Kitabı oku: «Страшные сказки / Scary stories», sayfa 9

Bluebeard
Charles Perrault

There was once a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, silver and gold plates, nice furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold. But this man was very unlucky because he had a blue beard, which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him.

One of his neighbors,a lady of quality¹⁴, had two daughters who were very beautiful. He desired to marry one of them. Neither of them wanted to marry him, and they sent him backwards and forwards from one to the other. They did want to have a husband with a blue beard. Furthermore, he was already married to several wives, and nobody knew what became of them.

Blue Beard invited these girls, with their mother and three or four other ladies, with other young people of the neighborhood, to one of his country houses, where they stayed a whole week.

The time was filled with parties, hunting, fishing, dancing, mirth, and feasting. Everything succeeded so well that the youngest daughter began to think that the man’s beard was not so very blue after all, and that he was a gentleman.

As soon as they returned home, the marriage was concluded. About a month afterwards, Blue Beard told his wife that he was obliged to take a country journey for six weeks at least. He desired her to divert herself in his absence, to send for her friends and acquaintances, to take them into the country, if she pleased, and to do whatever she wanted.

“Here”, said he, “are the keys to the two great wardrobes, wherein I have my best furniture. These are to my silver and gold plates. These open my strongboxes, which hold my money, both gold and silver; these my caskets of jewels. And this is the master key to all my apartments. But look at this little key. It is the key to the closet at the end of the great hall on the ground floor. Open them all; go into each and every one of them, except that little closet, which I forbid you. If you open it, you will expect my anger and resentment”.

She promised to observe, very exactly, his orders. Then he embraced her, got into his coach and proceeded on his journey.

Soon her neighbors and good friends arrived. They were impatient to see all the rich furniture of her house. They did not come while her husband was there, because of his blue beard, which frightened them. They ran through all the rooms, closets, and wardrobes, which were all fine and very rich indeed.

After that, they went up into the two great rooms, which contained the best and richest furniture. They admired the number and beauty of the tapestry, beds, couches, cabinets, stands, tables, and looking glasses, in which they could see themselves from head to foot.

They extolled and envied the happiness of their friend, who in the meantime in no way diverted herself. She was impatient to go and open the closet on the ground floor. She was so much pressed by her curiosity that she went down a little back staircase, and with such haste that she nearly fell and broke her neck.

She came to the closet door, made a stop for some time, thought about her husband’s orders, and considered to be a little disobedient. The temptation was so strong that she could not overcome it. She then took the little key, and opened it. At first she could not see anything plainly, because the windows were shut. After some moments she began to perceive that the floor was all covered over with blood, on which lay the bodies of several dead women. These were all the wives whom Blue Beard married and murdered, one after another. She was very afraid, and the key fell out of her hand.