I followed her advice; and my fear was so great, that I forgot my hatchet and my cord. I had hardly gained the stair-case, by which I descended, than the enchanted palace opened to afford a passage to the Genius. “What has happened to you, and why have you called me?” he demanded of the princess, in an angry tone. “A violent pain,” replied the princess, “obliged me to search after the bottle which you see; I drank two or three glasses, and unfortunately making a false step I fell upon the talisman, which I thus broke. There is no other cause.” At this answer the Genius, in the utmost rage, exclaimed; “you are both impudent and deceitful, how came this hatchet and this cord here then?” “I have never seen them,” replied she, “till this instant. Perhaps, in the haste and impetuosity with which you came, you have taken them up in passing through some place, and have brought them here, without observing them.” The Genius replied only by reproaches, and by blows, which I could plainly distinguish the sound of. It distressed me, beyond measure, to hear the cries and sobbing of the princess, who was thus cruelly used. I had already taken off the habit, which she had made me put on, and resumed my own, which I had carried to the stair-case the day before, after I had been in the bath. I proceeded therefore up the stairs, as I was the more penetrated with grief and compassion on account of having been the cause of such a misfortune: and as I should become the most criminal and ungrateful of men in thus sacrificing the most beautiful princess on earth to the barbarity of an implacable Genius. “It is true,” said I to myself, “that she has been a prisoner for five and twenty years; but, excepting liberty, she had nothing to wish for, in order to be happy. My conduct has put an end to her happiness, and raised the cruelty of a merciless demon to its very summit. I then shut down the trap-door, covered it over with the earth, and returned to the city with a load of wood, which I collected, without even knowing what I was about, so much was I absorbed and afflicted at what had happened. My host, the tailor, expressed great joy at my return. “Your absence,” said he, “has caused me much uneasiness on account of the secret of your birth, with which you have entrusted me. I knew not what to think, and began to fear some one might have recognized you. God be praised that you are come back.” I thanked him much for his zeal and affection, but did not inform him of any thing that had happened; nor of the reason why I returned without my hatchet and cord. I retired to my chamber, where I reproached myself a thousand times for my great imprudence. “Nothing,” I cried, “could have equalled the mutual happiness of the princess and myself, if I had been satisfied, and had not broken the talisman.”