A Fairy tale story

    The real Princess

A Fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen

   There was once a Prince who wished to marry a Princess; but then she must be a real Princess. The Prince was traveled all over the world in hopes of finding such a lady. But there was always something wrong with him. Princesses he found in plenty; but whether they were real Princesses. It was impossible for him to decide, for now one thing, now another, seemed to him not quite right about the ladies. 
   At last he returned to his palace alone with quite depress, because he wished so much to have a real Princess as his wife.
   One evening a fearful thunderstorm arose, it thundered and lightened, and the rain poured down from the sky in torrents: besides, it was a very dark night. All at once there was heard a violent knocking at the door. The King, the Prince's father went out himself to open the door.
   It was a Princess who was standing outside the door. What with the rain and the wind. She was in a miserable condition; the water trickled down from her hair, and her clothes clung to her body. She said that, she was a real Princess.
   "Ah! We shall soon see that!" thought the Queen-mother, the prince’s mother. The Queen-mother did not said not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the bedroom. She took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas on the bedstead. She then laid twenty mattresses one upon another over the three peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattresses.
   Upon on this bed the Princess was to pass the whole night.
   The next morning the Queen-mother asked how she had slept. "Oh, very badly indeed!" she replied. "I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard under me, and I am all over sorely. It was hurt me so much!"

   Now it was plain that the lady must be a real Princess, since she had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. None but a real Princess could have had such a delicate sense of feeling.
   The Prince accordingly made her his wife; being now convinced that he had found a real Princess. The three peas were however put into the cupboard of curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they are not lost. 
   The Princess was the lady of real delicacy.



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