One More Use for Artists - 3

"Never to marry?" asked the minister's daughter. "What's wrong with her? Did something terrible happen?"
"Nobody knows," they said, "not even her parents."
This news damped her enthusiasm somewhat. If the princess had turned against marriage, how was she, a mere stranger, to succeed in getting her married to the prince who was dying for her?
Still, she was a brave girl and was willing to try more than one way of reaching the princess. She rented a house near the palace and opened her studio there. Every day she set up her easel near a large window that looked out on the palace and worked away with her paints and brushes, till the courtiers and finally the king himself wanted to know more about her. One day the raja summoned her to the court to show him her paintings. When he saw them, he liked them a lot, bought some of them, and invited her to do some pictures for the special palace he was building for his only daughter. Meanwhile, the minister's daughter had the opportunity to see the princess several times, and she was now sure the princess was the true original of the painting that had so enthralled the prince and nearly driven him out of his senses.
When the walls in the new palace were ready, the artist began to paint all sorts of lovely designs and figures on them, decorating even the ceilings and arches. The raja and his court came often to see them and to admire her artistry. Each picture was a study in itself, and each had a story that the artist recounted in her own winning manner. All this drew the ladies of the court to these pictures. Some of these women were friends and attendants of the princess. The minister's daughter thought these women, if anyone, would surely know the reason why the princess shunned all males and despised marriage. So she set to work on them and won them over with her art and courtesy till one of them opened up to her. She was a confidante of the princess, and she told the artist the secret story of the princess's adventure in the forest and her disillusionment with all males in nature.
This was all the minister's daughter wanted to know. On one of the walls of the living room, she drew a picture that was just the reverse of what the princess had seen in the forest. It was a wonderful picture that showed the utter fickleness of females and the devotion of a male. She substituted a pair of antelopes for the geese, and in the place of the princess she painted a very handsome young prince, so young, so brave and handsome, that he would win the heart of any woman.
As soon as this picture was ready, the minister's daughter persuaded the friends of the princess to ask her to come and have a look at it. One day, to her GREat joy, the princess did honor her with a visit. She went from picture to picture and greatly admired the artist's skill. She at last came to the picture of the antelopes and the prince, and she was arrested by it. She stood there for a while lost in thought, and then turned to the artist and said, "What's the story in this picture?"
"O princess," replied the daughter of the prime minister, seizing her chance, "this picture is about something that really happened to the prince of our country. He was out hunting in the forest and he saw this scene in a forest fire, which convinced him of the fickleness of all females and the faithfulness of males. This may not interest you very much, but it concerns us GREatly in our country. This incident has brought such a change in the prince's life. Since this happened, he has shunned all women as faithless and refuses to marry anyone. This decision on the part of his son and heir causes our raja great grief and has cast a gloom over the whole court. Nobody knows what to do about it."
"How very strange!" cried the princess, hardly letting the artist finish her story. "Can males then be faithful and females false? I, for one, always believed that males were false and faithless in all of nature. But now I see there are two sides even to that question. After all, I've observed only one instance and made up my mind too quickly. I'll have to rethink the whole question."
"Oh, I'm glad to hear you say so, my princess," said the artist, obviously delighted by this turn, "but how I wish our good prince too would see his mistake as you do yours. But you are not stubborn as he is."
"Someone should point it out to him, I think," said the princess, "and perhaps, like me, he might change his mind. As I have benefited from an incident in his life, he might profit from one in mine. Please feel free to tell him about my case and see whether it will change his mind."