BEAUTY AND THE BEACH
Once upon a time before Caesar had conquered Britain, and therefore in the very early days indeed, there dwelt in southern England a princess named Talc. Her life was pampered and happy, just like the lives of all the princesses who lived a long time ago. Each day she sat by the edge of a pool of still green water, and allowed her handmaidens to comb her tresses (it was in the days, you see, when ladies wore tresses where most modern folk wear hair).
“I am very beautiful,” she remarked casually, glancing at herself in the pool, “but ...”
“Yes, indeed, Madam,” chorused the handmaidens, who did not realize that she was about to say more.
“Silence, wretches,” snapped the princess, squirting water at them with a lily white hand, and thereby mussing up her image in the pool. Then she continued in a low tragic tone: “I have a blemish, I tell you. My nose shines. Poets have written of brilliant eyes and gleaming teeth, but not one has mentioned a glittering nose. Therefore I know that the perfect nose does not shine. My beauty is ruined. Ah woe is me, ah woe is me!” An she bowed her head forward, sobbing so violently that she pulled the pigtails out of her handmaidens’ grasp.
“No more,” she roared at them, as they started to reclaim the lost tresses. And then she sobbed as though her heart would break, “Oh my blemish, oh my nose, oh my nose, oh my blemish. Throw away your combs. I am going to tell the sea of my woe. I am going to walk along the cliffs. You may follow at a distance.”
She sprang to her feet, and hurried to the cliffs. She looked at the sea roaring on the rocks below.
“Oh sea,” she moaned in her grief, “what would you do if you had a nose and it was shiny?”
As she was thus bewailing she stumbled and fell upon the smooth, soft, chalky cliffs. When she lifted herself up she found that her hands were covered with a white dust.
“Arabella!” she called to her handmaiden, “bring me a bowl of water.”
Talc looked into the glassy surface of the water. Lo and behold her nose no longer shone, but was white with a thick opaque whiteness!
“My beauty!” she exulted, “my beauty has returned! Arabella, you may get the comb and continue in the making of my royal pigtails. Neither my nose nor my chin shines. I am truly beautiful.” And she rejoiced until the tears flowed down her face, making furrows in their whiteness.
And thereafter each morning the princess and her handmaidens could be seen prostrate upon the cliff, solemnly rubbing their noses in its smooth dust.