Dream Country
I
A
princess was born in a land which the sun turns golden, that kisses the blue
sea, and wherein the wind sings a hymn of eternal love.
The immense palaces were filled with flowers, in the golden temples the
bells reverberated, and on top of the walls of the imperial city, royal heralds
of Happiness blew their trumpets of gold and trumpets of silver.
A
Chinese wizard wearing a sparkling dress baptized the princess. With his arms
toward the sun and his forehead on his breast, he said:
“In the name of Love and of Dreams, I baptize you little princess…
“Oh my queen! How will the little princess be named?”
And the queen, with the soul of a mother profaning the mystery of
destiny, answered: “Well Happy.”
II
The fairies began to arrive at the royal palace; the fairies arrived on
fluttering carriages of doves and flowers, on carriages o wings and moonbeams.
The palace was filled with music and dreams; the queen dressed in emeralds
receive the court.
And the
fairies bending over the little princess, left in the royal cradle marvelous
gifts.
“You will be precious!”
“You will be loved!”
“You will have dreams!”
“You will have joys!”
“You will know how to cry!”
The fairy of tears said, very slowly, preparing to pour over the eyes of
the child her amphora’s essence. But the queen, trembling, interposed between
the fairy and the cradle… “What were you saying? … her child should cry! her
little princess should cry! her Princess Happy! No, never, she implored and
moaned; that all the tears destined for her daughter should fall instead on her
eyes and heart. The princess of the royal palace, the princes of the place of
dreams and flowers could not, should not know tears…”
The radiant and haughty fairy considered the request a slight and
regarded the ignorance a malice, ascended her carriage of roses and bats, and
disappeared through the air, entangling aromas and breezes along her golden
route. But before leaving, she cursed the little girl:
“Oh, you will not have tears! you will not know how to cry!”
And the queen kissed her daughter. She had had saved her from tears.
III
But not from pain. The child, a woman even as she was a princess,
suffered like all women. And they would see the grimaces of anguish of that
infantile and divine face that suffered and suffered without being able to cry.
And the queen, looking at the girl, learned one thing.
“That pain without tears is twice as painful”
IV
It
was springtime. The princess was pretty. The princess was pale.
Like the fairies said, she was beautiful, loved, she had dreams, and
joys.
But she has no tears. She knew pleasure, she yearned to cry with joy,
she could not…
And since then, Princess Happy became the most unhappy of princesses.
V
One time—it was late afternoon in the royal gardens — the princess caught
a glimpse of two lovers who were concealed by the foliage.
The man had his arm round the waist of the beloved woman; she with her
head thrown backwards, received a kiss on her lips.
The princess followed with her sad eyes the idyllic dream; but suddenly
the branches rippled, the sweet pair were lost among the flowers, and a vibrant
and harmonic sob of love shook in the breezes.
Each flower was a mystical censer, a light and vague perfume rose, like
the soul of a poet, towards the heavens; a silvery trickle sang in the fountain
where a pale swan supported the plinth of a fantasy statue.
And the princess moved away, she moved away slowly from the garden, with
her throbbing breast, with swollen eyes, with her heart full of envy and
foolish things.
The
princess moved away, she moved away from the splendid and cursed garden of
love.
A
heavenly heraldist. Over the gules Venus shone—golden light—and the new moon
raised its great blue eyebrow, like the arch of light of a bowman who shot arrows
in the sleeping atmosphere, the conquered monarch that moved away fleeing.
VI
Tears of sorrow, monstrous and bitter tears are the waves of the ocean.
Tears of joy, tears of crystal and of laughter are the dewdrops that the
morning showeres over the wings of birds and on the lips of the flowers.
Melancholic tears, golden tears — perhaps tears of love —are the leaves that
Autumn pulls off the dead branches.
But in the luminous eyes, in those bid dreamy eyes of the princess,
there are no tears.
The queen, worried to death,
requested national consolation for her daughter. Who knew the remedy to make
the princess cry?
Over the walls of the imperial city, the royal heralds of Pain blew
their trumpets made of horn and their trumpets made of amber. It is not known
from what cave came an old hunchback and horrible woman.
“I
am a thousand years old,” she said, “and I know that the only way to erase the
hatred of the fairy of tears is that a handsome youth not related to the
princess come to her palace to seek pardon.”
The
royal heralds of Pain again blew their trumpets of horn and their trumpets of
amber. A handsome warrior presented himself in the court.
“I shall
go”
As he
offered his services, he looke at the purple and sad eyelids of the poor
princess.
“Blessed are you! said the queen.
“And return soon,” she sighed.
VII
She dreamed about the return of the warrior, of the handsome and beloved
warrior.
Because she love him, she loved him with all her soul, since she saw his
gallant eyes looking at hers stained with melancholy. And the warrior returned.
The whole court dress in gold to receive him. He returned happy and satisfied,
narrating adventures of the journey; abysses surmounted, monsters defeated.
“And here
is, Princess, the amphora of tears which you desired so mush; here are all your
tears; you will cry, Princess, on the day the crystal that keeps them breaks.”
“And
what do you desire as a prize,” she asked, dreaming of putting the royal crown
on him.
“Nothing, Princess; only my pity urged me to make you happy. I am
already happy, so very happy that I no longer wish for more.”
From his eyes appeared a light of love; the Princess followed his eyes
and she found them in the air, bursting into a kiss with that woman whom she
heard one afternoon cry of love in the royal gardens..
Then she felt jealous; in her soul she felt despair; and the glass of
amphora of tears was broken.
And before the royal court all dressed in gold, before all the court
assembled to celebrate that matchless good fortune, the princess cried her
first tears, which were more painful than all the sad pains in her past.
Jesus Balmori
Excelsior, Manila
May 30, 1907
Translated to English by Pilar E. Mariño
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