Stranica 152 [152]
LABOULAYE’S FAIRY BOOK
and thirty senators their Latin in reasoning with him. To
be stubborn is one of the privileges of royalty, as Carlino
had known from his birth, and he would have thought
himself dishonored by being second to a mule in obstinacy.
But more things often happen in an hour than in a hun¬
ared years, and no one can say with safety, “This is a
road that I shall never travel." One morning at break¬
fast, as Carlino, instead of listening to his father’s sermon,
was amusing himself by watching the flies buzzing in the air,
he forgot that he had a knife in his hand, and pricked his
finger in a gesture of impatience. The blood gushed forth
and fell into a plate of cream that had just been handed
to him, where it made a curious mixture of white and red.
Either by chance or by the punishment of Heaven, the
prince was instantly seized with the maddest caprice that
could be imagined.
Sir," said he to his father, “if I do not soon find a woman
as white and red as this cream dyed with my blood, I am
lost. This wonder must exist somewhere. I love her; I
am dying for her; I must have her; I will have her. Toa
resolute heart nothing is impossible. If you would have
me live, let me go in search of her, or before to-morrow I
shall be dead of loneliness.”
The poor King of the Vermilion Towers was thunder¬
struck at this folly. It seemed to him that his palace was
crumbling over his head; he turned red and pale by turns,
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