The Bee and the Orange Tree
By Nicholas Wojcik
"Voila!" Sophie delightedly exclaimed as she applied the final brush stroke to her latest masterpiece. She took a step back to observe the finished work. At that moment, the easel gave way and the painting fell to the floor. The paint, still wet, was face down and the image became smeared and distorted. No words could describe the despair Sophie endured.
"I must start again," she told herself as she headed for the attic to fetch a fresh batch of paints.
She came upon the small loaded crate in which her paints resided, next to an open box full of books. With a curious eye she read the title of one of the books: "The Bee and the Orange Tree," by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy. The author was Sophie's deceased grandmere, who had recently appeared before Sophie in the local library, and read to her one of her stories. Sophie enjoyed her previous encounter with her grandmere so much that she opened the book in a curious frenzy and, again, her grandmere appeared within the hardbound book.
"Oh grandmere, it's horrible!" said Sophie.
"I know of your troubles with your painting, my dear," replied her grandmere. "You know, there is a lesson to be learned from your tragic incident. Not everything keeps its same shape or aesthetic form, and only good can come out of such a tragedy. Let me show you." Marie-Catherine began reading the story in the book from which she had sprung, and Sophie listened wholeheartedly.
There
once was a king and queen who gave birth to the most beautiful girl
ever to be seen. Her name was Aimee. Now, in this time and place, it
was believed that turquoise hearts, worn around the neck, would bring
good luck. The queen gave her newborn princess a turquoise necklace
with the words "Aimee, daughter of the King of Happy Isle" inscribed
upon it, but soon the worst of luck struck the poor princess. One day,
the family took a voyage by sea when a terrible storm took their boat
within its evil arms. All except Aimee perished to the sea. Aimee
floated in her crib to the shore of a nearby land inhabited by a small
number of humans and a family of one-eyed ogres who preyed on human
flesh. Ravagio was the head of the ogre family, and his wife Tourmentine was half a fairy who kept her powers in a magic wand at her side.
Tourmentine reached the shore, ready to devour the contents of the crib, but at the sight of Aimee's beauty, the ogre kindheartedly decided to spare the princess's life. She took Aimee to her cave and the ogres decided to raise her as one of their own. Aimee would grow, never knowing where she descended from; her parents wept for her every night from beyond the sea.
Years passed and Aimee became aware that it had been arranged for her to marry one of the ogres' six children, whom, you can imagine, she was not interested in. One evening, a great storm cast ashore a young man who had been the only survivor of a destroyed ship, a similar story to what Aimee had experienced as a young girl. The man was named Aime, and was the cousin of Aimee. However, they did not know one another, nor did they speak the same language. They were captivated by each others beauty.
Princess Aimee took Aime to a nearby cave, for she knew if the ogres caught sight of him, they would undoubtedly eat him! For weeks she brought him the most luscious fruits to eat and could only make gestures to tell him not to follow her or even attempt to leave the cave, and so he stayed.
They both fell to tears every time they had to part. Aime soon discovered who the princess was by the inscription on her necklace and she signed to him that she was arranged to be married to a vile young ogre. They found ways of expressing to each other that they would rather die than be apart.
Upon her journey home one evening, Aimee stepped on a thorn and the ogres came to her aid. When Aimee tried to walk on her bleeding foot, Tourmentine forbade it. Aime became worried in the cave as time passed and Aimee didn't return. Aime sought to find his young lover. He left the cave and stumbled upon the ogres' cavern. Ravagio forcefully greeted him upon his entrance and he quickly became hostage.
The ogres religiously slept with crowns on their heads. That night, Aimee became fearful that the ogres would eat Aime so she developed a plan. She crept into the room where the young ogres lay and snatched a crown from one of their heads, placing it on Aime's head. Sure enough, Ravagio became hungry in his sleep and in a daze went for the one who wore no crown. Ravagio and Tourmentine awoke to find the bones of their young son lying on the bloodstained floor. Oh the screams they cried! The next evening, the same bloody incident occured, only this time by the hands of Tourmentine. On the eve of Aimee's arranged wedding, the two lovers fled the cave by camel, and had managed to steal Tourmentine's powerful wand. When the ogres caught wind of their prisoners' escape, Ravagio took to the paths to hunt them down.
Aimee knew there was only one way to escape the ogre. She pulled Tourmentine's wand from her side and transformed Aime into an orange tree, and herself into a little bee. She nestled herself into the leaves of her lover's branches and they remain there in happiness forever.
"Now you see, my dear," Sophie's grandmere said, "some things are better off not as they were intended." Sophie thanked her grandmere, took the orange paint and covered her original painting with an image far different than her original.
Author's Note:
I have written this story using a frame based on who I envisioned to be Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy's granddaughter. I chose this story because it was full of many bizarre events that emphasized the dramatic writing style of the original author. The likeliness of a situation like this to occur is far from realistic but takes the reader to a faraway place full of imagination and color. The original story was very long so I had to leave out many details and tragic events from the original story, but felt these were the parts most related to the overall theme of the storybook.
Bibliography:
"The Bee and the Orange Tree" in The Fairy Tales of Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, 1892 Original Source
Image Information:
"Bumblebee" by Mark Burnett Original Source
"The Times of the Day" by Alphonse Mucha, 1899 Original Source
"Orange Blossoms" by Ellen Levy Finch Original Source
"The Cyclops" by Odilon Redon, 1914 Original Source
