“You must find first a man who is loved, but does not love (for if he loves, the statue’s heart when it wakes will turn from you); and him you must kill with your own hand, and take out his heart and bury it beneath the feet of the statue. Then I will work my charms, and gradually, as a flower draws its life out of the ground, so the statue will draw life out of the human heart buried below. And after a little time you will see it move, and in a little time more its senses will come, and it will be able to hear, and see, and speak. But full life will not come to it until it has learned to love. Then, so soon as it learns to love, it will become no longer stone, but a human being.” But the Queen said, “Supposing its love were to turn from me to another, where should I be then?” “Surely,” said the Fairy, “the secret will be your own, and the watching of its life as it grows will be yours. Your voice it will hear, your face it will see; whom, then, will it learn to love more than you?” “Wait, then, till I have found the man,” said the Queen, “and we will do this thing between us!” She searched long among her court for some man whose heart was whole, but who was himself loved. Generally, however, she found it was all the other way. There was not a man at the court who was not in love, or did not think himself so; and if there were one who had no thought of love, he was too poor and mean for the love of any woman to be his. But one day the Queen heard a minstrel in the palace court-yard singing and making merry against love. It was that same minstrel who sang only sad songs of the White King’s lands laid waste and himself a wanderer: a fellow with a dark sunburnt face, and thick hair hanging over his eyes. And as he sang and rattled his jests at the courtiers who stood by to listen, the Queen noticed one of her waiting-women looking out of a small lattice, who, as she watched the singer’s face, and listened to his words, had tears running fast down out of her eyes. “Is this a case,” thought the Queen, “of a man who is loved but who does not love?” She sent for the minstrel, and said to him, when he stood bending his head before her, “Is this pretty scorn that you cast on love earnest or jest?” “Nay,” he answered, “I jest in good earnest; for to speak of love in earnest is to jest about it.” “So,” said the Queen, “you are heart-whole?” “Why,” said the minstrel, “I doubt if a mouse could find its way in; and if I am heart-whole in your presence, I ought to be safe from all the world!” “Now,” thought the Queen, “if only my waiting-woman answers the test, here is the heart I will have out!” Then she bade the minstrel follow her to where stood the White King’s statue, bidding him sit down under it and sing her more of his rhymes about love.