Stranica 195 [195]
KING BIZARRE AND PRINCE CHARMING
the ends of her fingers, and had been stupid enough to
believe it; it is never right to jest with children.
At this first lesson in reading, Charming turned pale and
trembled; the blood mounted to his cheeks, his eyes filled
with tears, and he gazed at his young teacher with a look
that made her start; then all at once, with a great effort, he
regained his self-possession, and said, in a tremulous voice,
“Pazza, that is A." And the same day and at one sitting
he learned all the letters of the alphabet; at the end of the
week he spelled readily, and before the month was ended
he read with ease.
King Bizarre was delighted. He kissed Pazza on both
cheeks; he insisted on having her always with him or his
son, and made this child his friend and counselor, to the
great disdain of all the courtiers. Charming, still gloomy
and silent, learned all that:this young mentor could teach
him, then returned to his former preceptors, whom he
astonished by his intelligence and docility. He soon knew
his grammar so well that the priest asked himself one day
whether, by chance, these definitions, which he had never
understood, had not a meaning. Charming none the less
astonished the philosopher, who taught him every evening
the opposite of what the priest had taught him in the morn¬
ing. But, of all his masters, the one to whom he listened
with the least repugnance was the colonel. It is true
that Bayonet, for that was the colonel’s name, was a skilful
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