Part 6 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE NEXT MOMENT A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE CREATURE STOOD UPON HIS HAND.”]
”Struck with astonishment, the boy kept silence. She lifted up her face, and opened her lips more than once. He expected her to say some wonderful thing; but, when at length she did speak, she only said, 'Child, are you happy?'
”'No,' said the boy, in a low voice, 'because I want to paint, and I cannot.'
”'How do you know that you cannot?' asked the fairy.
”'Oh, fairy,' replied the boy, 'because I have tried a great many times.
It is of no use trying any longer.'
”'What if I were to help you?' said the fairy.
”'There would then indeed be some pleasure in the work and some chance of success,' said the boy.
”'I was just closing my leaves for the night,' answered the fairy, 'when you drew me out of the water; and I should have made you feel the effects of my resentment if it had not happened that you are the favorite of our race. Under the water, at the bottom of this lake, are our palaces and castles; and when, after visiting the upper world, we wish to return to them, we close one of these lilies over us, and sink in it to our home. The wish that I heard you utter just now induced me to appear to you. I know a powerful charm which will ensure your success and the accomplishment of your highest wishes; but it is one which requires a great deal of care and patience in the working, and I cannot put you in possession of it unless you will promise the most implicit obedience to my directions.'
”'Spirit of a water-lily!' said the boy, 'I promise with all my heart.'
”'Go home, then,' continued the fairy, 'and you will find lying on the threshold a little key: take it up.'
”'I will,' answered the boy; 'and what then shall I do?'
”'Carry it to the nearest pine-tree,' said the fairy, 'strike the trunk with it, and a keyhole will appear. Do not be afraid to unlock that magic door. Slip in your hand, and you will bring out a wonderful palette. I have not time now to tell you half its virtues, but they will soon unfold themselves. You must be very careful to paint with colors from that palette every day. On this depends the success of the charm.
You will find that it will soon give grace to your figures and beauty to your coloring; and I promise you that, if you do not break the spell, you shall not only in a few years be able to produce as beautiful a copy of these flowers as can be wished, but your name shall become known to fame, and your genius shall be honored, and your pictures admired on both sides the Atlantic.'
”'Can it be possible?' said the boy; and the hand trembled on which stood the fairy.
”'It shall be so, if only you do not break the charm,' said the fairy; 'but lest, like the rest of your ungrateful race, you should forget what you owe to me, and even when you grow older begin to doubt whether you have ever seen me, the Lily you gathered will never fade till my promise is accomplished.'
”So saying, she gathered around her the folds of her robe, crossed her arms, and dropping her head on her breast, trembled slightly; and, before the boy could remark the change, he had nothing in his hand but a flower.
”He looked up. All the beautiful rosy flowers were faded to a shady gray. The gold had disappeared from the water, and the forest was dense and gloomy. He arose with the lily in his hand, went slowly home, laid it in a casket to protect it from injury, and then proceeded to search for the palette, which he shortly found; and, lest he should break the spell, he began to use it that very night.
”Who would not like to have a fairy friend? Who would not like to work with a magic palette? Every day its virtues become more apparent. He worked very hard, and it was astonis.h.i.+ng how soon he improved. His deep, heavy outlines soon became light and clear; and his coloring began to a.s.sume a transparent delicacy. He was so delighted with the fairy present that he even did more than was required of him. He spent nearly all his leisure time in using it, and often pa.s.sed whole days beside the sheet of water in the forest. He painted it when the sun shone, and it was spotted all over with the reflection of fleeting white clouds; he painted it covered with water-lilies rocking on the ripples; by moonlight, when two or three stars in the empty sky shone down upon it; and at sunset, when it lay trembling like liquid gold.
”But the fairy never came to look at his work. He often called to her when he had been more than usually successful; but she never made him any answer, nor took the least notice of his entreaties that he might see her again.
”So a long time--several years--pa.s.sed away. He was grown up to be a man, and he had never broken the charm; he still worked every day with his magic palette.
”No one in these parts cared at all for his pictures. His mother's friends told him he would never get his bread by painting; his mother herself was sorry that he chose to waste his leisure so; and the more because the pictures on her walls were brighter far than his, and had clouds and trees of far clearer color, not like the common clouds and misty hills that he was so fond of painting, and his faintly colored distant forest, with uncertain and variable hues, such as she could see any day when she looked out at her window.
”It made the young man unhappy to hear all this fault found with his proceedings, but it never made him leave off using the fairy's palette, though about this time he himself began to doubt whether he should ever be a painter. One evening he sat at his easel, trying in vain to give the expression he wished to an angel's face, which seemed to get less and less like the face in his heart with every touch he gave it. On a sudden he threw down his brush, and with a feeling of bitter disappointment upbraided himself for what he now thought his folly in listening to the fairy, and accepting her delusive gift. What had he got by it hitherto? Nothing but his mother's regrets and the ridicule of his companions. He threw himself on his bed. It grew dark; he could no longer be vexed with the sight of his unfinished angel; and presently he fell asleep and forgot his sorrow.
”In the middle of the night he suddenly awoke. His chamber was full of moonlight. The lid of the casket where he kept the lily had sprung open, and his fairy friend stood near it.
”'American painter,' she said, in a reproachful voice, 'since you think I have been rather a foe than a friend to you, I am ready to take back my gift.'