Bluebeard

by Angela Carter

  ‘I’d like to try and see if it might not fit me!’

  Her sisters giggled and made fun of her but the gentleman who was in charge of the slipper trial looked at Cinderella carefully and saw how beautiful she was. Yes, he said; of course she could try on the slipper. He had received orders to try the slipper on the feet of every girl in the kingdom. He sat Cinderella down and, as soon as he saw her foot, he knew it would fit the slipper perfectly. The two sisters were very much astonished but not half so astonished as they were when Cinderella took her own glass slipper from her pocket. At that the godmother appeared; she struck Cinderella’s overalls with her ring and at once the old clothes were transformed to garments more magnificent than all her ball-dresses.

  Then her sisters knew she had been the beautiful lady they had seen at the ball. They threw themselves at her feet to beg her to forgive them for all the bad treatment she had received from them. Cinderella raised them up and kissed them and said she forgave them with all her heart and wanted them only always to love her. Then, dressed in splendour, she was taken to the prince. He thought she was more beautiful than ever and married her a few days later. Cinderella, who was as good as she was beautiful, took her sisters to live in the palace and arranged for both of them to be married, on the same day, to great lords.

  Moral

  Beauty is a fine thing in a woman; it will always be admired. But charm is beyond price and worth more, in the long run. When her godmother dressed Cinderella up and told her how to behave at the ball, she instructed her in charm. Lovely ladies, this gift is worth more than a fancy hairdo; to win a heart, to reach a happy ending, charm is the true gift of the fairies. Without it, one can achieve nothing; with it, everything.

  Another Moral

  It is certainly a great advantage to be intelligent, brave, well-born, sensible and have other similar talents given only by heaven. But however great may be your god-given store, they will never help you to get on in the world unless you have either a godfather or a godmother to put them to work for you.

  Ricky with the Tuft

  There was once a queen who gave birth to a son so ugly and ungainly that even his mother’s heart could not warm to him at all. But the fairy midwife who attended her told her she would certainly learn to love him because he would grow up to be very clever and exceptionally charming and, she added, because of the gift she was about to make him, he would be able to share his native wit with the one he would love best, when the time came.

  So the queen was somewhat consoled for having brought such an ugly object into the world and no sooner had the child learned to speak than he began to chatter away so cleverly, and to behave with so much engaging intelligence, that everyone was charmed by him and he was universally loved. I forgot to tell you that he was born with a little tuft of hair on top of his head, which earned him the nickname: Ricky with the Tuft. Ricky was the name of his family.

  At the end of seven or eight years, the queen of a neighbouring country gave birth to twin daughters. The first to be born was as beautiful as the day; the queen was so overjoyed that the nurses were afraid she might lose her senses. The same fairy midwife who had attended the birth of Ricky with the Tuft had arrived to look after this queen, too, and, to calm her excesses, she told her that, alas, the pretty little princess had no sense at all and would grow up to be as stupid as she was beautiful. The queen was very upset to hear that and even more upset, a moment or two later, when her second daughter arrived in the world and this one proved to be extraordinarily ugly.

  ‘Don’t distress yourself, madame,’ said the fairy. ‘Your other daughter will have many compensations. She will be so clever and witty that nobody will notice how plain she is.’

  ‘I truly hope so!’ exclaimed the queen. ‘But isn’t there any way we could give this pretty one just a spark or two of the ugly one’s wit?’

  ‘I can do nothing for her on that account,’ said the fairy. ‘But I can certainly make her more beautiful than any girl in the world. And since there is nothing I would not do to make you happy, I am going to give her the power to make whoever it is with whom she falls in love as beautiful as she is, too.’

  As the two princesses grew up, their perfections grew with them and everywhere nobody talked of anything but the beauty of the elder and the wit and wisdom of the younger. But age also emphasized their defects. The younger grew more ugly as you looked at her and the elder became daily more and more stupid. Either she was struck dumb the minute somebody spoke to her or else she said something very foolish in reply. Besides, she was so clumsy she could not put four pots on the mantelpiece without spilling half of it on her clothes.

  Although beauty is usually a great asset in a young woman, her younger sister always far outshone the elder in company. First of all, they would flock around the lovely one to look at her and admire her but soon she was abandoned for the company of the one with more to say for herself. And in less than a quarter of an hour, there she would be, all by herself and the younger the centre of an animated throng. However stupid the elder might be, she could not help but notice it and she would have sacrificed all her beauty without a single regret for half her sister’s wit, intelligence and charm. The queen tried to prevent herself but, even so, she could not help reproach the girl for her stupidity now and then and that made the poor princess want to die for grief.

  One day, when she was hiding herself in a wood bemoaning her fate, she saw a little man whose unprepossessing appearance was equalled only by the magnificence of his clothes. It was the young prince, Ricky with the Tuft, who had fallen head over heels in love with the pretty pictures of the princess that were on sale in all the shops. He had left his father’s kingdom in order to see her in the flesh, and speak to her. He was delighted to meet her accidentally, alone in the wood, and greeted her with great respect. After he had paid her the usual compliments, he saw how sad she looked and said to her:

  ‘Madame, I don’t understand how a lady as beautiful as you are could possibly be as unhappy as you seem to be. I’ve had the good fortune to meet a great many beautiful people but I can truthfully say I’ve never seen anybody half as beautiful as you.’

  ‘You are very kind,’ said the princess and, since she could think of nothing more to say, she fell abruptly silent.

  ‘Beauty is such a blessing, why! it is more important than anything,’ said Ricky. ‘And if one is beautiful, I don’t understand how anything could ever upset one.’

  ‘Oh, I’d much rather be as ugly as you are and be clever than be as beautiful and as terribly, terribly stupid as me!’

  ‘Nothing reveals true wisdom so much as the conviction one is a fool, madame; and the truly wise are those who know they are fools.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about any of that,’ said the princess. ‘But I do know I really am a fool and that’s the reason why I’m so unhappy.’

  ‘If that’s the only reason for your unhappiness, madame, then I can cure it in a trice.’

  ‘How can you do that?’ asked the princess.

  ‘Well, madame, I have the power to dower the lady whom I love with as much wit as she wishes and, since you are the very one for me, wit and wisdom are yours for the asking if you would consent to become my wife.’

  The princess was utterly taken aback and could not speak a single word.

  ‘I see my proposal throws you into a state of confusion,’ said Ricky with the Tuft. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. I will give you a whole year in which to make up your mind.’

  The princess had so few brains and such a longing to possess some that she imagined a year would be endless so she accepted his proposal on the spot. No sooner had she promised Ricky with the Tuft that she would marry him that same day in one year’s time than she felt a great change come over her. From that moment, she began such a brilliant and witty conversation with Ricky that he thought he must have given her more intelligence than he had kept for himself.

  When she went home to the palace, the courti
ers did not know what to think of the sudden and extraordinary change in her. Before, she had babbled idiocies; now she said the wisest things, and always with a sweet touch of wit. Everyone was overjoyed, except her younger sister whose nose was put sadly out of joint because, now she no longer outshone her sister in conversation, nothing detracted from her ugliness and she looked the plain little thing she really was beside her.

  The king took advice from his counsellors. The news of the change in the princess was publicly announced and all the young princes from the neighbouring kingdoms tried to make her fall in love with them. But she found that not one of them was half as clever as she was and she listened to all their protestations unmoved. However, at last there came a prince so powerful, so rich and so handsome that she felt her interest quicken slightly. Her father told her that she could choose her own husband from among her suitors. She thanked him and asked him for a little time in which to decide.

  So that she could make up her mind in peace she went off for a walk by herself and, by chance, she found herself in the same wood where she had met Ricky with the Tuft. As she walked through the wood, deep in thought, she heard a noise under her feet, as if a great many people were coming and going, hither and thither, in a great bustle, underground. Listening attentively, she thought she heard a voice demand: ‘Bring me that roasting pan,’ and another say: ‘Fetch me the saucepan,’ and yet another cry: ‘Put a bit more wood on the fire.’ Then the very ground opened in front of her and she saw a huge kitchen full of cooks, scullions and all the staff required to prepare a magnificent banquet. Out of the kitchen came a band of twenty or thirty spit-turners who at once took up their positions round a long table and, chef’s caps on the sides of their heads, larding needles in hand, all went busily to work, singing away.

  The princess was astonished at the spectacle and asked them who was their master.

  ‘Why, Prince Ricky with the Tuft, madame,’ replied the head cook. ‘And tomorrow is his wedding day.’

  The princess was more surprised than ever. Then, in a flash, she remembered how, just a year before, she had promised to marry Ricky with the Tuft; and when she remembered that, she thought she would faint. She had forgotten her promise completely. When she had said she would marry Ricky, she had been a fool and, as soon as she possessed all the sense the prince had given her, her earlier follies had vanished from her mind.

  In a state of some agitation, she walked on but she had not gone thirty paces before Ricky with the Tuft presented himself to her, dressed like a prince on his wedding day.

  ‘See, madame!’ he said. ‘I have come to keep my word and I do not doubt that you are here in order to keep yours.’

  ‘I must confess to you that I have not made up my mind on that point,’ answered the princess, ‘and I fear that I do not think I shall ever be able to do as you wish.’

  ‘You astonish me, madame,’ said Ricky with the Tuft.

  ‘I daresay I do,’ said the princess calmly. ‘And, certainly, if I were dealing with an insensitive man, I should feel very embarrassed. An insensitive man would say to me: “A princess must keep her word. You promised to marry me and marry me you shall.” But I know I am speaking to a subtle and perceptive man of the world and I am certain he will listen to reason. As you know, when I was a fool, I could not bring myself to a firm decision concerning our marriage. Now I have the brains you gave me, I am even more difficult to please than I was then. And would you wish me to make a decision today that I could not make when I had no sense? If you wished to marry me, you did me a great wrong to take away my stupidity and make me see clearly things I never saw before.’

  Ricky with the Tuft replied:

  ‘If an insensitive man would be justified in reproaching you for breaking your word, why should you expect, madame, that I should not behave in the same way when my whole life’s happiness is at stake? Is it reasonable that a sensitive man should be treated worse than an insensitive one? Would you say that, when you possess so much reason yourself, and wanted it so much? But let us come to the point. With the single exception of my ugliness, is there anything in me that displeases you? Are you dissatisfied with my birth, my intelligence, my personality or my behaviour?’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied the princess. ‘I love everything about you except your person.’

  ‘If that is so, then I am going to be very happy,’ said Ricky with the Tuft. ‘For you alone can make me the handsomest of men.’

  ‘How can I do that?’ asked the princess.

  ‘By loving me enough to make it come true,’ said Ricky. ‘The fairy midwife who gave me the power to make the one I loved wise and witty also gave you the power to make the one you love as beautiful as you are yourself, if you truly wish it so.’

  ‘If that is the way of things,’ said the princess, ‘I wish with all my heart that you may become the handsomest prince in all the world.’

  As soon as she said that, Ricky with the Tuft seemed to her the handsomest man she had ever seen.

  But some people say there was no magic involved in this transformation and love alone performed the miracle. They whispered that when the princess took into account her lover’s faithfulness, his sense, his good qualities, and his intellect, then she no longer saw how warped his body was nor how ugly his face. His hump seemed to her no more than good, broad shoulders; at first she thought he had a frightful limp but now she saw it was really a charming, scholarly stoop. His eyes only sparkled the more because of his squint and she knew that squint was due to the violence of his passion. And how martial, how heroic, she thought his huge, red nose was!

  Be that as it may, the princess promised to marry him there and then, provided he obtained consent of the king, her father.

  The king saw how much in love his daughter was with Ricky with the Tuft and, besides, he knew him for a wise and prudent prince. He accepted him as his son-in-law with pleasure.

  The next day, the wedding was celebrated just as Ricky had foreseen, according to the arrangements he had made a year before.

  Moral

  This is not a fairy tale but the plain, unvarnished truth; every feature of the face of the one we love is beautiful, every word the beloved says is wise.

  Another Moral

  A beautiful soul is one thing, a beautiful face another. But love alone can touch the heart.

  The Foolish Wishes

  There once lived a woodcutter who was so poor he couldn’t enjoy life at all; he thought he was by nature a most unlucky fellow.

  One day, at work in the woods, he was moaning away, as usual, when Jupiter, king of the gods, appeared unexpectedly, thunderbolt in hand. The woodcutter was very frightened and threw himself on the ground, apologizing profusely for ever having complained about anything at all.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ said Jupiter. ‘I’m deeply touched by your misfortunes. Listen. I am the king of the gods and the master of the world. I’m going to grant you three wishes. Anything you want, anything at all, whatever will make you happy – all you have to do is wish for it. But think very carefully before you make your wishes, because they’re the only ones you’ll ever get.’

  At that, Jupiter went noisily back to heaven and the woodcutter picked up his bundle of sticks and trudged home, light at heart. ‘I mustn’t wish for anything silly,’ he said to himself. ‘Must talk it all over with the wife before I make a decision.’

  When he reached his cottage, he told his wife, Fanchon, to pile more wood on the fire.

  ‘We’re going to be rich!’ he said. ‘All we’ve got to do is to make three wishes.’

  He told her what had happened to him and she was dazzled at the prospects that opened up before her. But she thought they should plan their wishes very carefully.

  ‘Blaise, my dear, don’t let’s spoil everything by being too hasty. Let’s talk things over, and put off making our first wish until tomorrow, after we’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Blaise, her husband. ‘But l
et’s celebrate; let’s have a glass of wine.’

  She drew some wine from the barrel and he rested his bones in his armchair beside a roaring fire, glass in hand, happier than he had ever been in his life.

  ‘My, oh, my,’ he said, half to himself. ‘I know just what would go down well on a night like this; a nice piece of black pudding. Why, I wish I had a piece of black pudding right now!’

  No sooner had he spoken these fateful words than Fanchon beheld an enormous black pudding make an unexpected appearance in the chimney corner and come crawling towards her like a snake. First, she screamed; then, when she realized that the black pudding had arrived solely because her stupid husband had made a careless wish, she called him every name under the sun and heaped abuse on his head.

  ‘We could have had an entire empire of our own! Gold and pearls and diamonds and nice clothes, any amount of them – and what do you go and wish for? What’s your heart’s desire – why, a bit of black pudding!’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What else can I say? I admit it, I’ve done something very foolish. I’ll do better, next time. Haven’t I said I’m sorry?’

  ‘Words, words, words,’ said the woodcutter’s wife. ‘Why don’t you go and sleep in the stable; it’s the best place for an ass like you.’

  Her husband lost his temper completely at that and thought how much he’d like to wish to be a widower; but he didn’t quite dare say it aloud.

  ‘Men were born to suffer! To hell with the black pudding! I wish that black pudding were hanging from the end of your nose!’

  Now, Fanchon was a very pretty woman and nobody would have said her looks were improved by the black pudding but it hung over her mouth and muffled her nagging and, for a single, happy moment, her husband felt he could wish for nothing more.