d a king who was deeply in love with a
princess, but she could not marry anyone, because she was under an
enchantment. So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he
could do to win the Princess's love. The Fairy said to him:

"You know that the Princess has a great cat which she is very fond of.
Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat's tail is the man she is
destined to marry."

The King said to himself that this would not be very difficult, and he
left the Fairy, determined to grind the cat's tail to powder rather than
not tread on it at all.

You may imagine that it was not long before he went to see the Princess,
and puss, as usual, marched in before him, arching his back. The King
took a long step, and quite thought he had the tail under his foot, but
the cat turned round so sharply that he only trod on air. And so it went
on for eight days, till the King began to think that this fatal tail
must be full of quicksilver--it was never still for a moment.

At last, however, he was lucky enough to come upon puss fast asleep and
with his tail conveniently spread out. So the King, without losing a
moment, set his foot upon it heavily.

With one terrific yell the cat sprang up and instantly changed into a
tall man, who, fixing his angry eyes upon the King, said:

"You shall marry the Princess because you have been able to break the
enchantment, but I will have my revenge. You shall have a son, who will
never be happy until he finds out that his nose is too long, and if you
ever tell anyone what I have just said to you, you shall vanish away
instantly, and no one shall ever see you or hear of you again."

Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter, he could not help
laughing at this threat.

"If my son has such a long nose as that," he said to himself, "he
must always see it or feel it; at least, if he is not blind or without
hands."

But, as the enchanter had vanished, he did not waste any more time in
thinking, but went to seek the Princess, who very soon consented to
marry him. But after all, they had not been married very long when the
King died, and the Queen had nothing left to care for but her little
son, who was called Hyacinth. The little Prince had large blue eyes, the
prettiest eyes in the world, and a sweet little mouth, but, alas!
his nose was so enormous that it covered half his face. The Queen was
inconsolable when she saw this great nose, but her ladies assured her
that it