You may imagine that it was not long before he went to see the Princess , and puss , as usual , marched in before him , arching his back . The King took a long step , and quite thought he had the tail under his foot , but the cat turned round so sharply that he only trod on air . And so it went on for eight days , till the King began to think that this fatal tail must be full of quicksilver -- it was never still for a moment . At last , however , he was lucky enough to come upon puss fast asleep and with his tail conveniently spread out . So the King , without losing a moment , set his foot upon it heavily . With one terrific yell the cat sprang up and instantly changed into a tall man , who , fixing his angry eyes upon the King , said : `` You shall marry the Princess because you have been able to break the enchantment , but I will have my revenge . You shall have a son , who will never be happy until he finds out that his nose is too long , and if you ever tell anyone what I have just said to you , you shall vanish away instantly , and no one shall ever see you or hear of you again . '' Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter , he could not help laughing at this threat . `` If my son has such a long nose as that , '' he said to himself , `` he must always see it or feel it ; at least , if he is not blind or without hands . '' But , as the enchanter had vanished , he did not waste any more time in thinking , but went to seek the Princess , who very soon consented to marry him . But after all , they had not been married very long when the King died , and the Queen had nothing left to care for but her little son , who was called Hyacinth . The little Prince had large blue eyes , the prettiest eyes in the world , and a sweet little mouth , but , alas ! his nose was so enormous that it covered half his face . The Queen was inconsolable when she saw this great nose , but her ladies assured her that it was not really as large as it looked ; that it was a Roman nose , and you had only to open any history to see that every hero has a large nose . The Queen , who was devoted to her baby , was pleased with what they told her , and when she looked at Hyacinth again , his nose certainly did not seem to her quite so large . The Prince was brought up with great care ; and , as soon as he could speak , they told him all sorts of dreadful stories about people who had short noses . No one was allowed to come near him whose nose did not more or less resemble his own , and the courtiers , to get into favor with the Queen , took to pulling their babies ' noses several times every day to make them grow long . But , do what they would , they were nothing by comparison with the Prince 's . When he grew sensible he learned history ; and whenever any great prince or beautiful princess was spoken of , his teachers took care to tell him that they had long noses . His room was hung with pictures , all of people with very large noses ; and the Prince grew up so convinced that a long nose was a great beauty , that he would not on any account have had his own a single inch shorter !
When his twentieth birthday was passed the Queen thought it was time XXXXX he should be married , so she commanded that the portraits of several princesses should be brought for him to see , and among the others was a picture of the Dear Little Princess !
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