THE PRINCESS
AND THE PEA
Written by Hans Andersen
Once upon a time, there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess, but she would have to be a real one. He travelled around the whole world looking for her; but every time he met a princess there was always something amiss. There were plenty of princesses but not one of them was quite to his taste. Something was always the matter : they just weren't real princesses. So he returned home very sorry for he has set his heart on marrying a real princess.
One evening, a storm broke over the Kingdom. the lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and the rain came down in bucketfuls. In the midst of the horrible storm, someone knocked on the city gate; and the king himself went down to open it.
On the other side of the gate stood a princess. But goodness, how wet she was! Water ran down her hair and her clothes in streams. It flowed in through the heels of her shoes and out through the toes. But she said she was a real princess.
'We'll find that out quickly enough,' thought the old queen, but she didn't say a word out loud. She hurried to the guestroom and took all the clothes off the bed; then on the bare bedstead she put a pea. On top of the pea she put twenty mattresses; and on top of the mattresses, twenty eiderdown quilts. That was the bed on which the princess had to sleep.
In the morning, when someone asked her how she had slept, she replied
"Oh, just wretchedly! I didn't close my eyes once, the whole night through. God knows what was in that bed; but it was something hard and I am black and blue all over."
Now they all knew she was a real princess, since she had felt the pea that was lying on the bedstead through twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdown quilts. Only a real princess could be so sensitive!
The prince married her. The pea was exhibited in the royal museum; and now you can go there and see it, if it hasn't been stolen.
Now that was a real story!