The Princess Bride

'I was going too,' the Count said. 'May I walk you to your quarters?'

Buttercup nodded, and down the corridors they wandered till they reached her suite. 'Good night,' Buttercup said quickly; ever since that day he had first come to her father's farm, she had always been afraid whenever the Count came near.

'I'm sure he'll come,' the Count said; he was privy to all the Prince's plans, and Buttercup was well aware of this. 'I don't know your fellow well, but he impressed me greatly. Any man who can find his way through the Fire Swamp can find his way to Florin Castle before your wedding day.'

Buttercup nodded.

'He seemed so strong, so remarkably powerful,' the Count went on, his voice warm and lulling. 'I only wondered if he possessed true sensitivity, as some men of great might, as you know, do not. For example, I wonder: is he capable of tears?'

'Westley would never cry,' Buttercup answered, opening her chamber door. 'Except for the death of a loved one.' And with that she closed the Count away and, alone, went to her bed and knelt. Westley, she thought then. Do come please; I have begged you in my thoughts now these many weeks and still no word. Back when we were on the farm, I thought I loved you, but that was not love. When I saw your face behind the mask on the ravine floor, I thought I loved you, but that was again nothing more than deep infatuation. Beloved: I think I love you now, and I pray you only give me the chance to spend my life in constant proving. I could spend my life in the Fire Swamp and sing from morn till night if you were by me. I could spend eternity sinking down through Snow Sand if my hand held your hand. My preference would be to last eternity with you beside me on a cloud, but hell would also be a lark if Westley was with me....

She went on that way, silent hour after silent hour; she had done nothing else for thirty-eight evenings now, and each time, her ardor deepened, her thoughts became more pure. Westley. Westley. Flying across the seven seas to claim her.

For his part, and quite without knowing, Westley was spending his evenings in much the same fashion. After the torture was done, when the albino had finished tending his slashes or burns or breaks, when he was alone in the giant cage, he sent his brain to Buttercup, and there it dwelled.

He understood her so well. In his mind, he realized that moment he left her on the farm when she swore love, certainly she meant it, but she was barely eighteen. What did she know of the depth of the heart? Then again, when he had removed his black mask and she had tumbled to him, surprise had been operating, stunned astonishment as much as emotion. But just as he knew that the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.

So when the Count appeared with the Machine, Westley was not particularly perturbed. As a matter of fact, he had no idea what the Count was bringing with him into the giant cage. As a matter of absolute fact, the Count was bringing nothing; it was the albino who was doing the actual work, making trip after trip with thing after thing.

That was what it really looked like to Westley: things. Little soft rimmed cups of various sizes and a wheel, most likely, and another object that could turn out to be either a lever or a stick; it was hard to tell.

'A good good evening to you,' the Count began.

He had never, to Westley's memory, shown such excitement. Westley made a very weak nod in return. Actually, he felt about as well as ever, but it didn't do to let that kind of news get around.

'Feeling a bit under the weather?' the Count asked.

Westley made another feeble nod.

The albino scurried in and out, bringing more things: wirelike extensions, stringy and endless.

'That will be all,' the Count said finally.

Nod.

Gone.

'This is the Machine,' the Count said when they were alone. 'I've spent eleven years constructing it. As you can tell, I'm rather excited and proud.'

Westley managed an affirmative blink.

'I'll be putting it together for a while.' And with that, he got busy.

Westley watched the construction with a good deal of interest and, logically enough, curiosity.

'You heard that scream a bit earlier on this evening?'

Another affirmative blink.

'That was a wild dog. This machine caused the sound.' It was a very complex job the Count was doing, but the six fingers on his right hand never for a moment seemed in doubt as to just what to do. 'I'm very interested in pain,' the Count said, 'as I'm sure you've gathered these past months. In an intellectual way, actually. I've written, of course, for the more learned journals on the subject. Articles mostly. At the present I'm engaged in writing a book. My book. The book, I hope. The definitive work on pain, at least as we know it now.'

Westley found the whole thing fascinating. He made a little groan.

'I think pain is the most underrated emotion available to us,' the Count said. 'The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain. Pain has been with us always, and it always irritates me when people say 'as important as life and death' because the proper phrase, to my mind, should be, 'as important as pain and death.'' The Count fell silent for a time then, as he began and completed a series of complex adjustments. 'One of my theories,' he said somewhat later, 'is that pain involves anticipation. Nothing original, I admit, but I'm going to demonstrate to you what I mean: I will not, underline not, use the Machine on you this evening. I could. It's ready and tested. But instead I will simply erect it and leave it beside you, for you to stare at the next twenty-four hours, wondering just what it is and how it works and can it really be as dreadful as all that.' He tightened some things here, loosened some more over there, tugged and patted and shaped.

The Machine looked so silly Westley was tempted to giggle. Instead, he groaned again.

'I'll leave you to your imagination, then,' the Count said, and he looked at Westley. 'But I want you to know one thing before tomorrow night happens to you, and I mean it: you are the strongest, the most brilliant and brave, the most altogether worthy creature it has ever been my privilege to meet, and I feel almost sad that, for the purposes of my book and future pain scholars, I must destroy you.'

'Thank ... you...' Westley breathed softly.

The Count went to the cage door and said over his shoulder, 'And you can stop all your performing about how weak and beaten you are; you haven't fooled me for a month. You're practically as strong now as on the day you entered the Fire Swamp. I know your secret, if that's any consolation to you.'

'...secret?' Hushed, strained.

'You've been taking your brain away,' the Count cried. 'You haven't felt the least discomfort in all these months. You raise your eyes and drop your eyelids and then you're off, probably with—I don't know—her, most likely. Good night now. Try and sleep. I doubt you'll be able to. Anticipation, remember?' With a wave, he mounted the underground stairs.

Westley could feel the sudden pressure of his heart.

Soon the albino came, knelt by Westley's ear. Whispered: 'I've been watching you all these days. You deserve better than what's coming. I'm needed. No one else feeds the beasts as I do. I'm safe. They won't hurt me. I'll kill you if you'd like. That would foil them. I've got some good poison. I beg you. I've seen the Machine. I was there when the wild dog screamed. Please let me kill you. You'll thank me, I swear.'

'I must live.'

Whispered: 'But—'

Interruption: 'They will not reach me. I am all right. I am fine. I am alive, and I will stay that way.' He said the words loud, and he said them with passion. But for the first time in a long time, there was terror....

'WELL, COULD YOU SLEEP?' the Count asked the next night upon his arrival in the cage.

'Quite honestly, no,' Westley replied in his normal voice.

'I'm glad you're being honest with me; I'll be honest with you; no more charades between us,' the Count said, putting down a number of notebooks and quill pens and ink bottles. 'I must carefully track your reactions,' he