Rapunzel peeked out from the small window atop the tower. “Who are you, to say that to me? Sorrowful songs are the salvation of sorrow-filled hearts. You just don’t understand the sadness of others.”
“Ah! Rapunzel!” The prince was beside himself with joy. “Don’t you remember me?”
Rapunzel’s cheeks went pale for a moment, then flushed with a faint, rosy glow. She had not yet lost all the pig-headedness of her younger days, however.
“Rapunzel? She died four years ago!” she said in the coldest tone of voice she could manage. Then she drew a deep breath, intending to burst into hearty laughter, but all that came out was a choking sob. It was then that the birds of the forest began to sing, all at once, a peculiar song:
That child’s hair is a bridge of gold!
That child’s hair is a rainbow bridge!
Their voices reached Rapunzel’s ears even as she wept, and she was suddenly struck by a wonderful flash of inspiration. She wound her long, lovely hair twice, three times around her left hand and took up a pair of scissors in her right. By now her shiny locks hung all the way to the floor, yet without the least hesitation or regret she clipped them off, then wove the strands together into a single long rope—the most beautiful rope under the sun. And then, after securing one end to the window ledge, she climbed out and slid down that exquisite golden cable to the ground.
“Rapunzel!” The prince gazed at her, enraptured, but Rapunzel, for her part, had no sooner reached the ground than she was overcome with shyness. She could not even bring herself to speak, and it was all she could do to place her own fair hand on top of the prince’s.
“Now, Rapunzel, it’s my turn to help you. No, not just now—let me help you for the rest of my life.” The prince was twenty now, a solid, upstanding young man. Rapunzel smiled at him faintly and nodded.
The two of them left the forest and ran as fast as they could, hoping to cross the wilderness before the old witch could find them out. Fortunately, they made it back safe and sound to the castle, where they were greeted with cheers.
It was only with great effort that the youngest son had managed to write this far, and now his mood turned sour. It was a failure. This wouldn’t serve as the beginning of a story at all—he’d written all the way to the ending. His elder brothers and sisters were sure to laugh at him once again. He racked his brains. It was already growing dark, and all the others seemed to have returned from their outings; he could hear their cheerful, laughing voices down in the drawing room, and suffered an indescribable sense of solitude. Then a savior arrived, in the form of his grandmother. She’d been beside herself with concern for the poor youngest son, holed up alone in his room.
“At it again, are you?” she said as she entered the room. “Did you write something good?”
“Go away!” He was in a nasty mood.
“You’ve blundered again, haven’t you? You shouldn’t enter this silly sort of competition—you know it’s not your forte. Let me see.”
“You wouldn’t understand!”
“No need to get hysterical. Let me see.” She took her spectacles from her sash and read the youngest son’s fairy tale aloud in a soft voice. “My, my,” she said, chuckling. “Who’d have expected something like this from a child your age? It’s interesting. You’ve done an excellent job. But there’s no way to continue it.”
“I know that.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? If I were you, this is what I’d write: ‘The two of them were greeted at the castle with cheers. But unhappiness lay ahead for them.’ What do you think of that? A prince and the daughter of a witch—it’s just too great a social gap. Regardless of how much they love each other, there’s sure to be trouble. This sort of pairing is bound to bring unhappiness. See what I mean?” She poked the youngest son in the shoulder with her forefinger.
“I know that. I know tha
t much. Go away! I’ve got my own ideas.”
“Oh, is that so?” the grandmother said calmly. She knew more or less what his “own ideas” would amount to. “Hurry up and write it, then, and come on down to the drawing room. You must be hungry. You can have some rice cake and play a game of cards with the others. This writing competition is silly. Leave the rest to your big sister. She’s very good at this, you know.”
Once he’d chased his grandmother out, the youngest son picked up his pen again and added a few more lines.
But unhappiness lay ahead. There’s just too great a social gap between a prince and the daughter of a witch. Misfortune was about to befall them. I’ll leave it to my elder sister to explain. Please take good care of Rapunzel.
Thus he wrote—exactly as his grandmother had suggested—and breathed a sigh of relief.
— III —
It was the second day of the new year. Immediately after eating her rice cake with the rest of the family, the elder daughter retired alone to her study. She was wearing a white woolen sweater with a small artificial yellow rose pinned to the breast. Sitting on a cushion before her little writing desk, her legs tucked up beside her, she took off her glasses and smiled to herself as she vigorously polished the lenses with a handkerchief. Putting the glasses back on, she blinked exaggeratedly before adopting, suddenly, a solemn expression. She resettled on the cushion, sitting rigidly on her knees, and sank into contemplation. It was some minutes before she picked up her fountain pen and began to write.
The real story always begins where the love story ends. In most films, the word Finis is flashed on the screen the moment the happy couple are joined together, but what we, the audience, want to know, is what sort of life begins for them at that point. Life is by no means a drama consisting of one thrilling moment after another. We are born to spend most of our days in the midst of bland, bleak reality. Our prince and Rapunzel, who, though still mere children, had experienced a powerful bond of affection during the brief moment they were thrown together, discovered during their separation that they were unable to forget each other for a single instant, and after years of tribulation they succeeded in reuniting as adults. But that is far from being where the story ends. What remains to be told, what needs to be told, is the story of their life together from that point on. Though the prince and Rapunzel had escaped hand in hand from the enchanted forest, crossed the vast wilds in a night and a day, forgoing food and drink and conversation, and finally succeeded in reaching the castle, a hard road still lay ahead of them.
Both Rapunzel and the prince were exhausted when they arrived at the castle, but at first there was no time to rest. The king, the queen, and all the servants were overjoyed to see the prince safe and sound, and they bombarded him with questions about his latest ordeal. When it became obvious that the extraordinary beauty standing modestly behind him with her head bowed was none other than the girl who’d saved his life four years earlier, their joy only doubled.
Rapunzel was treated to a perfumed bath, dressed in a lovely sheer gown, then shown to a bed with a mattress so thick and soft as to conform to every curve of her body, where she fell into such a deep sleep that she scarcely even seemed to be breathing. She slept a very long time, and when she’d finally had all the rest her body needed and awoke wide-eyed, like a ripe, juicy fig falling to the ground with a plop, she found the prince standing beside her pillow in full regalia, his vitality thoroughly restored.
Rapunzel was frantic with shame and embarrassment. She sat up and said: “I’m going home. Where’s my dress?”