Princess Lenore loved cakes. She once ate so many that she became sick and the king’s doctor could do nothing to help her. The king promised his little daughter anything she wanted if she would just get well.
Lenore said she wanted the moon. She would get well if she had the moon.
The king called for his most important official, the Lord High Chamberlain. He was a big fat man who wore thick eyeglasses.
The king asked him to get the moon for the young Princess. The king’s official took a long list from his pocket, and said: “Your Majesty, I have gotten you many things. Here is a list of them: ivory, monkeys, peacocks, jewels, pink elephants, little blue dogs, gold insects and the feathers of angels. And I have brought you giants and little men and women who lived in the sea and singers and dancers, and a kilo of butter, a bag of sugar and twenty-four eggs—oh, I’m sorry, my wife wrote that!”
The king said he did not remember any little blue dogs, and did not want to talk about little blue dogs. He wanted the moon for his daughter and he wanted it quickly.
The Lord High Chamberlain said, “I have gotten things from far-off places like Africa and Asia, but I cannot get the moon. The moon is sixty thousand kilometers from the earth. It is bigger even than Princess Lenore’s room, and it is made of hot copper. Nobody can touch it. Little blue dogs? Yes. But the moon? No.”
The king ordered the Lord Chamberlain out of his room and sent for his mathematician, a little man with no hair on his head. He carried pencils behind his ears.
The king said to him,“Don’t tell me all the problems you have settled for me in the last forty years. I am not interested in them. I want the moon for Princess Lenore now. Get it!”
The mathematician said, “Thank you, thank you for asking me. On this paper I have written all the problems I have answered for you in the last forty years. I have told you how far up is and how far down is. I showed you the distance between the letters, A and Z, and between day and night.”
The king got hot with anger. He said he didn’t want to talk—he wanted the moon for his daughter. But the mathematician said he could not get the moon. The moon was five hundred thousand kilometers away. It was almost as big as the king’s country. It was made of asbestos1. And it was nailed to the sky—nobody could get it.
The king pushed the mathematician out of the room. He called for his jester2, the only man who made him laugh. The jester came running into the room. He wore his funny clothes covered with bells.
The king said, “My daughter will stay sick until she gets the moon. All my officials say that they cannot get it.” The jester thought for a minute and said: “Well, they are all wise men, but have different ideas about the moon. Why don’t we ask Princess Lenore what ideas she has about the moon?”
The king aGREed and the jester went to Lenore’s room. The little girl spoke with difficulty. She asked the jester if he brought the moon. He said he would get it. But first, he wanted to know how big she thought the moon was. Lenore answered, “It is as big as the nail on my finger. I know this is so, because when I put my small finger in front of the moon, my fingernail covers it.”
From American Short Stories in Special English
Notes:
1. asbestos: [矿]石棉
2. jester:讲笑话的人, 小丑
