The Happy Prince & Other Stories (Puffin Classics Relaunch)

by Oscar Wilde

  ‘There is no good talking to him,’ said a Dragonfly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; ‘no good at all, for he has gone away.’

  ‘Well, that is his loss, not mine,’ answered the Rocket, ‘I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.’

  ‘Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,’ said the Dragonfly, and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky.

  ‘How very silly of him not to stay here!’ said the Rocket. ‘I am sure that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind. However, I don’t care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be appreciated some day’; and he sank down a little deeper into the mud.

  After some time a large White Duck swam up to him. She had yellow legs, and webbed feet, and was considered a great beauty on account of her waddle.

  ‘Quack, quack, quack,’ she said. ‘What a curious shape you are! May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?’

  ‘It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,’ answered the Rocket, ‘otherwise you would know who I am. However, I excuse your ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I can fly up into the sky, and come down in a shower of golden rain.’

  ‘I don’t think much of that,’ said the Duck, ‘as I cannot see what use it is to anyone. Now, if you could plough the fields like the ox, or draw a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the collie-dog, that would be something.’

  ‘My good creature,’ cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of voice, ‘I see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my position is never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and that is more than sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with industry of any kind, least of all with such industries as you seem to recommend. Indeed, I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said the Duck, who was of a very peaceful disposition, and never quarrelled with anyone, ‘everybody has different tastes. I hope, at any rate, that you are going to take up your residence here.’

  ‘Oh! dear no,’ cried the Rocket. ‘I am merely a visitor, a distinguished visitor. The fact is that I find this place rather tedious. There is neither society here, nor solitude. In fact, it is essentially suburban. I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that I am destined to make a sensation in the world.’

  ‘I had thoughts of entering public life once myself,’ remarked the Duck; ‘there are so many things that need reforming. Indeed, I took the chair at a meeting some time ago, and we passed resolutions condemning everything that we did not like. However, they did not seem to have much effect. Now I go in for domesticity, and look after my family.’

  ‘I am made for public life,’ said the Rocket, ‘and so are all my relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite great attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I do so it will be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages one rapidly, and distracts one’s mind from higher things.’

  ‘Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!’ said the Duck; ‘and that reminds me how hungry I feel’; and she swam away down the stream, saying, ‘Quack, quack, quack.’

  Come back! come back!’ screamed the Rocket, ‘I have a great deal to say to you’; but the Duck paid no attention to him. ‘I am glad that she has gone,’ he said to himself, ‘she has a decidedly middle-class mind’; and he sank a little deeper still into the mud, and began to think about the loneliness of genius, when suddenly two little boys in white smocks came running down the bank with a kettle and some faggots.

  ‘This must be the deputation,’ said the Rocket, and he tried to look very dignified.

  ‘Hallo!’ cried one of the boys, ‘look at this old stick; I wonder how it came here’; and he picked the Rocket out of the ditch.

  ‘OLD STICK!’ said the Rocket, ‘impossible! GOLD STICK, that is what he said. Gold Stick is very complimentary. In fact, he mistakes me for one of the Court dignitaries!’

  ‘Let us put it into the fire!’ said the other boy, ‘it will help to boil the kettle.’

  So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and lit the fire.

  ‘This is magnificent,’ cried the Rocket, ‘they are going to let me off in broad daylight, so that everyone can see me.’

  ‘We will go to sleep now,’ they said, ‘and when we wake up the kettle will be boiled;’ and they lay down on the grass, and shut their eyes.

  The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. At last, however, the fire caught him.

  ‘Now I am going off!’ he cried, and he made himself very stiff and straight. ‘I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much higher than the moon, much higher than the sun. In fact, I shall go so high that –’

  Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air.

  ‘Delightful!’ he cried, ‘I shall go on like this for ever. What a success I am!’

  But nobody saw him.

  Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him.

  ‘Now I am going to explode,’ be cried. ‘I shall set the whole world on fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for a whole year.’ And he certainly did explode. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the gunpowder. There was no doubt about it.

  But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were sound asleep.

  Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on the back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch.

  ‘Good heavens!’ cried the Goose. ‘It is going to rain sticks;’ and she rushed into the water.

  ‘I knew I should create a great sensation,’ gasped the Rocket, and he went out.

  The Nightingale and the Rose

  ‘She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,’ cried the young Student, ‘but in all my garden there is no red rose.’

  From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves and wondered.

  ‘No red rose in all my garden!’ he cried, and his beautiful eyes filled with tears. ‘Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.’

  ‘Here at last is a true lover,’ said the Nightingale. ‘Night after night have I sung of him though I knew him not: night after night have I told his story to the stars and now I see him. His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire, but passion has made his face like pale ivory and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow.’

  ‘The Prince gives a ball tomorrow night,’ murmured the young Student, ‘and my love will be of the company. If I bring her a red rose she will dance with me till dawn. If I bring her a red rose, I shall hold her in my arms, and she will lean her head upon my shoulder and her hand will be clasped in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall sit lonely and she will pass me by. She will have no heed of me, and my heart will break.’

  ‘Here, indeed, is the true lover,’ said the Nightingale. ‘What I sing of, he suffers: what is joy to me, to him is pain. Surely love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market-place. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.’

  ‘The musicians will sit in their gallery,’ said the young Student, ‘and play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance to the sound of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly that her feet will
not touch the floor, and the courtiers in their gay dresses will throng round her. But with me she will not dance, for I have no red rose to give her’; and he flung himself down on the grass, and buried his face in his hands, and wept.

  ‘Why is he weeping?’ asked a little Green Lizard, as he ran past him with his tail in the air.

  ‘Why, indeed?’ said a Butterfly, who was fluttering about after a sunbeam.

  ‘Why, indeed?’ whispered a Daisy to his neighbour, in a soft, low voice.

  ‘He is weeping for a red rose,’ said the Nightingale.

  ‘For a red rose?’ they cried; ‘how very ridiculous!’ and the little Lizard, who was something of a cynic, laughed outright.

  But the Nightingale understood the secret of the Student’s sorrow, and she sat silent in the oak-tree, and thought about the mystery of Love.

  Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She passed through the grove like a shadow and like a shadow she sailed across the garden.

  In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful rose-tree, and when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray.

  ‘Give me a red rose,’ she cried, ‘and I will sing you my sweetest song.’

  But the Tree shook its head.

  ‘My roses are white,’ it answered; ‘as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow on the mountain. But go to my brother who grows round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you want.’

  So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing round the old sun-dial.

  ‘Give me a red rose,’ she cried, ‘and I will sing you my sweetest song.’

  But the Tree shook its head.

  ‘My roses are yellow,’ it answered; ‘as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his scythe. But go to my brother who grows beneath the Student’s window, and perhaps he will give you what you want.’

  So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing beneath the Student’s window.

  ‘Give me a red rose,’ she cried, ‘and I will sing you my sweetest song.’

  But the Tree shook its head.

  ‘My roses are red,’ it answered; ‘as red as the feet of the dove, and redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the ocean-cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has nipped my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no roses at all this year.’

  ‘One red rose is all I want,’ cried the Nightingale, ‘only one red rose! Is there no way by which I can get it?’

  ‘There is a way,’ answered the Tree ‘but it is so terrible that I dare not tell it to you.’

  ‘Tell it to me,’ said the Nightingale, ‘I am not afraid.’

  ‘If you want a red rose,’ said the Tree, ‘you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart’s-blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine.’

  ‘Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,’ cried the Nightingale, ‘and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?’

  So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed through the grove.

  The young Student was still lying on the grass, where she had left him, and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes.

  ‘Be happy,’ cried the Nightingale, ‘be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though he is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense.’

  The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could not understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things that are written down in books.

  But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches.

  ‘Sing me one last song,’ he whispered; ‘I shall feel lonely when you are gone.’

  So the Nightingale sang to the Oak-tree, and her voice was like water bubbling from a silver jar.

  When she had finished her song, the Student got up, and pulled a note-book and a lead-pencil out of his pocket.

  ‘She has form,’ he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove – ‘that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that the arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good!’ And he went into his room, and lay down on his little pallet-bed, and began to think of his love; and, after a time, he fell asleep.

  And when the moon shone in the heavens the Nightingale flew to the Rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long she sang, with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal Moon leaned down and listened. All night long she sang, and the thorn went deeper and deeper into her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her.

  She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl. And on the topmost spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous rose, petal following petal, as song followed song. Pale was it, at first, as the mist that hangs over the river – pale as the feet of the morning, and silver as the wings of the dawn. As the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, as the shadow of a rose in a water-pool, so was the rose that blossomed on the topmost spray of the Tree.

  But the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. ‘Press closer, little Nightingale,’ cried the Tree, ‘or the Day will come before the rose is finished.’

  So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and louder and louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul of a man and a maid.

  And a delicate flush of pink came into the leaves of the rose, like the flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of the bride. But the thorn had not yet reached her heart, so the rose’s heart remained white, for only a Nightingale’s heart’s-blood can crimson the heart of a rose.

  And the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. ‘Press closer, little Nightingale,’ cried the Tree, ‘or the Day will come before the rose is finished.’

  So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.

  And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart.

  But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter, and her little wings began to beat, and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, and she felt something choking in her throat.

  Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through
the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea.

  ‘Look, look!’ cried the Tree, ‘the rose is finished now;’ but the Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart.

  And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out.

  ‘Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!’ he cried; ‘here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name’; and he leaned down and plucked it.

  Then he put on his hat, and ran up to the Professor’s house with the rose in his hand.

  The daughter of the Professor was sitting in the doorway winding blue silk on a reel, and her little dog was lying at her feet.

  ‘You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose,’ cried the Student. ‘Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will wear it tonight next your heart, and as we dance together it will tell you how I love you.’

  But the girl frowned.

  ‘I am afraid it will not go with my dress,’ she answered; ‘and, besides, the Chamberlain’s nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.’

  ‘Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful,’ said the Student angrily and he threw the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter, and a cart-wheel went over it.

  ‘Ungrateful!’ said the girl. ‘I tell you what, you are very rude; and, after all, who are you? Only a Student. Why, I don’t believe you have even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain’s nephew has’; and she got up from her chair and went into the house.