George Sand fiction short story Queen Coax
Lily Daydreams by Gloria E. Moses, Oil on Linen, 16″ x 20″.
Queen Coax
by George Sand
Editor’s note: This story was first published in 1873 as part of Contes d’une Grand’mère, George Sand’s two-volume collection of fairy tales written for her grandchildren —and the last of her books published during her lifetime. This translation comes from Tales of a Grandmother, Margaret Bloom’s translation of the first volume of the set, published by J.B. Lippincott Company in 1930.
For Mademoiselle Aurore Sand
Since you can now read, my dear, I am writing out the stories I tell you. I want to instruct you a very little bit while amusing you as much as possible. Thus you will learn about words and things new to you. I am publishing one of these stories so that other children can also profit by it. Their parents will not take it at all amiss.
—your Grandmother
THERE was, in a great old castle in Normandy or in Picardy, I forget which, a stately old lady possessing much land, who was very good-natured and very sensible in spite of her great age.
Around the castle were great moats or ditches filled with rushes, waterlilies, galingales, and a thousand other very beautiful plants which came up of themselves. There, a multitude of frogs lived—some so old and so big that one was astonished by their fine figures and their powerful voices. The chatelaine, who was named Dame Yolande, was so used to their uproar that she slept just as well in spite of it, and no one in her household was at all inconvenienced.
But there came a great drought. Water was lacking in the moats, and the reeds and other plants perished. Many frogs, salamanders, water-lizards and other little creatures who lived amid these plants died and caused the mud to become poisoned, giving off a vile odor like a marsh, and spreading the fever in the castle and the country round about. This fever was very severe. Many people died of it, and Madame Yolande, as well as almost all those who lived with her, fell sick.
Madame Yolande had children living in other parts the country; there only remained near her one of her granddaughters whose name was Marguerite. She was a child of fifteen, very sensible, very courageous and very helpful, who made herself loved by everyone, although she was not at all pretty. She was very small, very quick of body and quite graceful; but her nose was too short, her eyes too round, her mouth too big. Madame Yolande, who had been beautiful in her day, said sometimes: “What a pity that a child so sweet-tempered and so intelligent should have the face of a little frog!”
Was it because of this likeness that Marguerite loved the frogs and pitied them when she saw them dying of hunger and thirst in the dried-up moats? In spite of her pity for these harmless creatures, she had an idea one day. It was that, if the moats were entirely dried up and cultivated as a garden, there would be fine fruits shielded from the frost. The soil, made wholesome, would no longer give off bad air and fevers to the people of the castle and the country round about. She took such good care of her grandmother and the old servants that she succeeded in curing them.
When winter was come, she said to Madame Yolande, to whom she had already spoken of her plan: “Grandmother, here are the moats entirely without water; the frost has destroyed all the living things and all the plants. Let’s not wait until early spring, the rainy season, which will make all this swamp sprout up again and revive. Let’s send for the laborers, have all the waste carried away, and deepen the little ditches through which the water flows out. We’ll have good soil brought in, sand the walks, sow and plant, and next year we’ll have no more sickness.”
“Do as you please, Margot,” answered Madame Yolande. “You are a girl of good judgment. I give you permission to direct all the workmen.”
Mademoiselle Margot hastened to arrange everything. At the end of fifteen days, the great moats were cleaned. The dried and decayed weeds were burned, beautiful flower beds were laid out, fine paths were sanded, and in the month of March fruit trees were planted on trellises along the walls. There were costly shrubs in the beds, and flowers in the borders.
In the month of May, all was foliage and flowers in what had been very unhealthy and dangerous moats. The reservoirs were deepened and lined with marble. In them, the rainwater was collected, and remained beautiful and clear. There were tiny fish, red as fire, and great swans, white as snow. Marguerite had ordered pretty green huts built, where she housed her swans and her peacocks. The goldfinches and the chaffinches came to make their nests in the trees. She was so happy in her new gardens, well shielded from extreme heat and extreme cold, that she spent all her time there. Madame Yolande descended into them from time to time by a staircase which her granddaughter had had made very easy on her account.
One day, Marguerite inquired of Madame Yolande if she was pleased with the change, for it was summer again and no one was sick: “Certainly, I am satisfied with your work,” answered the old lady, “and I recognize that you have rendered us a great service. However, I must admit one thing. It is that, in spite of myself, I regret, not the vile marsh from which you have delivered us, but the days of my youth when the water was abundant and clear. I don’t know anything so beautiful as a lordly residence surrounded by its moats brimming full. Now, our castle has the air of a middle-class dwelling. I am sure the ladies of the country round about are making fun of us and asking each other, when they see your plantation, if we are gardeners and count on sending our apples to market.”
Marguerite was so mortified by the words of her grandmother that she hung her head, blushing. Madame Yolande kissed her on the forehead, saying to console her: “The thing is done now and it’s brought good results. One must know how to prefer the useful to the agreeable. We’ll eat our apples and let people chatter. Go on taking care of your garden, and be sure that I approve of you.”
Marguerite, left alone, grew quite pensive. She had never seen the moats full and clear. Perhaps they had never been so beautiful as her grandmother thought, but Marguerite remembered having seen them all green with water lentils, like a silken carpet finely figured with tall clusters of enormous reeds. She remembered the water gladioli with their great bouquets of little white and reddish brown roses, the water buttercups with their thousand flowerets of dull silver, the sky-blue water veronicas. She remembered all those tiny miracles of fountain moss out of which she had wound nests in her play, the long hart’s-tongues of which she had made girdles, the elegant ferns she had fashioned into aigrettes. Then she was conscious of a strange regret and found her fine garden sad and ugly.
“I’ve destroyed,” she said to herself, “a thing which pleased me and which my grandmother misses, a thing which had been beautiful, and might perhaps have become so again this year with the autumn rains.”
She regarded her marble pools, her red fish and her noble swans, and began to cry, convinced that they weren’t as fine as the big frogs, the salamanders, the water-lizards, and the thousand little animals which formerly frolicked in the moss and in the mud. She fixed her tearful eyes on the clear water which stole away to carry off, through a very neat trench, the overflow of the basins. Without thinking where she went, she followed the little rippling stream, which became unconfined amid the open fields.
It was a pretty brook which lost itself in the wide meadow. Marguerite walked through the wet grass towards the river into which the brook stole noiselessly. She came to a place where the unconfined flow of the brook had formed, on the bank of the river, a marsh, not there before. The river was not large. Trees blown down by storms obstructed its course at this point, and the water which came from the prairie could go no farther. There, the tall reeds which formerly reared themselves in the moats had desperately pushed back the water gladioli, the irises, the white butter- cups and the blue veronicas. Around all these plants, swarms of insects gave themselves over to their games. The coral-red dragonflies pursued one another amid the ferns. There swarmed a company of beetles arrayed in golden bronze, a land-people who seem to have borrowed their brightness from the metals, as an air-people, the butterflies, have borrowed theirs from the flowers.
Marguerite searched in vain for the frogs; she saw almost everything in the water, excepting a frog, big or little. “Can it be that there isn’t a single frog left on earth?” she asked herself. “And am I the cause of the disappearance of these poor creatures?”
The sun had plunged into a great violet-colored cloud which crept along the horizon. All of a sudden it freed itself and cast on the prairie a red beam so bright that Marguerite was forced to close her eyes an instant. When she opened them again, she found herself, not on the edge of the marsh, but in the very middle, on an islet formed by branches and roots. There was water all about her, water which looked deep and clear and in which skipped thousands of sparks. She did not ask herself how she had reached there without getting wet, and how she was to get out without plunging in. The sun’s rays were so beautiful that everything seemed very fine in the marsh; the water was like melted gold, the reeds resembled palm-trees covered with emerald and ruby fruit. From an old willow which hung low over the bank fell a shower of azure-hued insects who were hurrying to suck the honey from lilac-colored flowers.
Then Marguerite heard a faint and indistinct song beneath the water which soon rose into the grasses. Gradually the strange little words grew louder, and became clear. Marguerite heard her name repeated a thousand times by millions of little voices: “Margot, Margot, Margot, Margot, Margot!”
She could not keep from answering: “What is it? What do you wish of me?”
At that, the little creatures, lizards, salamanders, water-spiders, dragonflies, began to talk all together without ceasing to frisk about, sliding, diving, flying, dancing madly, and repeating: “Margot, Margot,” up and down the scale, until Marguerite was deafened by it. “Come, come,” she said, stopping her ears, “if you wish to talk, speak one at a time and make it clear what you’re asking me.”
Then there was a great silence. All the creatures were still, the sun veiled itself anew, and the reeds separated as if to let someone through. Suddenly, opposite her Marguerite saw a superb green frog, speckled with black, but so large, so very large, that she had never seen its like, and was afraid of it.
“Don’t be afraid, if you mean well,” said the frog in a voice which resounded like a battle-dore, “you should know, if you are a little lady quite important on the land, that I am in the ponds and in the grasses, a powerful queen, Queen Coax! I know you very well. I lived for a long time under your window, in the moats of your old manor-house. Then, I ruled a great people whose mother I was, and we loved you because you loved us. We had noted that you looked like us, and we thought of you as one of our sisters. You came each day to see us. Our graceful movements charmed you, at the same time that our sweet voices entertained you. You never harmed us; therefore, I have not blamed you at all for the misfortunes of my people. The drought destroyed them, alas! Alone I survived the disaster, alone I followed the few drops of water which ran out across the meadow. I have established myself here, until a new marriage enables me to have another family. Mark well now my words. Never think of draining my new empire as you did the moats of your residence. Know that, if you do as much for this meadow, great misfortunes will come to you, as well as to your family.”
“You are jesting, madame,” replied Margot. “It is clear to me that you are a fairy, and you should know that I never intended to distress you. Nay, if it rests with me to do you some service, I am quite disposed to render it, for I perceive your sorrow, and I’m very good-hearted.”
“Well then, my noble child,” said the frog, “I am going to open my heart and confide to you my anxieties. Follow me into my crystal palace, and you shall hear of marvelous things new to human ears.”
So saying, Queen Coax plunged to the furthermost depths of the pond. Marguerite found herself prevailed upon to the point of following, when she felt herself seized by the hem of her skirt. Turning around, she saw the noble Névé, the largest and the tamest of her swans. He was her favorite and wore a gold collar. Immediately, the spell which the frog had cast over her passed away. Marguerite was alarmed to find herself in the middle of the pond, at the dead of night, for the sun had set. The sky was overcast with thick clouds, and she no longer knew where to set
foot to get out of the marsh.
“Oh! my dear Névé,” she said to the swan, caressing him, “how did you manage to find me here, and how am I going to get out?”
The swan again took hold of the hem of her skirt, and began to tug at it with all his strength. She followed him, risking all, and felt sand and stones beneath her feet. She could now walk from the marsh. Hardly was she out when she lost sight of the swan. She called in vain; all was quiet, and the night constantly became darker.
“Could I have dreamed it?” she said to herself, “or has Névé gone on ahead to the castle?”
She made up her mind to return there at once. As soon as she had presented herself to her grandmother, she went to see if Névé had returned. She did not find him in the garden, or in the court of the castle, and she became very anxious. Marguerite reassured her grandmother, saying that she had lost track of the time, dreaming on the bank of the river. She did not dare to tell the strange things which had happened to her. She feared she would be laughed at, the more so because she was not quite sure that she hadn’t seen and heard these things in a dream. The only thing certain was that her beautiful swan had disappeared.
When everyone had gone to bed, she opened her window, looking in all directions and whistling softly to call him. Finally, seeing and hearing nothing save the storm which rumbled, and the wind which made the weathercocks grate, she went to bed, very troubled and tired.
Then she heard a voice sweet as distant music passing by in the storm-wind, which said to her: “Don’t be afraid; I’m watching over you. But don’t trust Queen Coax. A prudent girl shouldn’t talk with frogs she isn’t acquainted with.”
When she woke up, she was sure she had imagined the adventures of the day before, for having gone down to the moats, the first creature she saw was the noble swan swimming on one of the pools. She called him, gave him some bread, and caressed him a thousand times. He ate the bread with his usual greediness and received the caresses with his usual indifference. Even if he was beautiful and quite tame, he was not on that account more intelligent than other swans.
Marguerite tried to talk to him, but he paid no attention to her. When he wasn’t hungry any longer, he went away to make himself smart in the sunlight, to smooth his feathers, and scratch his breast. After that, he fell asleep standing on one foot without thinking about anything at all.
Then Marguerite, seeking the cause for her dreams, remembered that when she was very little she had enjoyed hearing the tales her grandmother told her to put her to sleep. In one of these tales, there was a frog-fairy who did marvelous things. She tried to remember it all but could not.
“It’s this story,” she told herself, “which has run through my head. In order to think no more about it, I’m going to ask my grandmother to tell it to me so that I can laugh at it with her.”
She went to find Madame Yolande in the drawing room, but she forgot the frogs and the fairies when she saw close by her grandmother’s chair, a person whose appearance and dress dazzled her. It was a tall young man, pink and white, curled and powdered in the fashion of the time, in a handsome officer’s uniform, sky-blue all laced with silver.
He arose, and, walking with much grace, as if he intended to dance the minuet, came to meet Marguerite. He kissed her hand, and said to her in a little piping voice: “Is it you, indeed, my dear cousin Marguerite? I am happy to make your acquaintance again. You have grown, but your face has not changed at all.”
Marguerite reddened, for she took that for a compliment and did not know what to say. She did not recognize the young man who was calling her cousin.
“Dear child,” said Madame Yolande, “then you don’t remember at all your cousin, Mélidor de Puypercé? It is true that you were quite little when he went away with the rank merely of officer. Now that he is twenty years old, his parents have given him a regiment, and you behold a colonel of dragoons. Embrace one another, children, and be good friends as before.”
Marguerite then remembered this cousin whom she had never been able to like, because he was of a teasing disposition and an idler. However, as she was without ill-feeling, she offered her cheek to him, which he touched with the tip of his lips so mockingly it embarrassed her. She thought that he was ungrateful, or that he remembered no longer all the mischievous tricks which she had forgiven.
However, he went on talking, and she listened to him in open-mouthed wonder. He told of the wonders of Paris, the plays, the fêtes, and the balls at which he had distinguished himself. He talked of the fashions, and seemed so up-to-date and such a good judge of women’s dress, that Marguerite was quite ashamed of her little print frock with its red flowers, and of the tiny green ribbon which held back her beautiful hair.
Monsieur de Puypercé paid no attention to the vexation he caused her, and Madame Yolande did not seem to find her grandnephew nearly so silly as he really was. She smiled at his nonsense, as if she took pleasure in remembering the time when she made a great figure in the world.
Dinner was served, and Puypercé found everything very ordinary, even the pastry Marguerite made so well that the guests of the household always praised it. He quite scorned the delicious cider of the region, and did not hesitate to demand some wine of Champagne, which his great-aunt ordered served to him. He then declared this very flat, and yet drank more of it than was necessary to cause him to talk nonsense.
Madame Yolande finally observed his ill-manners and said to him: “My dear child, go lie down. Tomorrow you’ll perhaps know what you’re saying. I like to think that you have been taught politeness, and that when you are in your right mind, you wouldn’t belittle in such an impertinent fashion the things which are offered you heartily.”
Marguerite was glad for the lesson he had received, and went to sleep without thinking of him. However, there is always a little vanity in the depth of the most sensible heart. When she got up the next day, she reproached her maid for always bringing her the ugliest dresses in her clothespress, for she had some quite handsome ones she never wore.
The maid then brought her a dress of very rich yellow silk, trimmed with flame-colored ribbons, a gift from Madame Yolande. Madame Yolande was neither poor nor close with money, but she had lived for so many years in the country that she no longer knew anything at all about dress. Marguerite did not usually take any interest in it, preferring short skirts and strong cloth suitable for gardening. The poor child, when she tried to make herself handsome, had the air of a little old lady arrayed in Sunday best. It gave Puypercé a fine chance to make fun of her. However, he didn’t do it at all. He had profited by Madame Yolande’s lesson, and Marguerite was surprised to find him very good-natured and polite.
She was satisfied with the excuses he made for his headache of the evening before which, he said, had made him cross. In short, he talked to her in a way to make her forget all that had displeased her, and in her turn, she desired to be agreeable to him.
After breakfast, she suggested that they visit the new gardens. She conducted him there, and was pleased to see him interested. He asked about all the arrangements and no longer made fun of anything. He looked at the red fish, and asked her if they were good to eat. He admired the water-buttercups, which he called tulips, and enjoyed watching the swans swim about, saying that in the hunt they would make a good target.
One thing alone disquieted Marguerite. Névé, as if he had heard Puypercé’s words, flew into a violent rage and pursued him with mighty blows of wing and beak. She feared that, thus attacked, the colonel of dragoons would make a defense in which the poor swan would be worsted. Nothing of the sort! The fine colonel took refuge, first, in his cousin’s direction. Then, seeing that he could not take a step without Névé’s setting on him to nip the calves of his legs, took flight and stationed himself, quite pale, behind the garden-gate. This he took pains to close between the swan and himself. Marguerite had difficulty in driving back the enraged bird and rejoining her cousin, whose fright surprised her very much. He excused himself by telling her he feared he would fly into a passion and kill, defending himself, a creature which she loved.
She was disposed to pardon everything and conducted him into the fields, where she showed him the tall, noble trees which surrounded the castle. “And how much are they worth?” Monsieur de Puypercé asked her.
“Truly, I don’t know,” answered Marguerite. “They’re not for sale.”
“But when they are yours? Your grandmother told me this morning she intended to give you, after her death, all that she owned in this part of the country.”
“She’s never spoken of that, and I beg of you, Mélidor, don’t talk to me of the death of my grandmother.”
“You must, however, make up your mind to it. She’s very old, and she wishes to find you a husband before she dies.”
“I don’t want to be married!” cried Marguerite. “I don’t want to risk having to leave my grandmother, who has raised me. I love her more than anyone else on earth.”
“It’s very fine to feel that way, but my Aunt Yolande will soon die. You’ll not be sorry to find a handsome husband who will make you rich by selling all these fields and this ugly old castle where you live as if buried alive. Then, my dear Marguerite, you’ll wear magnificent dresses, of the latest style. You’ll go to court. You’ll have a fine coach, stately lackeys, diamonds, a box at the Opera, a mansion in Paris; all that can render a woman happy.”
At first, Marguerite was very much troubled to hear her cousin talk in this fashion. While he wandered about with her through the woods, the fields and prairies, he returned so often to the idea that she would be very rich and soon married to her liking, that Marguerite commenced to think about it. She was surprised that she had never considered it before.
They came to the edge of the marsh, and all of a sudden Puypercé cried: “Oh! what a fine frog that is! I’ve never seen one so big! They’re good to eat, frogs; I’ll kill it.”
And as the frog was asleep in the sun and not on its guard, he lifted his cane.
“Stop, cousin,” cried Marguerite seizing his arm, “don’t harm that creature. You’d make me feel very badly.”
“Why so?” replied her cousin quite astonished, and he turned towards her, regarding her in a strange fashion.
This glance disturbed Marguerite. Not knowing what she was saying and remembering the vision she had had in this place, she gently shoved the frog with the tip of her umbrella saying: “Wake up, madame, and save yourself.”
The frog plunged to the depths of the pond, and the colonel was convulsed with laughter. “What are you laughing at so?” said Marguerite. “I can’t endure cruelty to animals. . . .”
“To frogs particularly!” replied Puypercé, laughing so hard his eyes were red. “You protect frogs, you speak to them politely, you are at your best with them!”
“And if that’s so,” said Marguerite, offended, “what’s so funny about it?”
“Nothing,” answered Puypercé, becoming serious all at once. “When a frog has wit and grace… A person can get used to anything, and as much to this creature here as to another. I promise you, cousin, to do no harm to your friends. Let us speak of something else, and be assured I’m not joking. You’re an agreeable person, and if you saw the world you’d be much improved.”
“It must be very beautiful, this world,” thought Marguerite, returning to the manor-house on the colonel’s arm. She longed to know about it, and, when evening was come, she could not keep from asking Madame Yolande why she never left the country any more.
“Oh, oh, Marguerite,” answered the good lady, “so you’re tired of being a country girl? Be patient, my child. I’m very old, and you’ll not have to wait long before you’re free to live where you please.”
Marguerite burst into tears, and, throwing herself on her grandmother’s neck, she could not utter a word. Madame Yolande perceived clearly the good heart and strong affection of her granddaughter. She then turned towards Puypercé and said: “You’re mistaken, my boy. Margot isn’t tired of living here with me and doesn’t wish to leave me. You may go back to your regiment or to your pleasures.”
“Since you dismiss me, my dear aunt,” he answered, “I have the honor to bid you adieu. I’ll leave tomorrow very early. Good-bye, Marguerite. You’ll think it over.” And he withdrew bowing gracefully.
“Grandmother, what does this mean?” cried Marguerite as soon as he was gone.
“It means, my child, that, if you wish to marry your cousin, Puypercé, you’ve only to say the word.”
“What, he came to ask me in marriage?”
“No, he didn’t plan it; he conceived the idea this morning.”
“But why?”
“Perhaps he’s found you pretty,” said Madame Yolande smiling.
“Grandmother, don’t make fun of me! I’m not pretty, and I know it very well. I’m only a little frog, and you’ve often told me so.”
“But that hasn’t kept me from loving you. One may be a little frog and yet inspire affection.”
“My cousin love me! No, he’s known me too short a time. Tell me the truth, grandmother. He can’t love me.”
“It’s your part to tell me what I ought to think. You walked together all afternoon. I wasn’t there. He must have told you a great deal about fine things. Didn’t you tell him that you would be glad to marry so as to be a fine lady and see the world?”
“No, grandmother, he’s told a story; I never said any such thing.”
“But didn’t you think it? He’s so sly; he must have guessed it.”
Marguerite could not lie; she felt ashamed and did not answer. Madame Yolande was keen-witted and understood. “Listen, dear child,” she said, “you have given me happiness and care in my old age; I must endeavor to render your youth happy and bright. I’ll make you rich, and your cousin knows it. I don’t want to speak either favorably or unfavorably of him. You’ve a good deal of intelligence and sense. You must decide about him, and as he said, you must think it over. Go to bed, and if tomorrow morning you want him to stay, you’ve only to let him know it.”
Marguerite was so excited by surprise and anxiety that she did not even think of going to bed. She did not feel any affection for her cousin, but did he perhaps care for her? She knew she was agreeable and not at all stupid. Puypercé had, at first, seemed to her silly and disagreeable. However, if, forgetting her homeliness, this handsome youth had appreciated her good understanding, then he apparently had some sense after all. He had faults; he was frivolous, loved free spending and good cheer, but he perhaps had a good heart. He had given in to her on perceiving that she protected animals, and he did not seem at all stubborn.
“I’m so ugly,” she said to herself, “I’ll perhaps never please anyone else, or it will be a young man as homely as I. Everyone will say: ‘She can’t find a better.’ Is it wrong to bolster up one’s self-esteem walking out on the arm of a handsome husband? To hear it said: ‘Margot has a face like a frog, but she has all the same been pleasing to this fine gentleman, to this colonel so well powdered, so well dressed, who could choose from among the most beautiful?’ I don’t wish to leave my grandmother. But if he loves me, he will consent to leave me near her, and he’ll come to see us often. Since she leaves me free to decide, it’s up to me to make up my mind before tomorrow morning. If I let him go away, he’ll be angry and will never return anymore. If I write him a letter, that will be given him as soon as it’s morning. But I don’t dare. Why was he so afraid of my swan, and why was the swan so enraged with him? He’s very queer, my cousin; why did he laugh so much when I said to the frog. . . .?”
Marguerite was tired and went to sleep in her chair. She stood up to keep awake. All of a sudden she found herself, without knowing how she got there, in the moats, on the edge of one of the marble basins which the moon shone on. She was surprised to see that tall reeds had shot up all about, even in the water, and as she sat down quite weary and sleepy on a grassy bank, Queen Coax hopped close to her and spoke to her as follows: “Margot, you’re a kind person, you’ve saved my life. I want to give you good advice; that’s why I left my palace on the prairie to come and find you in your moats, which I know perfectly. You must marry your cousin, my dear; it would mean happiness and honor for you.”
“You aren’t angry with him for the blow with his cane he was about to give you?” “He didn’t know who I was; he took me for an ordinary frog. That has made me think that it would be wise for me to wear my crown and my jewels. I intend to array myself this evening as befits my rank.”
“Your crown and your jewels?” said Marguerite astonished. “Where are they?”
“I’m here to ask you for them, Margot, for they’re in your house.”
“How can that be?”
“You shall hear my story, which I was going to tell you the other day when your horrid swan, that bird of ill-omen whom you call Névé, and who is no other than Prince Rolando, prevented it. Listen to him! He stirs in his hut; he longs to devour me. But I made sure he was securely locked in; moreover, I know magic words to frighten him. Now listen to me, and profit by what I’m going to reveal to you:
“I am one of your ancestresses, not direct, however. I am the great-great-grandmother of the great-great-grandmother of your aunt, Madame de Puypercé, mother of your cousin, the colonel. That is why I am interested in him and in you. I have at present the honor to be a fairy. But I was a mortal like you, and I was born in this castle. I was called Ranaïde. I was as beautiful as the sunshine, as beautiful as a woman as I am today as a frog. My father, who studied magic, taught it to me. As I was very bright, I became so skillful that I made use of the most extraordinary mysteries, among others, that of transformations. I could take on any outward form, and reassume my own by means of certain preparations and charms. By this means I knew all that was said and done on the land and in the waters. But I hid my powers carefully, for I would have been denounced, pursued and burned as a sorceress in those days of ignorance and superstition.
“I was twenty years old when Prince Rolando took me in marriage. He was young, rich, agreeable and handsome. I loved him passionately, and I soon had several children. We were the happiest people in the world, residing in this castle, then splendid and visited by all the nobility of the country, when I believed I had cause for jealousy against one of my gentlewomen, named Mélasie. I had noticed that she roamed about the moats in the evening in company with a man enveloped in a cloak. I imagined this man was my husband, and I transformed myself into a frog to see them close by or to recognize them by the sound of their voices. I stationed myself between two stones on the parapet of the moat, and the man passed quite close to me. I then perceived that I had been mistaken. The unknown was one of my husband’s pages, who pled for her love in his own behalf. I was so overjoyed that I reascended hurriedly to my bedroom. As it was very late, I threw myself on my bed and fell into a delicious slumber without remembering, alas, to take the potion which would give me back my natural form.
“At the hour when I was accustomed to be wakened Mélasie entered my room. Seeing an enormous frog stretched out on my bed, she was so afraid she could not say a word or even utter a cry. That was why I wasn’t aroused. “As soon as she was a little recovered, she closed the door of my room noiselessly, and ran to awaken Prince Rolando to ask him where I was and inform him of the amazing creature she had found in my place. The prince hastened to my room, thinking the girl was mad. When he saw me thus, he was seized with horror and disgust, and could not imagine it was I. He drew his sword and struck me a blow which cut off one of my front feet. My enchantments saved me from death. So long as I was concealed under a magic form, no destructive force could injure me for the space of two hundred years. Wounded, I bounced out onto the windowsill, and from there into the moat, where my foot soon grew back again as whole as you see it now. From the moat I heard the uproar which set up in the castle as they tried to find the lost lady of the manor. They looked for me everywhere, and my husband was a prey to extreme grief.
“I awaited the night to enter the manor cautiously. Then I climbed, hopping from step to step, up to my room, and hastened to swallow the potion which would make me a woman and as beautiful as before. Alas, in vain did I add to the properties of the potion those of the most mysterious charms, and rub myself with the strongest ointments. This unhappy hand would not grow again, but remained a frog’s foot. As my broken-hearted husband approached my room, declaring that he wished to die of grief there, I only had the time to envelop half of my body in my velvet cloak to hide that miserable foot.
“On finding me again, my husband almost died of joy. He took me in his arms shedding tears and overwhelming me with questions. He supposed a wicked demon had carried me away from his love, and he wished to know how I had managed to return to him. I was forced to invent a story and to shun his embraces, for fear of letting him see my foot. I thought with anguish that it would be useless to try to hide my secret from him, and that soon he would discover the sad truth. I must take an extreme, a frightful course of action, that of causing the one to disappear whom I loved better than my life.”
Marguerite, terrified, longed to get up and escape far away from the horrid Ranaïde, but she felt herself held as by a spell. The frog began her story again in these words:
“You should know, my poor child, that it didn’t rest with me to act in a different fashion. An oath which it is impossible to break obliges those who receive magic gifts to destroy those who have found it out. My husband was doomed, the moment he saw my foot, to be carried away by the spirits, my lords and masters, into unfathomable depths.
“I resolved to remove him from their power by causing him to disappear before he had discovered anything. To this end I put a drug into his wine which forthwith made white plumes and great wings put forth on his body. In less than a quarter of an hour, he became a beautiful swan, white as snow. He could not become a man again, but during two hundred years would escape death and the power of the spirits.
“You should know that the two hundred years are ended tonight at the break of day. It depends on you whether I recover my youth, my beauty and my rank as a human being in the scale of creation.”
“That’s good,” said Marguerite, “for doubtless you can then do Névé, Prince Rolando I mean, the same service I’ll have rendered you?”
“Surely,” answered Ranaïde, “that’s what I have vowed to do.”
“In that case, I’m ready; tell me what you want.”
“In order to understand, you must know the rest of my story. Hardly had Prince Rolando seen himself changed into a bird, than he became frightfully enraged and tried to kill me. Had he kept enough human intelligence to perceive the disaster into which I was forced to involve him? Did he merely obey an instinct of his new race? He only thought to devour me. I vainly endeavored to make him understand our common plight. He would listen to nothing, and I was forced to pronounce the magic words which, during two hundred years, must render us strangers the one to the other. He flew away into the air with loud outcries. I did not see him again until yesterday, when he came to hunt you on the edge of the marsh where I have been forced lately to make my residence.”
“But why, madame,” said Marguerite, “have you been condemned to remain a frog during two hundred years, when it rested with you to be a lady and to hide your foot from curious eyes?”
“The cruel spirits wished it, my little Marguerite! Offended by the means I took to protect my husband from them, they condemned me to abandon my children and to marry Coax, king of the frogs, with whom I reigned for a long time over the moats, and whose widow I now am. The castle passed in course of time to your grandmother, and all the drugs which I had so carefully prepared have disappeared or lost their power. But there exists at your house a great treasure which can and must restore to me all my beauty. It is an enchanted set of jewels, my wedding gift, which is in a cedar-wood casket. Madame Yolande keeps it locked up in her room, as the most rare and precious of your family riches. This casket belongs to you, since your grandmother intends to give you all she possesses. Go try to find it and bring it here to me!”
“No, madame,” answered Marguerite, “I don’t want to steal what now belongs to my grandmother, and unless she consents to it . . .”
“It isn’t a question of robbing her,” cried Ranaïde, “I’m not anxious to recover my jewels. I only wish to adorn myself with them for an instant, and as soon as I’m transformed, I’ll not want them. I’ll give them back to you, for you have great need of them for yourself. There’s one thing which should persuade you. It is that these magic jewels have the power to give beauty to the homeliest. When you’ve worn them for but one hour, in place of resembling the frog I am, you’ll be like what I was, what I’m to become again; that is to say, the most beautiful among women.”
Marguerite was persuaded, and ran to hunt the casket. At the moment that she took hold of it in her grandmother’s safe, it seemed to her that Madame Yolande woke up and looked at her. She went to kneel close to the bed, ready to confess all. But Madame Yolande turned towards the wall without seeming to have perceived her. Time pressed; the sky was lightening a little as if day was about to break. Marguerite rushed out and instantly found herself close to the pool where Queen Coax awaited her. “Oh, dear me,” she cried, holding out the casket, “there is no key, and I don’t know where the secret spring is to open it.”
“I know,” answered the frog, hopping with joy. “It merely requires that lips which have never told a lie should say: Casket, open-thou!”
“Well, say it, madame.”
“I can’t, my child, I was forced to fib of old to hide the secrets of my knowledge. You’re the one who must say it, and we’ll see if your tongue is, as I believe, free from all untruth.”
“Casket, open-thou!” said Marguerite with confidence, and the casket opened.
From it issued a ruddy flame, which the frog did not seem to notice. She plunged in her feet and drew out a little mirror framed in gold; then a necklace of glistening emeralds with an antique mounting, matched ear-rings, a fillet and a girdle of large pearls of the first water with emerald clasps. She arrayed herself in this richness and regarded herself in the mirror, a silly smile on her face.
Marguerite looked on anxiously, fearing that Queen Coax might disappear with Madame Yolande’s jewels; but Coax was not thinking of flight. Drunk with pleasure and with self-conceit, she decked herself out and looked in the mirror with crazy motions and queer grimaces. Her round eyes shot fire and a greenish foam came from her mouth. Her body became bluish-green and livid, while her figure took on almost human size.
“Margot, Margot,” she exclaimed without remembering any longer to soften the tones of her voice, “look and admire. See how I grow taller, see how I’m changed, see how beautiful I’m becoming! Give me your cloak to make me a dress. Quick, quick, I must be dressed decently… but there’s something still lacking… my plumed fan; where have you put it, naughty child? Oh, I have it! And my white gloves… quick now! My scented gloves! My necklace isn’t clasped properly; do fasten it again, stupid! Oh heavens! I don’t have my bridal bouquet. Isn’t it in the casket? Look, turn it upside down… I have it! I’ll put it at my girdle. I must dance; I’ve cramps in my legs. It’s the transformation working. Yes, yes, dancing will relieve me more quickly! I feel the perfect grace of my movements returning, and the fire of eternal youth mounting to my brain! Haptcha! Here I am sneezing! Haptcha! Haptcha!”
Thus speaking, Queen Coax hopped and skipped in a crazy fashion. But, whatever she did, she remained a frog, and morning was breaking. She laughed, cried out, wept, beat the marble of the pool with her hind-feet, played with her fan, extended her forefeet like a ballet-dancer, drew herself up and rolled her eyes.
All at once Marguerite, who was regarding her fearfully, was so struck with the strangeness of her movements, that she was overcome by a fit of laughter and let herself down on the grass.
Then the frog flew into a terrible rage. “Keep still, little villain, or I’ll punish you as you deserve.”
“Oh dear! Madame, forgive me,” said Marguerite, “it got the better of me. You’re so funny! See, I have to laugh or I’ll die.”
“I can’t bring about your death, more’s the pity,” cried Ranaïde springing at her and passing one of her cold and slimy feet over Marguerite’s face. “But you shall suffer for the distress I endure. I wished to spare you; you make me merciless. I must put an end to it! I suffer too much! Take my ugliness and let it be added to yours, since by putting you in my place I’ll be more quickly freed! Here, take the mirror. Laugh now, if you still want to laugh!”
Marguerite took the mirror which the fairy held out to her and uttered a cry of horror when she saw herself without hair, her face green and her eyes quite round.
“Frog! Frog!” she cried despairingly. “I’m becoming a frog; I am a frog! It’s all over!”
And, flinging down the mirror, she gave a hop and plunged into the pool.
She remained there, at first, as if asleep and unable to think clearly. Little by little, she recovered when she saw the sun peeping over the horizon and casting out, as it were, a great sheet of fire which gilded the tips of the reeds above her head. She then risked coming to the surface of the water. There she saw an extraordinary sight: the unfortunate Coax, laid out on the bank, her feet in the air, her body stiffened by death. She had a hideous human head with long green hair like seaweed. The rest of her body, as large as that of an ordinary person, was dead white and all rough. She retained the form of a frog.
Close by her, Prince Rolando, clothed in a silver armor belted with gold, the helmet ornamented by a crest white as snow and bearing on his shoulders great swan-wings, took off the enchanted jewels with which Ranaïde had vainly adorned herself.
“Approach,” he said to Marguerite, “and quickly put on these jewels which will give you back your own face. But do not try to become beautiful through the powers of magic. Remain intelligent and good, and never give yourself to anyone who will not love you as you really are. Adieu, the death of this guilty magician frees me forever from the bondages to which I was condemned two centuries ago. Do not pity her fate; she has lied to you. She wanted to bring about my death to hide her wicked secrets, and the spirits she called forth against me took up my defense. I am returning to them, but I shall watch over you, if you remain always worthy of my protection.”
He spread his wings and mounted into the rays of the sun. Marguerite, on seeing him soar into the sky, thought she was regarding Névé with his collar of gold. Then it seemed to her that he was the morning-star. When she had lost sight of him, she looked for the dead body of the frog. In its place there was a hideous toadstool, black as ink, which at a puff of wind fell into dust.
She found herself in her room, seated on a chair, her eyes dazzled by the rising sun. Her first movement was to run to her mirror. For the first time in her life, she found her ordinary countenance very pretty.
“All that, could it be a dream?” she said to herself. “And yet, here are the ancient jewels my grandmother guards so carefully. How does it come that I’m decked out in them? Could I have gotten them while dreaming?”
She took them off, put them back into the little box, and carried them to Madame Yolande’s room before her grandmother awoke. Then she went down to the moat to see if Névé was in his hut, where she had found him once before after thinking him lost.
“You’re looking for the swan?” asked the gardener. “He’s gone. I saw him fly away at the break of day. He joined a passing flock of wild swans. I’d often said to Mademoiselle that the tip of his wing should be broken, but Mademoiselle didn’t want it done. He’s profited by it to escape; he’s had the idea for a long time.”
“Well, so much the better,” said Marguerite, “for he’s now happy and free. Since seeing him go, haven’t you found anything new in the moat? Weren’t there great reeds in it?”
“Reeds? Doubtless some always remain which spring up about the pools. But they are still quite small and I’ve my eye on them. This morning I pulled them all up carefully. I’ve put sand where they were, and I hope they’ll not come up again this time.”
Marguerite regarded the sand, and she seemed still to see the marks the great feet of the frog had left there while doing its crazy dance. But Marguerite knew these tracks were those of the peacocks who had just scratched in the freshly stirred earth.
At this moment, a noise of hoofbeats resounded above her head. She looked up and saw her cousin, Puypercé, escorted by his lackeys, pass over the drawbridge. She had completely forgotten him, and did not feel in a state of mind to mourn his departure. She had only to say the word to call him back. She hesitated an instant, shrugged her shoulders and then watched him depart.
As she went up again to the castle, she saw the servants assembled on the flight of steps dividing the tips the colonel of dragoons had thrown them on leaving. She heard them grumbling; there was no more than a cent for each one.
“After all,” she said to herself, “perhaps he plans to return, or he may be quite poor and it’s not his fault.”
“Well,” said Madame Yolande when Marguerite entered the room to bring her chocolate, “have you seen your cousin? Is he to remain with us?”
“I saw him leave, grandmother, and I said nothing to him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was quite disturbed by a dream I had, which I’ll tell to you. But, as this dream or vision is perhaps something I’d remembered without knowing it, I want to ask you about the story of the frog-fairy you used to tell me to put me to sleep.”
“I don’t recall it very well,” answered Madame Yolande, “the more so because it was a story I made up myself. Each time I told it differently. Let’s see if I can remember… There was formerly in this castle a beautiful heiress named . . .”
“Ranaïde?” cried Marguerite.
“That’s it,” said her grandmother, “and she was a magician.”
“She married the handsome prince… tell me the name of the prince, grandmother.”
“Wait now… It was Prince Rolando.”
“That’s it, grandmother. I’ve dreamed the whole story over again, as if it had taken place under my eyes.”
“But the end?”
“Oh, the end is terrible! The frog, wishing to assume her human countenance again… “
“Swelled up so much that she burst?”
“Precisely.”
“Then your ending is what you remember of the fable I had you learn at the same time, for I never had to conclude my story. You were always asleep before the end.”
At this moment a strong gust of wind blew dry leaves and straws into the room. Marguerite went to close the window. She saw on the sill a sheet of paper, covered with handwriting, and torn up as if it were the rough copy of a letter. On picking up this paper to throw it out, she saw her name written on it and brought it to her grandmother.
Madame Yolande took it, examined it, and gave it back to Marguerite, saying: “It’s the beginning of a letter from your cousin to his mother. It’s been carried out by the wind from the room over mine which he occupied. Since we’re in the mood to believe in spirits, I think we ought to thank the goblin who brought us this. Read it, my child; I give you permission.”
“My dear mother, forgive me my follies; I am about to make up for them. I am resigned to making a rich marriage, for I have discovered that little Marguerite is bound to inherit all the property of the old aunt. The girl is hideous, a very frog, or rather a little green toad; with all that, quite a flirt and already mad about me. But when one is in debt as we are…”
The rough draft held nothing more but Marguerite thought this was quite sufficient. She was silent, but, as she saw that her grandmother was shocked and inclined to deal with her grandnephew as he deserved: “Let’s not be at all upset, grandmother,” Marguerite said, “and let’s laugh about it. I’m not fond of my cousin, and you see that his self-conceit doesn’t hurt me at all. You told me yesterday evening to think it over. I don’t know whether I reflected or slept, but in my dreams I saw things which remain as a lesson before my eyes.”
“What did you see, my child?”
“I saw a frog array herself in emeralds, toy with her fan, dance the saraband, think herself beautiful, and die in the attempt to be so. She seemed to me so ridiculous that I laugh yet when I think of it. I don’t want to act at all as she did. I also saw a beautiful swan fly away in the sunlight, and he said to me: ‘Only marry one who will love you as you really are.’ I want to do as he told me.”
“And be sure that you’ll be loved for yourself alone,” answered Madame Yolande embracing Marguerite tenderly, “for there’s something which can make one beautiful, and that’s the happiness one deserves.”
George Sand (1804-1876) became a best-selling author in her late twenties with the 1832 publication of her first novel, Indiana. Sand was a prolific novelist and playwright, and her work remained highly popular throughout her lifetime. Her novels frequently centered around female protagonists and issues of social class and gender roles. George Sand was politically active in France and a champion for the poor and for the rights of women. She was born into a fairly wealthy family and was raised by her paternal grandmother after her father’s death when she was four. As an adult, George Sand’s social circle included the writers Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert. Sand was considered scandalous by many in her day for her pen name (male), her clothing (often trousers), her cigar smoking, her attendance at gatherings for men, her divorce from the father of her two children, and her subsequent many romantic affairs, including with the composer Frederic Chopin, who lived with George Sand for several years on the country estate she inherited from her grandmother.
Share this story: