"Prince Charming" by Renée Vivien

Originally published in Vivien's 1904 collection of short stories, La Dame à la louve, titled "Le Prince Charmant." A romance found only in fairytales – still, she couldn't help but wonder: what makes this boy different from all the others?

I promise, oh curious little one, to tell you the true story of Saroltâ Andrassy. You're already familiar with it, aren't you? You remember her black hair with glints of blue and red and her amorous eyes, supplicant and melancholy.

Saroltâ Andrassy lived in the country with her old mother. They were neighbors with the Széchenys, who had definitively just left Budapest. A strange family, honestly! One could take Bêla Szécheny for a little girl, and his sister Terka for a young boy. A curious thing: Bêla possessed all the feminine virtues and Terka all the masculine flaws. Bêla's hair was a green blond while Terka's was a more lively rose blonde. The brother and sister barely resembled each other – this was very rare between members of the same family, one might've said.

Bêla's mother still had not resigned herself to cutting the boy's beautiful blond curls and exchanging his graceful skirts of chiffon or velour for common trousers. She pampered him like a little girl. Meanwhile, she encouraged Terka's whims like a weed… She lived with a great confidence, climbing trees, marauding, pillaging the shared gardens – unsupportable and at war with all the world. A child without tenderness or maturity. Bêla, conversely, was the sweet one. His adoration for his mother manifested itself in hugs and incessant caresses. Terka loved no one and no one loved her.

Saroltâ came one day to visit the Széchenys. Their loving eyes pleaded from their thin, pale faces. She liked Bêla a lot and they played together often. Meanwhile, Terka watched from a distance with a fierce expression. When Saroltâ spoke to her, she fled.

She would've been pretty, that incomprehensible Terka… but she was too tall for her age, too skinny, too gauche, too lanky. Especially compared to Bêla, who was so small and sweet.

The Széchenys left Hungary some months later. Saroltâ cried bitterly in the absence of her friend. On the advice of their doctor, their mother had taken them to Nice. Bela had weak lungs and was, moreover, less than robust.

Saroltâ still dreamt about the frail, pretty boy from her memories. And she would tell herself, smiling at the blond image: "If I must get married someday, I would like to marry Bêla."

Many years passed – oh! how slowly for the impatient Saroltâ! Bêla must now be pushing twenty, and Terka seventeen. Saroltâ grieved for the years without joy, lit only by the illusion of a dream.

She was daydreaming by the window one violet evening when her mother came to tell her that Bêla had returned…

Saroltâ's heart sung til it burst. And, the next day, Bêla came to her.

He was the same, yet even more charming than before. Saroltâ was happy that he kept his sweetness and femininity. He was always a fragile boy… but this boy now possessed an indescribable grace. Saroltâ searched in vain for the cause of this transformation that had made him so attractive. His voice was musical and distant, like an echo in the mountains. She liked everything about him, from his English suit, stone grey, to his mauve tie.

Bêla looked at the girl with changed eyes, strangely beautiful eyes, eyes that did not resemble those of other men…

"Well, he certainly is thin!" remarked Saroltâ's mother after he left. "He must still be in poor health, that boy."

Saroltâ did not respond. She closed her eyes to imagine Bêla again behind her lids…. Oh, how pretty he was!...

He came back the next day, and everyday after. He was like the Prince Charming who only showed himself in the childish pages of fairytales. She could not look at him directly without feeling faint with passionate yearning…. Her face changed depending on her beloved's expression. Her heartbeat depended on the rhythm of that other heart. Unconscious and childlike affection had become love.

Bêla paled after she came in, clad in a transparent summer dress. He looked at her sometimes without speaking, like someone meditating before a faultless statue. Sometimes he took her hand… The palm was both burning and dry, like that of a sick man. A blush appeared on his cheeks.

She asked him one day about the undisciplined Terka.

"She's still in Nice," he responded, nonchalantly. And shifted the conversation to something else. Saroltâ realized that he did not like his sister. That didn't surprise her in the least. What an unsociable and ferocious girl!

Finally, the inevitable happened. Bêla asked for her hand in marriage some months later. He had just turned twenty-one. Saroltâ's mother didn't oppose the union.

Thus began the unreal engagement, delicate as the white roses Bêla brought each day. Thus began the fervent recitation of poems that sent sweet chills down her spine. Thus passed the nuptial of dreams.

"Why," Saroltâ said to her fiancé, "are you more worthy of love than other men? Why do you have the sweetness that they lack? Where have you learned these divine words that they have never said?"

The ceremony was in a place of absolute intimacy. The candles shone their rosy lights on Bêla's blond hair. The incense smoke moved towards him and the organ's song exalted and glorified him. For the first time, since the beginning of the world, the husband was just as beautiful as the bride.

They left to blue shores where they could explore the desires of lovers. A divine couple, the eyelashes of one brushing against the eyelids of the other. Lovingly and chastely enlaced, the black hair of the misses fanned out on the blond of the mister…

But, listen here, curious little one, or the story becomes a bit difficult to understand... Some months later, the real Bêla Szécheny appeared… This one was no Prince Charming. Alas, he was just a pretty boy, nothing more!

Furiously searching for the identity of this usurper, he learned it was none other than his sister, Terka…

…Saroltâ and her Prince Charming never returned to Hungary. They hid themselves in the depths of a Venetian palace or Florentine house, and sometimes one meets them, in a vision of ideal tenderness, lovingly and chastely enlaced.