Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/416

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THE PENTAMERONE.

and two or three servants; and bidding him farewell, he felt as if his soul was torn out of his body. Then weeping bitterly, he went to a balcony, and followed his son with his eyes until he was lost to sight.

The prince departed, leaving his unhappy father to his grief, and hastened on his way through fields and woods, over mountain and valley, hill and plain, visiting various countries, and mixing with various peoples, and always with his eyes wide awake to see whether he could find the object of his desire. At the end of several months he arrived at the coast of France, where, leaving his servants at an hospital with sore feet, he embarked alone in a Genoese boat, and set out toward the Straits of Gibraltar. There he took a larger vessel and sailed for the Indies, seeking everywhere, from kingdom to kingdom, from province to province, from country to country, from street to street, from house to house, in every hole and corner, whether he could find the original likeness of that beautiful image which he had pictured to his heart. And he wandered about and about, until at length he came to the Island of the Ogresses, where be cast anchor and landed. There he found an old old woman, withered and shrivelled up, and with a hideous face, to whom be related the reason that had brought him to that country. The old woman was beside herself with amazement when she