mirrors all covered over with a blind mist, and some iron nearby was seized with rust.
Now the princess realized how utterly revolting a paleface was—when it spoke, it was as if a pink worm tried to squirm from its maw. At last she had seen the light, but her pride would not permit her to reveal this change of heart. So she said:
“Let them do battle, and to the winner—my hand in marriage…”
Ferrix whispered to the sage:
“If I attack this abomination and crush it, reducing it to the mud from which it came, our imposture will become apparent, for the clay will fall from me and the steel will show. What should I do?”
“Prince,” replied Polyphase, “don’t attack, just defend yourself!”
Both antagonists stepped out into the palace courtyard, each armed with a sword, and the paleface leaped upon Ferrix as the slime leaps upon a swamp, and danced about him, gurgling, cowering, panting, and it swung at him with its blade, and the blade cut through the clay and shattered against the steel, and the paleface fell against the prince due to the momentum of the blow, and it smashed and broke, and splashed apart, and was no more.
But the dried clay, once moved, slipped from Ferrix’s shoulders, revealing his true steely nature to the eyes of the princess; he trembled, awaiting his fate. Yet in her crystalline gaze he beheld admiration, and understood then how much her heart had changed.
Thus they joined in matrimonial coupling, which is permanent and reciprocal—joy and happiness for some, for others misery until the grave—and they reigned long and well, programming innumerable progeny. The skin of Cybercount Cyberhazy’s paleface was stuffed and placed in the royal museum as an eternal reminder. It stands there to this day, a scarecrow thinly overgrown with hair. Many pretenders to wisdom say that this is all a trick and make-believe and nothing more, that there’s no such thing as paleface cemeteries, doughy-nosed and gummy-eyed, and never was. Well, perhaps it was just another empty invention—there are certainly fables enough in this world. And yet, even if the story isn’t true, it does have a grain of sense and instruction to it, and it’s entertaining as well, so it’s worth the telling.
Copyright
NEW YORK
English translation copyright © 1974 by The Seabury Press, Inc. Printed in the United States of America.
Original edition:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief reviews, without the written permission of the publisher.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Lem, Stanislaw. The cyberiad.
(A continuum book)
I. Title.
