Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen who had one daughter called Rainbow. When she was christened, the people of the city were gathered together outside the cathedral, and amongst them was an old gipsy woman. The gipsy wanted to go inside the cathedral, but the Beadle would not let her, because he said there was no room. When the ceremony was over, and the King and Queen walked out, followed by the Head Nurse who carried the baby, the gipsy called out to them:
"Your daughter will be very beautiful, and as happy as the day is long, until she sees the Spring!" And then she disappeared in the crowd.
The King and the Queen took counsel together and the King said: "That gipsy was evidently a fairy, and what she said bodes no good."
"Yes," said the Queen, "there is only one thing to be done: Rainbow must never see the Spring, nor even hear that there is such a thing."
So an order was issued to the whole city, that if any one should say the word "Spring" in the presence of Princess Rainbow he would have his head cut off. Moreover, it was settled that the Princess should never be allowed to go outside the palace, and during the springtime she should be kept entirely indoors.
The King and the Queen lived in a city which was on the top of a hill, and had a wall round it, and the King's palace was in the middle of it. In the springtime Rainbow was taken to a high tower which looked on to the little round city, and from her window you could see the spires of the churches, the ramparts, and the broad green plain beyond. But a curtain made of canvas was fastened outside Rainbow's window, so that she could see nothing, and she was not allowed to go outside her tower until the springtime was over.
Rainbow grew up into a most beautiful Princess, with grey eyes and fair hair, and until she was sixteen all went well, and nothing happened to interfere with her happiness.
It was on her sixteenth birthday, which was in April, and she was sitting alone in her room, looking at her birthday presents, when she began to wonder for the first time why she was shut up in her tower during three months of the year, and why a curtain was placed outside her window, so that she could see nothing outside. Her mother and her nurse had told her that this was done so that she might not fall ill, and she had always believed it; but on that day, for the first time, she began to wonder whether there might be any other reason as well. It was a lovely Spring day, and the sun shone through the canvas curtain which was stretched outside Rainbow's open window; a breeze came into her room from the outside world, and Rainbow felt a great longing to tear aside the curtain and to see what was happening out of doors.
At that very moment, a sound came into her room from the city: it was the sound of two or three notes played on some small reed or pipe, unlike those of any of the musical instruments she had heard in the palace, more tuneful and more artless and more gay. As she heard the few reedy notes of this little tune, she felt something which she had never known before. The whole room seemed to be full of a new sunshine, and she smelt the fragrance of the grass; she heard the blackbird whistling, and the lark singing; she saw the apple orchards in blossom, the violets peeping from under the leaves, the hedges covered with primroses, the daffodils fluttering in the wind, the fern uncrumpling her new leaves, the green slopes starred with crocuses; fields of buttercups and marigolds; forests paved with bluebells; lilac bushes; the trailing gold of the laburnums; and the sharp green of the awakening beech-trees; and she heard the cuckoo's note, and a thousand other unknown sounds of meadow, wood, and stream; and before her passed the whole pageant of the Spring, with its joyous music and its thousand and one sights.
The vision disappeared and she cried out: "Let me go into the world and let me taste and see this wonderful new thing!"
Rainbow said nothing about her vision, either to her parents or to her nurses, but she resolved to steal out of the palace as soon as she could, and to see in the world what her vision had shown her; but that very evening she fell ill, and she was obliged to go to bed. The next day she was no better, and a week passed and she was just as ill as ever. All the wisest physicians of the land examined her, but not one of them could say what was the matter with her; some of them prescribed medicines, and others strange things to eat and drink; but none of them did her the least good. The months went by, and Rainbow was still lying in bed, suffering from a strange malady which nobody could even find a name for. When the Spring was past, Rainbow was borne on a couch into the garden of the palace; but she got no better.
