in such estate it was that count manuel came, on christmas morning, just two days after manuel was twenty-one, into provence. this land, reputed sorcerous, in no way displayed to him any unusual features, though it was noticeable that the king's marmoreal palace was fenced with silver pikes whereon were set the embalmed heads of young men who had wooed the princess alianora unsuccessfully. manuel's lackeys did not at first like the looks of these heads, and said they were unsuitable for christmas decorations: but dom manuel explained that at this season of general merriment this palisade also was mirth-provoking because (the weather being such as was virtually unprecedented in these parts) a light snow had fallen during the night, so that each head seemed to wear a nightcap.

they bring manuel to raymond bérenger, count of provence and king of aries, who was holding the christmas feast in his warm hall. raymond sat on a fine throne of carved white ivory and gold, beneath a purple canopy. and beside him, upon just such another throne, not quite so high, sat raymond's daughter, alianora the unattainable princess, in a robe of watered silk which was of seven colors and was lined with the dark fur of barbiolets. in her crown were chrysolites and amethysts: it was a wonder to note how brightly they shone, but they were not so bright as alianora's eyes.

she stared as manuel of the high head came through the hall, wherein the barons were seated according to their degrees. she had, they say, four reasons for remembering the impudent, huge, squinting, yellow-haired young fellow whom she had encountered at the pool of haranton. she blushed, and spoke with her father in the whistling and hissing language which the apsarasas use among themselves: and her father laughed long and loud.

says raymond bérenger: "things might have fallen out much worse. come tell me now, count of poictesme, what is that i see in your breast pocket wrapped in red silk?"

"it is a feather, king," replied manuel, a little wearily, "wrapped in a bit of my sister's best petticoat."

"ay, ay," says raymond bérenger, with a grin that was becoming even more benevolent, "and i need not ask what price you come expecting for that feather. none the less, you are an excellently spoken-of young wizard of noble condition, who have slain no doubt a reasonable number of giants and dragons, and who have certainly turned kings from folly and wickedness. for such fine rumors speed before the man who has fine deeds behind him that you do not come into my realm as a stranger: and, i repeat, things might have fallen out much worse."

"now listen, all ye that hold christmas here!" cried manuel "a while back i robbed this princess of a feather, and the thought of it lay in my mind more heavy than a feather, because i had taken what did not belong to me. so a bond was on me, and i set out toward provence to restore to her a feather. and such happenings befell me by the way that at michaelmas i brought wisdom into one realm, and at all-hallows i brought piety into another realm. now what i may be bringing into this realm of yours at heaven's most holy season, heaven only knows. to the eye it may seem a quite ordinary feather. yet life in the wide world, i find, is a queerer thing than ever any swineherd dreamed of in his wattled hut, and people everywhere are nourished by their beliefs, in a way that the meat of pigs can nourish nobody."

raymond bérenger said, with a wise nod: "i perceive what is in your heart, and i see likewise what is in your pocket. so why do you tell me what everybody knows? everybody knows that the robe of the apsarasas, which is the peculiar treasure of provence, has been ruined by the loss of a feather, so that my daughter can no longer go abroad in the appearance of a swan, because the robe is not able to work any more wonders until that feather in your pocket has been sewed back into the robe with the old incantation."

"now, but indeed does everybody know that!" says manuel.

"—everybody knows, too, that my daughter has pined away with fretting after her lost ways of outdoor exercise, and the healthful changes of air which she used to be having. and finally, everybody knows that, at my daughter's very sensible suggestion, i have offered my daughter's hand in marriage to him who would restore that feather, and death to every impudent young fellow who dared enter here without it, as my palace fence attests."

"oh, oh!" says manuel, smiling, "but seemingly it is no wholesome adventure which has come to me unsought!"

"—so, as you tell me, you came into provence: and, as there is no need to tell me, i hope, who have still two eyes in my head, you have achieved the adventure. and why do you keep telling me about matters with which i am as well acquainted as you are?"

"but, king of arles, how do you know that this is not an ordinary feather?"

"count of poictesme, do people anywhere—?"

"oh, spare me that vile bit of worldly logic, sir, and i will concede whatever you desire!"

"then do you stop talking such nonsense, and do you stop telling me about things that everybody knows, and do you give my daughter her feather!"

manuel ascends the white throne of alianora. "queer things have befallen me," said manuel, "but nothing more strange than this can ever happen, than that i should be standing here with you, and holding this small hand in mine. you are not perhaps quite so beautiful nor so clever as niafer. nevertheless, you are the unattainable princess, whose loveliness recalled me from vain grieving after niafer, within a half-hour of niafer's loss. yes, you are she whose beauty kindled a dream and a dissatisfaction in the heart of a swineherd, to lead him forth into the wide world, and through the puzzling ways of the wide world, and into its high places: so that at the last the swineherd is standing—a-glitter in satin and gold and in rich furs,—here at the summit of a throne; and at the last the hand of the unattainable princess is in his hand, and in his heart is misery."

the princess said, "i do not know anything about this niafer, who was probably no better than she should have been, nor do i know of any conceivable reason for your being miserable."

"why, is it not the truth," asks manuel of alianora, speaking not very steadily, "that you are to marry the man who restores the feather of which you were robbed at the pool of haranton? and can marry none other?"

"it is the truth," she answered, in a small frightened lovely voice, "and i no longer grieve that it is the truth, and i think it a most impolite reason for your being miserable."

manuel laughed without ardor. "see how we live and learn! i recall now the droll credulity of a lad who watched a shining feather burned, while he sat within arm's reach thinking about cabbage soup, because his grave elders assured him that a feather could never be of any use to anybody. and that, too, after he had seen what uses may be made of an old bridle or of a duck egg or of anything! well, but all water that is past the dam must go its way, even though it be a flood of tears—"

here manuel gently shrugged broad shoulders. he took out of his pocket the feather he had plucked from the wing of ferdinand's goose.

he said: "a feather i took from you in the red autumn woods, and a feather i now restore to you, my princess, in this white palace of yours, not asking any reward, and not claiming to be remembered by you in the gray years to come, but striving to leave no obligation undischarged and no debt unpaid. and whether in this world wherein nothing is certain, one feather is better than another feather, i do not know. it well may come about that i must straightway take a foul doom from fair lips, and that presently my head will be drying on a silver pike. even so, one never knows: and i have learned that it is well to put all doubt of oneself quite out of mind."

he gave her the feather he had plucked from the third goose, and the trumpets sounded as a token that the quest of alianora's feather had been fulfilled, and all the courtiers shouted in honor of count manuel.

alianora looked at what was in her hand, and saw it was a goose-feather, in nothing resembling the feather which, when she had fled in maidenly embarrassment from manuel's over-friendly advances, she had plucked from the robe of the apsarasas, and had dropped at manuel's feet, in order that her father might be forced to proclaim this quest, and the winning of it might be predetermined.

then alianora looked at manuel. now before her the queer unequal eyes of this big young man were bright and steadfast as altar candles. his chin was well up, and it seemed to her that this fine young fellow expected her to declare the truth, when the truth would be his death-sentence. she had no patience with his nonsense.

says alianora, with that lovely tranquil smile of hers: "count manuel has fulfilled the quest. he has restored to me the feather from the robe of the apsarasas. i recognize it perfectly."

"why, to be sure," says raymond bérenger. "still, do you get your needle and the recipe for the old incantation, and the robe too, and make it plain to all my barons that the power of the robe is returned to it, by flying about the hall a little in the appearance of a swan. for it is better to conduct these affairs in due order and without any suspicion of irregularity."

now matters looked ticklish for dom manuel, since he and alianora knew that the robe had been spoiled, and that the addition of any number of goose-feathers was not going to turn alianora into a swan. yet the boy's handsome and high-colored face stayed courteously attentive to the wishes of his host, and did not change.

but alianora said indignantly: "my father, i am surprised at you! have you no sense of decency at all? you ought to know it is not becoming for an engaged girl to be flying about provence in the appearance of a swan, far less among a parcel of men who have been drinking all morning. it is the sort of thing that leads to a girl's being talked about."

"now, that is true, my dear," said raymond bérenger, abashed, "and the sentiment does you credit. so perhaps i had better suggest something else—"

"indeed, my father, i see exactly what you would be suggesting. and i believe you are right."

"i am not infallible, my dear: but still—"

"yes, you are perfectly right: it is not well for any married woman to be known to possess any such robe. there is no telling, just as you say, what people would be whispering about her, nor what disgraceful tricks she would get the credit of playing on her husband."

"my daughter, i was only about to tell you—"

"yes, and you put it quite unanswerably. for you, who have the name of being the wisest count that ever reigned in provence, and the shrewdest king that arles has ever had, know perfectly well how people talk, and how eager people are to talk, and to place the very worst construction on everything: and you know, too, that husbands do not like such talk. certainly i had not thought of these things, my father, but i believe that you are right."

raymond bérenger stroked his thick short beard, and said: "now truly, my daughter, whether or not i be wise and shrewd—though, as you say, of course there have been persons kind enough to consider—and in petitions too—however, be that as it may, and putting aside the fact that everybody likes to be appreciated, i must confess i can imagine no gift which would at this high season be more acceptable to any husband than the ashes of that robe."

"this is a saying," alianora here declares, "well worthy of raymond bérenger: and i have often wondered at your striking way of putting things."

"that, too, is a gift," the king-count said, with proper modesty, "which to some persons is given, and to others not: so i deserve no credit for it. but, as i was saying when you interrupted me, my dear, it is well for youth to have its fling, because (as i have often thought) we are young only once: and so i have not ever criticized your jauntings in far lands. but a husband is another pair of sandals. a husband does not like to have his wife flying about the tree tops and the tall lonely mountains and the low long marshes, with nobody to keep an eye on her, and that is the truth of it. so, were i in your place, and wise enough to listen to the old father who loves you, and who is wiser than you, my dear—why, now that you are about to marry, i repeat to you with all possible earnestness, my darling, i would destroy this feather and this robe in one red fire, if only count manuel will agree to it. for it is he who now has power over all your possessions, and not i."

"count manuel," says alianora, with that lovely tranquil smile of hers, "you perceive that my father is insistent, and it is my duty to be guided by him. i do not deny that, upon my father's advice, i am asking you to let perish a strong magic which many persons would value above a woman's pleading. but i know now"—her eyes met his, and to any young man anywhere with a heart moving in him, that which manuel could see in the bright frightened eyes of alianora could not but be a joy well-nigh intolerable,—"but i know now that you, who are to be my husband, and who have brought wisdom into one kingdom, and piety into another, have brought love into the third kingdom: and i perceive that this third magic is a stronger and a nobler magic than that of the apsarasas. and it seems to me that you and i would do well to dispense with anything which is second rate."

"i am of the opinion that you are a singularly intelligent young woman," says manuel, "and i am of the belief that it is far too early for me to be crossing my wife's wishes, in a world wherein all men are nourished by their beliefs."

all being agreed, the yule-log was stirred up into a blaze, which was duly fed with the goose-feather and the robe of the apsarasas. thereafter the trumpets sounded a fanfare, to proclaim that raymond bérenger's collops were cooked and peppered, his wine casks broached, and his puddings steaming. then the former swineherd went in to share his christmas dinner with the king-count's daughter, alianora, whom people everywhere had called the unattainable princess.

and they relate that while alianora and manuel sat cosily in the hood of the fireplace and cracked walnuts, and in the pauses of their talking noted how the snow was drifting by the windows, the ghost of niafer went restlessly about green fields beneath an ever radiant sky in the paradise of the pagans. when the kindly great-browed warders asked her what it was she was seeking, the troubled spirit could not tell them, for niafer had tasted lethe, and had forgotten dom manuel. only her love for him had not been forgotten, because that love had become a part of her, and so lived on as a blind longing and as a desire which did not know its aim. and they relate also that in suskind's low red-pillared palace suskind waited with an old thought for company.