Chapter 14

Bee, seated on the granite steps of the subterranean palace, again gazed at the blue sky through the fissure in the stone. High above, the elder trees turned their white umbels towards the light. Bee began to cry. King Loc took her by the hand and said to her:
“Bee, why are you crying and what do you want?”
And, as she had been sad for several days, the dwarfs seated at her feet were playing to her very simple tunes on the flute, the flageolet, the rebec and the cimbals. Other dwarfs turned, to please her, such somersaults, that one after the other they stuck in the grounds the tips of their hoods decorated with a plume of leaves; nothing could be more diverting to see than the sports of these little men with their hermit beards. The good Tad, the romantic Dig, who had loved her from the day they had seen her sleeping on the edge of the lake, and Pic, the old poet, took her gently by the arm and begged her to tell them the secret of her grief.
Paw, who was simple but sensible, held up to her grapes in a basket, and all, tugging the edge of her dress, repeated with King Loc:
“Bee, princess of the dwarfs, why are you weeping?”

Bee answered:
“Little King Loc and you all, little men, my grief increases your grief because you are kind; you weep when I weep. Know that I weep thinking of George of the White Moor, who must to-day be a brave knight, and whom I shall never see again. I love him and wish to be his wife.”
King Loc drew his hand from the hand he was pressing and said:
“Bee, why did you deceive me and tell me, at the feast table, that you loved no one?”
Be answered:
“Little King Loc, I did not deceive you at the feast table. I did not then wish to marry George of the White Moor, and it is to-day my highest desire that he should propose to marry me. But he will not propose, since I do not know where he is and he does not know where to find me. And that is why I cry.”
At these words the musicians stopped playing their instruments; the leapers interrupted their leaps and remained motionless on their heads or their seats; Tad and Dig shed silent tears on Bee’s sleeve; the simple Paw let drop the basket with the bunches of grapes, and all the little men gave fearful groans.
But the King of the Dwarfs, more dejected than all of them under his crown of sparkling stones, walked away without a word, letting his purple mantle drag behind him like a torrent of purple.

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