“I? How? I am only a child, I know nothing, I have learnt nothing, I am nothing.”
The maiden considered him pensively.
“Why did you wish to leave?” she asked.
“Because I was in too much pain amidst the corruption and the dissolution of the palace.”
“Well, then, that shows that you have something inside you worth more than all the things you have not learnt.”
“What do I have?”
“You have an honourable soul, and dignity.”
The Prince considered this for a while. Then he asked:
“And what good are these things to me?”
“They are good to you because you can use them to find in you the strength and the will to rebuild your nation.”
“But how? How?!”
“How would I know to tell you?… Yet, if I were you, I would go back, and travel everywhere in the realm. Do not remain locked up in the palace, go and talk with your people instead, come to know them, live by their side; listen to what the birds and the trees and the flowers have to say, the insects. If you only knew how many truths one may learn this way, how many examples one may find to show one the way!..”
The Prince paused thoughtfully for a very long time.
Then he said:
“I shall go back, Knowledge, and I shall travel everywhere in the realm. Thank you.”
He meant to say goodbye, but the maiden stopped him.
“Won’t you stay awhile yet?” she asked. “You are all in tatters, you and your sister both. I have something I would like to give to the Princess as a gift, a thing that will serve her well.”
She took out of her pocket a needle case and a bobbin of thread, and gave them to her.
“You see,” she said, “it is no great gift, nor a costly one. Yet in its way it is priceless.”
Little Irene stared at the thread and at the needles without understanding.
“What are these?” she asked, puzzled.
“What’s that? You do not sew?” asked Knowledge.
“No, nor have I ever seen anyone else sew.”
“Would you like to learn? Come, and I shall teach you.”
And Knowledge sat on the front step of her house, took Little Irene’s torn scarf, and darned all the holes.
Little Irene stared in amazement and bewilderment.
“Please let me have me the needle and thread! Oh, let me try too!” she begged.
She took the needle and darned her dress, then her silken slippers and the golden ribbons which tied up her brother’s sandals, and which were all in knots, then his frayed neckerchief and his torn clothes.
She mended them so beautifully that when she had finished they all seemed to her as new.
“What fun this is!” she said excitedly. “And you, Knowledge, do you sew a great deal yourself?”
“I sew when I have finished all of my tasks.”
“So you do more things in the house? Tell me, what?”
“All the housework: I tidy up, I wash, cook, knead bread and tend to the garden—”
“Fancy that!” interjected Little Irene. “I do nothing at all, all day long, and I am so very frightfully bored! This morning, for instance, until my brother was awake, I passed my hand again and again through the rays of the sun and watched the specks of dust leaping here and there, just so I could pass the time. I have no idea how to kill the endless hours of the day!”
Knowledge laughed.
“Do you wish to kill them, or to use them?” she asked.
“Isn’t it the same?”
“No! Time always passes. But if you consume yourself in idle things, you waste it; whereas if you do work that has a purpose, you make good use of time.”
“I’ve never thought of this before,” said the Prince pensively. “To me too the hours appear endless!”
“And yet time is precious,” replied Knowledge. “With what things do you busy yourself all day?”
“With no things! What can I busy myself with? Everyone lives for himself and is busy with himself alone; and I have need of nothing.”
“And yet your country has need of you.”
“Pah! Everyone looks after themselves, and manages in some way or other, lives any old how.”
“You have put it well that everyone manages in some way or other, lives any old how,” replied Knowledge, with sadness. Your country too manages in some way or other, any old how. And yet, will you allow yourself to be content with such a state of things?”
“What can I do?”
“If everyone thought less of his own individual self and worked more for the general good, they would see one day that they had still worked for themselves, and that instead of living any old how, they had managed in fact to live well.”
“I do not understand,” muttered the Prince.
Knowledge laughed.
“Have I clouded your heart?” she said. “Yet if you were to go back and live amongst your people, talk with them and listen to what they have to say, you would then understand infinitely better.”
“I will go, as you say!” said the Prince earnestly.
The two siblings entered the back kitchen to bid farewell to Mistress Wise; they found her braising meat in a large pot.
“What? Will you not stay and taste my stew?” the old woman asked.
“Thank you kindly, but no,” said the Prince. “I am in a hurry to go back.”
The old woman cut them a thick slice of bread each, and thrust it affectionately into their pockets.
“The way is long,” she said. “Godspeed to you, my children.”
They bid goodbye to Knowledge, and then the siblings picked up once more the way back to the palace.
Every now and then Little Irene would turn her head to look at the small, hospitable white cottage, which was still visible through the leafy trees. And when that was lost from sight, she sighed heavily and looked at her brother who was walking straight ahead, with steady step, his head held high.
IV. On the Way Back
THEY WALKED for many hours across the dry, boundless valley. Eventually they came to a desolate hamlet, where barely two or three dwellings still stood erect.
They stopped in front of the first and knocked at the door.
A middle-aged man with a crotchety face and unkempt clothes opened the door.
“What do you want?” he snapped.
“Just a place to sit down for a while. We are exhausted,” replied the Prince.
“This is not an inn,” said the man.
And he shut the door.
The siblings sat on the doorstep, and took out their bread to eat.
Before long, they heard the window open cautiously. They turned around, and saw the same man.
“What’s the idea of sitting in front of my house like this?” he snapped again.
“Are we disturbing you?” asked the Prince, without rising.
“You most certainly are! Away with you!” retorted the man. “I don’t like beggars.”
“We ask you for nothing,” said the Prince quietly.
The man became irascible.
“The doorstep is mine!” he yelled. “Be gone with you, or I shall give you a thrashing you’ll never forget!”
The two siblings got up and went farther down the road. The spring sun, however, was strong and hot; seeking to find some shade, they returned to the back of the house, where amidst some rubble and ruins they lay down in a shady corner and fell asleep.
A light tapping noise awoke the Prince. It seemed to him that he could hear voices.
He rose carefully, peered through the stones without being seen, and saw the same inhospitable man: he was now speaking from his window to a child laden with a sack; his voice was hushed and secretive.
“Did anyone see you?” asked the man lowering his voice to a whisper.