The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (10.1896)

By Vernon Lee 313

till then you must take me on trust. And now what shall we
play at ? ”

And thus his Godmother had come every evening at sunset ;
just for an hour and no more, and had taught the poor solitary
little prince to play (for he had never played) and to read, and to
manage a horse, and, above all, to love : for, except the old
tapestry in the Red Palace, he had never loved anything in the
world.

Alberic told his dear Godmother everything, beginning with
the story of the two pieces of tapestry, the one they had taken
away and the one he had cut to pieces ; and he asked her about
all the things he ever wanted to know, and she was always able to
answer. Only, about two things they were silent: she never told
him her name nor where she lived, nor whether Duke Balthasar
Maria knew her (the boy guessed that she had been a friend of his
father’s); and Alberic never revealed the fact that the tapestry
had represented his ancestor and the beautiful Oriana ; for, even
to his dear Godmother, and most perhaps to her, he found it
impossible even to mention Alberic the Blond and the Snake
Lady.

But the story, or rather the name of the story he did not know,
never loosened its hold on Alberic’s mind. Little by little, as he
grew up, it came to add to his life two friends, of whom he never
told his Godmother. They were, to be sure, of such sort,
however different, that a boy might find it difficult to speak about
without feeling foolish. The first of the two friends was his own
ancestor, Alberic the Blond ; and the second that large tame grass
snake whose acquaintance he had made the day after his arrival at
the castle. About Alberic the Blond he knew indeed but little,
save that he had reigned in Luna many hundreds of years ago, and
that he had been a very brave and glorious prince indeed, who had

helped.