SWANWHITE. [_After a glance around the room_] I'll give her a stepmother!
PRINCE. But how's that to be? She should have a mother first.
SWANWHITE. I am her mother. And if I marry twice, I shall become a stepmother.
PRINCE. Oh, how you talk! That's not the way!
SWANWHITE. And you shall be her stepfather.
SWANWHITE. You must be very kind to her, although she cannot wash her face.--Here, take her--let me see if you have learned to carry children right.
_The_ PRINCE _receives the doll unwillingly_.
SWANWHITE. You haven't learned yet, but you will! Now take the rattle, too, and play with her.
SWANWHITE. That's something you don't understand, I see. [_She takes the doll and the rattle away from him and throws them back into the chest; then she takes out the hobby-horse_] Here is my steed.--It has saddle of gold and shoes of silver.--It can run forty miles in an hour, and on its back I have travelled through Sounding Forest, across Big Heath and King's Bridge, along High Road and Fearful Alley, all the way to the Lake of Tears. And there it dropped a golden shoe that fell into the lake, and then came a fish, and after came a fisherman, and so I got the golden shoe back. That's all there was to that! [_She throws the hobby-horse into the chest; instead she takes out a chess-board with red and white squares, and chess-men made of silver and gold_] If you will play with me, come here and sit upon the lion skin. [_She seats herself on the skin and begins to put up the pieces_] Sit down, won't you--the maids can't see us here!
_The_ PRINCE _sits down on the skin, looking very embarrassed_.
SWANWHITE. It's like sitting in the grass--not the green grass of the meadow, but the desert grass which has been burned by the sun.--Now you must say something about me! Do you like me a little?
SWANWHITE. To play? What care I for that?--Oh--you were to teach me something!
PRINCE. Poor me, what can I do but saddle a horse and carry arms--with which you are but poorly served.
SWANWHITE. Poor little prince!--My mother, too, has gone to God in heaven, and she's an angel now. Sometimes in the nights I see her--do you also see yours?
SWANWHITE. And have you got a stepmother?
PRINCE. Not yet. So little time has passed since she was laid to rest.