On this the princess had to lie all night. In the
morning she was asked how she had slept.
“Oh, very badly!” said she. “I have scarcely closed my eyes all
night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on
something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It’s
horrible!”
Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt
the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty
eider-down beds.
Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.
So the prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he
had a real princess; and the pea was put in the museum, where it
may still be seen, if no one has stolen it.
There, that is a true story. |