married Truitonne. I recognised your ring upon her hand. I saw her blazing with the diamonds you had given to her. She came to insult me in my sad prison, wearing the rich crown and royal mantle she had received from your hands, while I was laden with chains and fetters." "You have seen Truitonne so arrayed?" interrupted the king. "She and her mother have dared to tell you those jewels came from me?—O Heaven! is it possible that I hear such awful falsehoods, and that I cannot instantly avenge myself on the utterers! Know, that they tried to deceive me, that by a base use of your name they succeeded in causing me to carry off the ugly Truitonne; but the instant I discovered my error I endeavoured to fly from her, and eventually preferred being a Blue Bird for seven long years to failing in the troth I had plighted to you."
Florine felt such lively pleasure in listening to the explanation of her amiable lover, that she no longer remembered the misery of her prison. What did she not say to him to console him under his sad circumstances, and to assure him that she would do no less for him than he had done for her! Day dawned, and the majority of the officers of the royal household had risen before the Blue Bird and the princess had ceased conversing. It cost them a thousand pangs to part, after agreeing that they would meet every night in the same manner.
Their delight at having found each other was so great that there are no terms in which it can be expressed. Each, on their own part, offered up their thanks to Love and Fortune; but Florine's happiness was alloyed by her anxiety respecting the Blue Bird. "Who will preserve him from the sportsmen," she asked, "or from the sharp talons of some eagle or hungry vulture, who will eat him with as much relish as if he was not a great king? O Heaven! what would become of me if some of his light and delicate feathers, borne on the breeze to my window, announced to me the dreaded disaster?" This idea prevented the poor princess closing her eyes, for when one loves, fancies appear like facts, and what one would at another time think impossible, seems certain to happen; so she passed the day in tears till the hour arrived for her to return to the window.
The charming Bird, hidden in a hollow tree, had been all
