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"Yes," her father said.
Quiet in the room.
Suddenly Buttercup was talking very fast: "Was he stabbed? . . . Did he drown? . . . Did they cut his
throat asleep? . . . Did they wake him, do you suppose? . . . Perhaps they whipped him dead. . . ." She
stood up then. "I'm getting silly, forgive me." She shook her head. "As if the way they got him mattered.
Excuse me, please." With that she hurried to her room.
She stayed there many days. At first her parents tried to lure her, but she would not have it. They took
to leaving food outside her room, and she took bits and shreds, enough to stay alive. There was never
noise inside, no wailing, no bitter sounds.
And when she at last came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at
her. They both started to rise but she put a hand out, stopped them. "I can care for myself, please," and
she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.
In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl.
The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood
the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of
suffering.
She was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't seem to care.
"You're all right?" her mother asked.
Buttercup sipped her cocoa. "Fine," she said.
"You're sure?" her father wondered.
"Yes," Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause. "But I must never love again."
She never did.
Two
THE GROOM
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This is my first major excision. Chapter One, The Bride, is almost in its entirety about the bride. Chapter
Two, The Groom, only picks up Prince Humperdinck in the last few pages.
This chapter is where my son Jason stopped reading, and there is simply no way of blaming him. For
what Morgenstern has done is open this chapter with sixty-six pages of Florinese history. More
accurately, it is the history of the Florinese crown.
Dreary? Not to be believed.
Why would a master of narrative stop his narrative dead before it has much chance to begin generating?
No known answer. All I can guess is that for Morgenstern, the real narrative was not Buttercup and the
remarkable things she endures, but, rather, the history of the monarchy and other such stuff. When this
version comes out, I expect every Florinese scholar alive to slaughter me. (Columbia University has not
only the leading Florinese experts in America, but also direct ties to the New York Times Book Review.
I can't help that, and I only hope they understand my intentions here are in no way meant to be
destructive of Morgenstern's vision.)
Prince Humperdinck was shaped like a barrel. His chest was a great barrel chest, his thighs mighty
barrel thighs. He was not tall but he weighed close to 250 pounds, brick hard. He walked like a crab,
side to side, and probably if he had wanted to be a ballet dancer, he would have been doomed to a
miserable life of endless frustration. But he didn't want to be a ballet dancer. He wasn't in that much of a
hurry to be king either. Even war, at which he excelled, took second place in his affections. Everything
took second place in his affections.
Hunting was his love.
He made it a practice never to let a day go by without killing something. It didn't much matter what.
When he first grew dedicated, he killed only big things: elephants or pythons. But then, as his skills
increased, he began to enjoy the suffering of little beasts too. He could happily spend an afternoon
tracking a flying squirrel across forests or a rainbow trout down rivers. Once he was determined, once he
had focused on an object, the Prince was relentless. He never tired, never wavered, neither ate nor slept.
It was death chess and he was international grand master.
In the beginning, he traversed the world for opposition. But travel consumed time, ships and horses
being what they were, and the time away from Florin was worrying. There always had to be a male heir
to the throne, and as long as his father was alive, there was no problem. But someday his father would
die and then the Prince would be the king and he would have to select a queen to supply an heir for the
day of his own death.
So to avoid the problem of absence, Prince Humperdinck built the Zoo of Death. He designed it himself
with Count Rugen's help, and he sent his hirelings across the world to stock it for him. It was kept
brimming with things that he could hunt, and it really wasn't like any other animal sanctuary anywhere. In
the first place, there were never any visitors. Only the albino keeper, to make sure the beasts were
properly fed, and that there was never any sickness or weakness inside.
The other thing about the Zoo was that it was underground. The Prince picked the spot himself, in the
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quietest, remotest corner of the castle grounds. And he decreed there were to be five levels, all with the
proper needs for his individual enemies. On the first level, he put enemies of speed: wild dogs, cheetahs,
hummingbirds. On the second level belonged the enemies of strength: anacondas and rhinos and
crocodiles of over twenty feet. The third level was for poisoners: spitting cobras, jumping spiders, death
bats galore. The fourth level was the kingdom of the most dangerous, the enemies of fear: the shrieking
tarantula (the only spider capable of sound), the blood eagle (the only bird that thrived on human flesh),
plus, in its own black pool, the sucking squid. Even the albino shivered during feeding time on the fourth
level.
The fifth level was empty.
The Prince constructed it in the hopes of someday finding something worthy, something as dangerous
and fierce and powerful as he was.
Unlikely. Still, he was an eternal optimist, so he kept the great cage of the fifth level always in readiness.
And there was really more than enough that was lethal on the other four levels to keep a man happy. The
Prince would sometimes choose his prey by luck he had a great wheel with a spinner and on the
outside of the wheel was a picture of every animal in the Zoo and he would twirl the spinner at breakfast,
and wherever it stopped, the albino would ready that breed. Sometimes he would choose by mood: "I
feel quick today; fetch me a cheetah" or "I feel strong today, release a rhino." And whatever he
requested, of course, was done.
He was ringing down the curtain on an orangutan when the business of the King's health made its
ultimate intrusion. It was midafternoon, and the Prince had been grappling with the giant beast since
morning, and finally, after all these hours, the hairy thing was weakening. Again and again, the monkey
tried to bite, a sure sign of failure of strength in the arms. The Prince warded off the attempted bites with
ease, and the ape was heaving at the chest now, desperate for air. The Prince made a crablike step
sidewise, then another, then darted forward, spun the great beast into his arms, began applying pressure
to the spine. (This was all taking place in the ape pit, where the Prince had his pleasure with any simians.)
From up above now, Count Rugen's voice interrupted. "There is news," the Count said.
From battle, the Prince replied. "Cannot it wait?"
"For how long?" asked the Count.
C
R
A
C
K
The orangutan fell like a rag doll. "Now, what is all this," the Prince replied, stepping past the dead
beast, mounting the ladder out of the pit.
"Your father has had his annual physical," the Count said. "I have the report."
"And?"
"Your father is dying."
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"Drat!" said the Prince. "That means I shall have to get married."
Three
THE COURTSHIP
Four of them met in the great council room of the castle. Prince Humperdinck, his confidant, Count
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