Читать книгу H. C. Andersen best fairy tales / Лучшие сказки Г.Х. Андерсена. Уровень 1 - Ганс Христиан Андерсен - Страница 4

Once upon a time there was a Prince, and he wanted to marry a Princess; but she must be a real Princess. So he traveled all the world over to find one, but everywhere there was some obstacle. There were Princesses enough, but he was not quite certain whether they were real proper princesses. There was always something not perfectly correct. So he came back home and was very sad. He wanted to find a real princess.

One evening there was a terrible storm. It lightened and thundered and the rain poured down. It was quite fearful. There came a knock at the town gate and the old King went off to open it.

It was a gracious Princess. She was standing outside. But what a figure she was with the rain and bad weather! The water ran all down her hair and her clothes and in at the toes of her shoes and out at the heels. She said she was a real Princess.

“Ah, we’ll check it”, thought the old Queen to herself.

But she didn’t say anything. She went into the bedroom, took all the clothes off the bed and laid one dried pea on the bottom of the bed. Then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on top of the pea, and then twenty eiderdowns on top of the mattresses. There the Princess was sleeping that night.

In the morning they ask her how she was sleeping.

“Oh, dreadfully badly,” said the Princess; “I hardly closed my eyes the whole night! There was something terrible in my bed! There was something hard I lay on. It’s quite dreadful”.

Then everybody could see that this was a real Princess. She felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eiderdowns. Nobody could have such a tender skin but a real Princess.

So the Prince married her. Now he knew that he had a real Princess.

They put the pea in the treasure chamber, where everyone can see it nowadays.