1. What! No Children?

Once upon a time, so longago that I have quite forgotten the date, there lived a king and queen who hadno children.

And the king said tohimself, "All the queens of my acquaintance have children, somethree, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feelill-used." So he made up his mind to be cross with his wife about it. Butshe bore it all like a good patient queen as she was. Then the king grew verycross indeed. But the queen pretended to take it all as a joke, and a very goodone too.

"Why don't you haveany daughters, at least?" said he. "I don't say sons; that might be too much to expect."

"I am sure, dearking, I am very sorry," said the queen.

"So you ought tobe," retorted the king; "you are not going to make a virtueof that, surely."

But he was not anill-tempered king, and in any matter of less moment would have let the queenhave her own way with all his heart. This, however, was an affair of state.

The queen smiled.

"You must have patiencewith a lady, you know, dear king," said she.

She was, indeed, a verynice queen, and heartily sorry that she could not oblige the king immediately.

什么！没有孩子？

很久很久以前——实在是太久了，我都记不清是什么日子了——有一位国王和他的王后，他们没有孩子。

国王暗自寻思道：“所有我认识的国王，他们都有孩子，有的三个，有的七个，还有的多到十二个；而我的王后一个都没给我生。这对我太不公平了。”于是他打定主意，在这个问题上绝对不能和他的妻子善罢甘休。然而王后是那样的贤良淑德，她一声不响地听完国王所有的抱怨。国王却更加恼火了，而我们的王后只是装作这一切抱怨都只是一个玩笑，而且是那种十分善意的玩笑。

“为什么你到现在连个女儿都没生，这是起码的要求吧？”国王说道，“我不说儿子了，那或许是我想得太美了。”

“我得说，亲爱的国王，我真的很过意不去。”王后说道。

“你当然应该过意不去，”国王反唇相讥道，“你真的就不愿意行行好做点什么吗？谢天谢地。”

他不是一个坏脾气的国王，其他任何小事，他都可以放手让王后按自己的想法去做。然而，这件事是国家大事。

王后笑了。

“你要知道，我亲爱的国王，你必须对一位女士抱有十二分的耐心。”她说道。

她真的是一位非常善解人意的王后，并且真心实意地为自己不能立刻解决国王的烦恼而感到万分抱歉。