第64章

"The Golden Touch!" exclaimed he."You certainly deserve credit, friend Midas, for striking out so brilliant a fancy.But are you quite sure that this will satisfy you?""How could it fail?" said Midas.

"And will you never regret the possession of it?""What could induce me?" asked Midas."I ask nothing else, to render me perfectly happy.""Be it as you wish, then," replied the stranger, waving his hand in token of farewell."To-morrow, at sunrise, you will find yourself gifted with the Golden Touch."The figure of the stranger then became exceedingly bright, and Midas involuntarily closed his eyes.On opening them again, he beheld only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and, all around him, the glistening of the precious metal which he had spent his life in hoarding up.

IV.

Whether Midas slept as usual that night, the story does not say.But when the earliest sunbeam shone through the window, and gilded the ceiling over his head, it seemed to him that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in rather a singular way on the white coverimg of the bed.Looking more closely, what was his astonishment and delight, when he found that this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a woven texture of the purest and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had come to him with the first sunbeam!

Midas started up, in a kind of joyful frenzy, and ran about the room, grasping at everything that happened to be in his way.He seized one of the bedposts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar.He pulled aside a window curtain in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing, and the tassel grew heavy in his hand, a mass of gold.He took up a book from the table; at his first touch, it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with nowadays; but on running his fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a bundle of thin golden plates, in which all the wisdom ofthe book had grown illegible.

He hurriedly put on his clothes, and was enraptured to see himself in a magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility and softness,although it burdened him a little with its weight.He drew out his handkerchief, which little Marygold had hemmed for him; that was likewise gold, with the dear child's neat and pretty stitches running all along the border, in gold thread!

Somehow or other, this last transformation did not quite please King Midas.He would rather that his little daughter's handiwork should have remained just the same as when she climbed his knee and put it into his hand.

But it was not worth while to vex himself about a trifle.Midas took his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on his nose, in order that he might see more distinctly what he was about.In those days, spectacles for common people had not been invented, but were already worn by kings; else, how could Midas have had any? To his great perplexity; however, excellent as the glasses were, he discovered that he could not possibly see through them.But this was the most natural thing in the world; for, on taking them off, the transparent crystals turned out to be plates of yellow metal, and, of course, were worthless as spectacles, though valuable as gold.It struck Midas as rather inconvenient, that, with all his wealth, he could never again be rich enough to own a pair of serviceable spectacles.

"It is no great matter, nevertheless," said he to himself, very philosophically."We cannot expect any great good, without its being accompanied with some small inconvenience.The Golden Touch is worth the sacrifice of a pair of spectacles at least, if not of one's very eyesight.My own eyes will serve for ordinary purposes, and little Marygold will soon be old enough to read to me."V.

Wise King Midas was so exalted by his good fortune, that the palace seemed not sufficiently spacious to contain him.He therefore went downstairs, and smiled on observing that the balustrade of the staircase became a bar of burnished gold, as his hand passed over it, in his descent.

He lifted the door-latch (it was brass only a moment ago, but golden when his fingers quitted it), and emerged into the garden.Here, as it happened, he found a great number of beautiful roses in full bloom, and others in all the stages of lovely bud and blossom.Very delicious was their fragrance in the morning breeze.Their delicate blush was one of the fairest sights in the world; so gentle, so modest, and so full of sweet soothing, did these roses seem to be.

But Midas knew a way to make them far more precious, according to his way of thinking, than roses had ever been before.So he took great pains in going from bush to bush, and exercised his magic touch most untiringly; until every individual flower and bud, and even the worms at the heart of some of them, were changed to gold.By the time this good work was completed, King Midas was summoned to breakfast; and as the morning air had given him an excellent appetite, he made haste back to the palace.

What was usually a king's breakfast in the days of Midas, I really do not know, and cannot stop now to investigate.To the best of my knowledge, however, on this particular morning, the breakfast consisted of hot cakes, some nice little brook trout, roasted potatoes, fresh boiled eggs, and coffee for King Midas himself, and a bowl of bread and milk for his daughter Marygold.

Little Marygold had not yet made her appearance.Her father ordered her to be called, and seating himself at table, awaited the child's coming, in order to begin his own breakfast.To do Midas justice, he really loved his daughter, and loved her so much the more this morning, on account of the good fortune which had befallen him.It was not a great while before he heard her coming along the passage, crying bitterly.This circumstance surprised him, because Marygold was one of the most cheerful little people whom you would see in a summer's day, and hardly shed a tear in a twelvemonth.