La Gatta Cenerentola (The Cat Cinderella)

There was once a prince who was a widower. He had a daughter so dear to him that he could not see beyond her. He had taken on a sewing-mistress for the girl, who taught her chain stitch and openwork and hemstitching, and showed her such affection that no one could describe it. After a while, the prince married again, and his new wife was a wicked, deceitful woman, who at once began to hate her stepdaughter, throwing her sour looks and frightful faces that made the poor girl tremble.

The girl complained constantly to her sewing-mistress about her stepmother's cruelties. "Oh, if only you were my mother instead, who is so good and kind to me." She kept on saying this until the sewing-mistress, with the devil tickling her ear, said: "If you do as this fool of a head of mine tells you, I will be your mother and you shall be the apple of my eye." The girl wanted to hear more. The sewing-mistress, hesitating, said at last: "Listen carefully. When your father has gone out, ask your stepmother for one of those old gowns from the great chest in the attic, the one in the lumber room, to save your fine clothes. She, who likes to see you in rags and tatters, will open the chest and tell you to hold the lid up. While you have your head and shoulders inside it looking for the gown, let it fall, and it will break her neck. Then you'll get on with your father, and you can ask him to take me as his wife, and you'll be a fortunate girl, the mistress of my life."

The girl found the time and place long, but she did exactly as her sewing-mistress had told her, and the wicked stepmother lay with her neck broken at the bottom of the chest. The girl, weeping for show, persuaded her father to take Carmosina, the sewing-mistress, as his wife, after begging and begging. The wedding was held with great festivity, and while the newlyweds were enjoying themselves, the girl, leaning out of a window, saw a dove fly onto a wall and say to her: "Whenever you have need of anything, send word to the dove of the fairies in Sardinia, and you will at once have what you want."

For the first five or six days, the new stepmother made a great fuss over Zezolla. She gave her the best place at table, the best clothes, and the choicest food. But all this lasted no more than a moment. Soon she forgot the service the girl had done her and brought forward six daughters of her own that she had kept hidden, and she so worked on her husband that he turned his eye on his stepdaughters and pushed his own child out of his heart, until at last she was demoted from her chamber to the kitchen, from the canopy to the hearth, from rich silken finery to ragged dishcloths, from the scepter to the spit. Not only her place but her name was changed. Instead of Zezolla, she was now called Cinderella, the cat of the cinders.

It happened that the prince had to make a journey to Sardinia on business of state. Calling his six stepdaughters one by one, he asked them what they wanted him to bring back. One asked for fine clothes, another for makeup, another for hair ornaments, another for trinkets and ribbons. Last of all, almost mockingly, he asked his own daughter, "And you, what would you like?" "Nothing, father, except to remember me to the dove of the fairies, and tell her to send me something. And if you forget, may you be unable to go forwards or backwards. Remember what I tell you, on your soul." The prince left, did his business, bought everything his stepdaughters had asked for, and forgot Zezolla altogether.

When he was on board, ready to set sail, the ship would not move from the harbor. It seemed bewitched. The captain said in despair, "Some vow has not been kept." The prince searched his memory and at last remembered the daughter's wish. He turned back, found the grotto of the fairies, and asked the dove for a gift for his daughter. A beautiful young woman came out, like a flag of beauty, and thanked him for the daughter's compliment, and told him to take a date tree, a hoe, a little gold bucket, and a silken cloth, all to plant the date and tend it. The prince loaded these on board and went home.

When the gifts were given out and Zezolla received hers, the stepsisters laughed at her. The girl took the date and planted it in a beautiful pot, hoeing it, watering it, and drying it with the silken cloth, until in four days it had grown to the height of a woman. From it came a fairy who said: "What do you wish?" Zezolla replied that she wished, sometimes, to leave the house without her sisters knowing. The fairy answered: "Whenever you wish to go, come to the pot and say, 'My little date tree, my golden tree, with a golden hoe I have hoed you, with a golden bucket I have watered you, with a silken cloth I have dried you. Take off your robes and put them on me.' And when you wish to undress yourself, change the last line and say, 'Take off my robes and put them on yourself.'"

Now came a feast day, and Carmosina's daughters went out, all dolled up, to a party. Zezolla ran to the pot and said the words the fairy had taught her. At once she was dressed like a queen, set on a horse with twelve pages, and went to the party. Her sisters did not know her, and the king was struck with wonder. He had a trusted servant follow her, but she threw down a handful of gold pieces. The servant stopped to gather them up, and Zezolla escaped home, undressed before her sisters returned, and was again the cat of the cinders. The king, vexed, said to the servant: "On your life and head, find out tomorrow who she is and where she lives."

The next feast day the same thing happened. Zezolla put on more splendid clothes, the king fell more in love, and she escaped again by throwing pearls and jewels for the servant to chase. By the third feast, the king himself watched her, and as she ran she lost a slipper, the most graceful, dainty thing ever seen. The king picked it up and addressed it: "If the foundation is so beautiful, what must the building be? Oh lovely chandelier, where is the candle that burns me? Oh root of the unhappy tree of my life, oh beautiful chock that holds together the boat of my desires."

He summoned all his subjects and ordered every woman in the kingdom to come to a feast at his palace, where each would try on the slipper. He hoped to find the foot to which it belonged. All the women came, of every rank and condition. The king tried the slipper on each of them and on no foot would it fit. He fell into despair. Then he ordered everyone to be silent and announced that the next day they should all come back, and he would have them include even those they had left behind.

The prince said: "I have a daughter, but she always sits by the hearth, and she is not worthy and not fit to sit at your table." The king said: "Let her come at the head of all the others, for so I command." Zezolla came, and the moment the king saw her his heart told him this was the one. He had her try the slipper, and it sprang to her foot, the one mate to the other, like iron to a magnet. The king set the crown on her head and ordered all to bow to her as their queen. The stepsisters, full of envy, slunk back to their mother's house, confessing in their hearts that:

"Mad is he who tries to hold against the stars."