All this time, being of a cheerful and active disposition, the little damsel was not quite so unhappy as you may have supposed.The immense palace had a thousand rooms, and was full of beautiful and wonderful objects.There was a never-ceasing gloom, it is true, which half hid itself among the innumerable pillars, gliding before the child as she wandered among them, and treading stealthily behind her in the echo of her footsteps.Neither was all the dazzle of the precious stones, which flamed with their own light, worth one gleam of natural sunshine; nor could the most brilliant of the many-colored gems, which Proserpina had for playthings, vie with the simple beauty of the flowers she used to gather.But still, whenever the girl went among those gilded halls and chambers, it seemed as if she carried nature and sunshine along with her, and as if she scattered dewy blossoms on her right hand and on her left.
After Proserpina came, the palace was no longer the same abode of stately artifice and dismal magnificence that it had before been.The inhabitants all felt this, and King Pluto more than any of them.
"My own little Proserpina," he used to say."I wish you could like me a little better.We gloomy and cloudy-natured persons have often as warm hearts, at bottom, as those of a more cheerful character.If you would only stay with me of your own accord, it would make me happier than the possession of a hundred such palaces as this.""Ah," said Proserpina, "you should have tried to make me like you before carrying me off.And the best thing you can now do is, to let me go again.Then I might remember you sometimes, and think that you were as kind as you knew how to be.Perhaps, too, one day or other, I might come back, and pay you a visit.""No, no," answered Pluto, with his gloomy smile, "I will not trust you for that.You are too fond of living in the broad daylight, and gathering flowers.What an idle and childish taste that is! Are not these gems, which I have ordered to be dug for you, and which are richer than any in my crown--are they not prettier than a violet?""Not half so pretty," said Proserpina, snatching the gems from Pluto's hand, and flinging them to the other end of the hall.
"O my sweet violets, shall I never see you again?"And then she burst into tears.But young people's tears have very little saltness or acidity in them, and do not inflame the eyes so much as those of grown persons; so that it is not to be wondered at, if, a few moments afterwards, Proserpina was sporting through the hall almost as merrily as she and the four sea nymphs had sported along the edge of the surf wave.King Pluto gazed after her, and wished that he, too, was a child.
And little Proserpina, when she turned about, and beheld this great king standing in his splendid hall, and looking so grand, and so melancholy, and so lonesome, was smitten with a kind of pity.She ran back to him, and, for the first time in all her life, put her small, soft hand in his.
"I love you a little," whispered she, looking up in his face.
"Do you, indeed, my dear child?" cried Pluto, bending his dark face down to kiss her; but Proserpina shrank away from the kiss, for, though his features were noble, they were very dusky and grim."Well, I have not deserved it of you, after keeping you a prisoner for so many months, and starving you besides.
Are you not terribly hungry? Is there nothing which I can get you to eat?"In asking this question, the king of the mines had a very cunning purpose; for, you will recollect, if Proserpina tasted a morsel of food in his dominions, she would never afterwards be at liberty to quit them.
"No indeed," said Proserpina."Your head cook is always baking, and stewing, and roasting, and rolling out paste, and contriving one dish or another, which he imagines may be to my liking.But he might just as well save himself the trouble, poor, fat little man that he is.I have no appetite for anything in the world, unless it were a slice of bread, of my mother's own baking, or a little fruit out of her garden."When Pluto heard this, he began to see that he had mistaken the best method of tempting Proserpina to eat.The cook's made dishes and artificial dainties were not half so delicious, in the good child's opinion, as the simple fare to which Mother Ceres had accustomed her.Wondering that he had never thought of it before, the king now sent one of his trusty attendants with a large basket, to get some of the finest and juiciest pears, peaches, and plums which could anywhere be found in the upper world.Unfortunately, however, this was during the time when Ceres had forbidden any fruits or vegetables to grow; and, after seeking all over the earth, King Pluto's servant found only a single pomegranate, and that so dried up as not to be worth eating.Nevertheless, since there was no better to be had, he brought this dry, old withered pomegranate home to the palace.
put it on a magnificent golden salver, and carried it up to Proserpina.Now, it happened, curiously enough, that, just as the servant was bringing the pomegranate into the back door of the palace, our friend Quicksilver had gone up the front steps, on his errand to get Proserpina away from King Pluto.
As soon as Proserpina saw the pomegranate on the golden salver, she told the servant he had better take it away again.
"I shall not touch it, I assure you," said she."If I were ever so hungry, I should never think of eating such a miserable, dry pomegranate as that.""It is the only one in the world," said the servant.
He set down the golden salver, with the wizened pomegranate upon it, and left the room.When he was gone, Proserpina could not help coming close to the table, and looking at this poor specimen of dried fruit with a great deal of eagerness; for, to say the truth, on seeing something that suited her taste, she felt all the six months' appetite taking possession of her at once.To be sure, it was a very wretched-looking pomegranate, and seemed to have no more juice in it than an oyster shell.
