Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/185

Rh and fastened the door; and shaking off his skin on the ground, he became a most beautiful youth, with a head all covered with ringlets of gold, and with eyes that would enchant you.

When the king saw the serpent going into the room with his daughter, and shutting the door after him, he said to his wife, "Heaven have mercy on that good soul my daughter! for she is dead to a certainty, and that accursed serpent has doubtless swallowed her down like the yolk of an egg!" Then he put his eye to the keyhole, to see what had become of her; but when he saw the exceeding beauty of the youth, and the skin of the serpent that he had left lying on the ground, he gave the door a kick; then in they rushed, and taking the skin flung it into the fire and burned it.

When the youth saw this, he cried out, "Ah you renegade dogs, you have done for me!" and instantly he turned himself into a dove, and was going to fly away through the window; but he struck his head against the panes until he broke them, and cut himself in such a manner that there did not remain a whole spot on his pate.

Grannonia, who thus saw herself at the same moment happy and unhappy, joyful and miserable, rich and poor, tore her face and bewailed her fate, reproaching her father and mother for this interruption of pleasure,