anymore?
Cinderella:
I don’t know whether I love you.
Yet again it’s clear I love you,
for what kind of girl would not love
the high station and manliness,
the nobility, the fine cast?
I love your majesty that is
so patient and awaits my own.
I am touched that you, you alone
have shown such compassion for me.
Something touches me to the quick.
I’m nervous all of a sudden.
I stand utterly, miserably
exposed here. The least little breeze
will blow my heart into a storm,
to be so still soon afterward,
the same way it lies outspread now,
just like a peaceful, sunlit lake.
Prince:
Does your heart really feel like this?
Cinderella:
Like this and different. What one word
might express. Our language sounds
far too crude for expressing this.
Music is required to better
say this over and over. It,
it is playing.
Music.
Prince:
Listen, what lovely dance music.
Desire rises, swells inside me,
and I can no longer bear it,
that we stand here ever longer,
dithering. Come, let me lead you
in dance. Our ball begins here now,
with our own magic power. Drop
that silver-heavy burden, come.
Cinderella:
In this dress, my lord, full of filth
and covered with stains? So you want
to dance with a kitchen apron,
hold on tight to its soot and dust?
I would be thinking otherwise,
before I did such a thing.
Prince:
Not me.
He carries her down the steps. When he is below:
A princely pair dances.
They dance. After a few rounds, the music stops.
Cinderella:
Look, look!
Prince:
Like it’s telling us to be still.
Cinderella:
It wants this too. It’s a very
sensitive creature, not wanting
its sound to be lost in the dance.
It proves our imagination
is alive: we dance in a dream
as well as if it were real. In this case
a dance doesn’t want to be danced,
to make noise. Empathy can dance,
too without foot and without sound.
Quiet, for we must listen, it’s
what the music wants of us too!
The music begins anew.
Prince:
Listen, as sweet as any dream.
Cinderella:
Yes, it is a dream, so subtly
causing the dream to stir in us.
O, how it can’t bear a wide room.
It escapes into the silence,
where it moves nothing but the air
slowly back and forth. Let us sink
completely into its substance.
Thereafter we will forget what
we must forget. Let us seek out
the trail that leads to empathy,
the one we lost in our vulgar
passions. It will not be easy
to find this sweetness. It requires
infinite patience, like a sense
rarely achieved. It’s so easy,
like when we wish to comprehend
the incomprehensible. Come,
let’s rest serene.
Prince:
Your words ring as sweet as music.
Cinderella:
Hush, don’t disturb me in this thought
that, half resolved, gives me such pain.
Once it gets out, I’ll be happy
and cheerful, as you prefer me.
But it will never leave its cell,
this sense of being forsaken, which
I feel rising up in my heart.
It will fade away like a sound,
faint, guilty; and the memory
will never die. A part remains
with me until, perchance, there comes
some freak thing to save me from it.
Prince:
So what is this thought of yours then?
Cinderella:
Nothing, nothing at all—a whim.
When we hang on to a scruple
for much too long—something stupid—
yet that provides us with no end,
since a beginning, middle, end
are all but shifting things, never
with any sense, never, ever
knowing one’s heart. The end is:
I will be happy with you now.
Prince:
How you move me, and how you charm
me with your impulsivity,
which, with every indication,
has this noble bearing. We will
forget who and just what we are,
share happiness, like the anguish
we sincerely shared. You’re quiet?
Cinderella:
Rather the captured nightingale,
one who sits trembling in the snare,
forgetting the song she would sing.
Prince:
You sweet-talk me!
Cinderella:
I’m all yours, so frightfully yours
that you must lend me your body
to hide myself deep inside it.
Prince:
I shall offer you a kingdom—
Cinderella:
No, no!
Prince:
—a villa, in which you will dwell.
It is tucked deep in a garden.
Your view will come to rest on trees,
on flowers, the dense greenery,
on ivy garlanding the wall,
on a sky that sends you sunlight
more gorgeous than any other
as it pierces chinks in the leaves.
Moonlight there is more sensitive,
the tips of the pine trees tickle
it raw and tender. The birdsong
is to your ears a recital
inexpressibly beautiful.
As its mistress you will wander
through the art of the garden,
upon paths that, as though they had
empathy, part ways and rejoin
suddenly. Fountains brighten you,
the dreamer, whenever you dwell
in your thoughts too much. All of this
will come running to wait on you
and simply when it pleases you,
all feeling according to you,
all cheerfully subservient.
Cinderella:
isn’t it true that I would feel
myself borne by hands? By your hand,
there is no doubt I’d be clinging
utterly and blissfully so.
But these dresses, which you see here,
I’m terribly in love with them.
I would have to put them aside,
no more to be Cinderella—
Prince:
Then you will have handmaidens and
wardrobes full of gorgeous dresses.
Cinderella:
Don’t I have that?
Prince:
All day long in silence you would
be left to yourself. Only when
desire drove you from the garden
to people and to greater noise,
as it met your stillness, would you
find in the palace murmuring
enough delight, glitter, splendor,
music, dance, frolic, what you will.
Cinderella:
This again would make for something
like a very pleasant and lovely
contrast to my solitude then.
Do you think so?
Prince:
Of course.
Cinderella:
How I love you. I cannot find,
in that wide, open, infinite
land of gratitude, one small word
to thank you. So let me, in place
of every way to express thanks,
kiss you, like so. O that was sweet.
Good, now that it is at an end.
Prince:
An end? To what?
Cinderella:
This leaping comes to an end now,
this dance with me. I’m not for you.
I am still engaged to myself.
Memory reminds me I’ve not
yet dreamed this love through to the end,
that something floats around me here,
something here, something that gives me
still much more to do. Don’t you see
the quiet sisters over there,
hard as stone, watching us amazed?
I feel sorry for them, although
they’re not worth feeling sorry for.
But that is not being true, it is
only said for my sake really.
I love them, who worked me so hard
and stern. I love the punishment
that was undeserved, those foul words,
so as to keep smiling brightly.
I get endless satisfaction.
It occupies me all day long,
gives me cause to leap and to see,
to think and to dream. And that is
the reason I am such a dreamer.
I was betrothed to you too soon.
You deserve someone better.
The fairy tale never tells this.
Prince:
The fairy tale wants it. It’s clear,
the fairy tale will see us wed.
Cinderella:
A wide-awake fairy tale is
inside this dreaming creature here.
And I couldn’t dream at your side!
Prince:
But, but—!
Cinderella:
No, not where I would be displayed
like I was a bird in a cage.
I couldn’t take that, not being able