The Silent Princess

Once upon a time there lived in Turkey a pasha who had only one son, and so dearly did he love this boy that he let him spend the whole day amusing himself, instead of learning how to be useful like his friends.

Now the boy's favourite toy was a golden ball, and with this he would play from morning till night, without troubling anybody. One day, as he was sitting in the summer-house in the garden, making his ball run all along the walls and catching it again, he noticed an old woman with an earthen pitcher coming to draw water from a well which stood in a corner of the garden. In a moment he had caught his ball and flung it straight at the pitcher, which fell to the ground in a thousand pieces. The old woman started with surprise, but said nothing; only turned round to fetch another pitcher, and as soon as she had disappeared, the boy hurried out to pick up his ball. Scarcely was he back in the summer-house when he beheld the old woman a second time, approaching the well with the pitcher on her shoulder. She had just taken hold of the handle to lower it into the water, when -- crash ! And the pitcher lay in fragments at her feet. Of course she felt very angry, but for fear of the pasha she still held her peace, and spent her last pence in buying a fresh pitcher. But when this also was broken by a blow from the ball, her wrath burst forth, and shaking her fist towards the summer-house where the boy was hiding, she cried:

'I wish you may be punished by falling in love with the silent princess.' And having said this she vanished.

For some time the boy paid no heed to her words -- indeed he forgot them altogether; but as years went by, and he began to think more about things, the remembrance of the old woman's wish came back to his mind.

'Who is the silent princess ? And why should it be a punishment to fall in love with her ?' he asked himself, and received no answer. However, that did not prevent him from putting the question again and again, till at length he grew so weak and ill that he could eat nothing, and in the end was forced to lie in bed altogether. His father the pasha became so frightened by this strange disease, that he sent for every physician in the kingdom to cure him, but no one was able to find a remedy.

'How did your illness first begin, my son ?' asked the pasha one day. 'Perhaps, if we knew that, we should also know better what to do for you.'

Then the youth told him what had happened all those years before, when he was a little boy, and what the old woman had said to him.

'Give me, I pray you,' he cried, when his tale was finished, 'give me, I pray you, leave to go into the world in search of the princess, and perhaps this evil state may cease.' And, sore though his heart was to part from his only son, the pasha felt that the young man would certainly die if he remained at home any longer.

'Go, and peace be with you,' he answered; and went