Oscar Wilde’s Stories for All Ages. Stephen Fry

reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. ‘Climb up! little boy,’ said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

      And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. ‘How selfish I have been!’ he said; ‘now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever and ever.’ He was really very sorry for what he had done.

      So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant’s neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. ‘It is your garden now, little children,’ said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

      All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.

      ‘But where is your little companion?’ he said: ‘the boy I put into the tree.’ The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.

      ‘We don’t know,’ answered the children; ‘he has gone away.’

      ‘You must tell him to be sure and come here tomorrow,’ said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

      Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. ‘How I would like to see him!’ he used to say.

      Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. ‘I have many beautiful flowers,’ he said; ‘but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.’

      One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

      Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

      Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, ‘Who hath dared to wound thee?’ For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

      ‘Who hath dared to wound thee?’ cried the Giant; ‘tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.’

      ‘Nay!’ answered the child; ‘but these are the wounds of Love.’

      ‘Who art thou?’ said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

      And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, ‘You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.’

      And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

THE REMARKABLE ROCKET

       Introduction

      The Remarkable Rocket is written in the comic style Wilde made famous: it is a story crammed with satirical observations, paradoxes, epigrams and—if you’ll forgive the pun—squibs.

      Hubris, pomposity, vanity, the glamour and egotism of youth, I suppose these could be said to be the subject and the targets of the satire, but it is all worn very lightly. Oscar’s unhappy trial, imprisonment and exile might lead some to think that he was a remarkable rocket himself—that meteoric rise, the brilliant shower of wit and then the shocking explosion and calamitous fall to the muddy ground. At the height of his fame and fortune Wilde knew all too well how much people would like to see him fail. He knew all too well how shallow and facile they believed him to be. He probably agreed that at times his life was shallow and facile. When writers write moral tales they write them chiefly to instruct not others but themselves, just as we are nearly always talking to ourselves when we give sage advice to our friends. I therefore like to think of Oscar as being both the subject and the object of this story.

      Fortunately, Wilde’s sad, painful and lonely death was followed, as decade followed decade, by an increase in his reputation. The height he has reached since his death is greater and the trail in the sky clearer than ever they were in his short and blighted lifetime.

       THE REMARKABLE ROCKET

      THE KING’S SON was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge was shaped like a great golden swan, and between the swan’s wings lay the little Princess herself. Her long ermine-cloak reached right down to her feet, on her head was a tiny cap of silver tissue, and she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she had always lived. So pale was she that as she drove through the streets all the people wondered. ‘She is like a white rose!’ they cried, and they threw down flowers on her from the balconies.

      At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her. He had dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When he saw her he sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand.

      ‘Your picture was beautiful,’ he murmured, ‘but you are more beautiful than your picture’; and the little Princess blushed.

      ‘She was like a white rose before,’ said a young Page to his neighbour, ‘but she is like a red rose now’; and the whole Court was delighted.

      For the next three days everybody went about saying, ‘White rose, Red rose, Red rose, White rose’; and the King gave orders that the Page’s salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all this was not of much use to him, but it was considered a great honour, and was duly published in the Court Gazette.

      When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was a magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in hand under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little pearls. Then there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five hours. The Prince and Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall and drank out of a cup of clear crystal. Only true lovers could drink out of this cup, for if false lips touched it, it grew grey and dull and cloudy.

      ‘It’s quite clear that they love each other,’ said the little Page, ‘as clear as crystal!’ and the King doubled his salary a second time. ‘What an honour!’ cried all the courtiers.