The Slim Princess

II

KALO­RA'S AF­FLIC­TION

If it had been planned to make this an old-​fash­ioned dis­cur­sive nov­el, say of the Vic­tor Hugo va­ri­ety, the sec­ond chap­ter would ex­pend it­self up­on a philo­soph­ical dis­cus­sion of Fat and a sen­sa­tion­al show­ing of how and why the pres­ence or ab­sence of adi­pose tis­sue, at cer­tain im­por­tant crises, had al­tered the des­tinies of the whole race.

The sub­ject of­fers vast pos­si­bil­ities. It in­volves the phys­ical at­trac­tive­ness of ev­ery wom­an in His­to­ry and per­mits one to spec­ulate wild­ly as to what might have hap­pened if Cleopa­tra had weighed forty pounds heav­ier, if Eliz­abeth had been a gaunt and wiry crea­ture, or if Joan of Arc had been so bulky that she could not have fas­tened on her ar­mor.

The soft lay­ers which en­shroud the hard ma­chin­ery of the hu­man frame seem to ar­rive in a mere­ly in­ci­den­tal or ac­ci­den­tal sort of way. Yet once they have ar­rived they ex­ert a mys­te­ri­ous in­flu­ence over ca­reers. Be­cause of a mere change in con­tour, many a queen has lost her throne. It is a ter­ri­fy­ing thought when one re­mem­bers that fat so of­ten comes and so sel­dom goes.

It has been ex­plained that in Mo­rove­nia, obe­si­ty and fem­inine beau­ty in­creased in the same ra­tio. The wom­an reign­ing in the hearts of men was the one who could dis­place the most at­mo­sphere.

Be­cause of the fash­ion­able­ness of fat, Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki, Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al of Mo­rove­nia, was very un­hap­py. He had two daugh­ters. One was fat; one was thin. To be more ex­plic­it, one was glo­ri­ous­ly fat and the oth­er was dis­tress­ing­ly thin.

Jene­ka was the name of the one who had been blessed abun­dant­ly. Sev­er­al of the younger men in of­fi­cial cir­cles, who had seen Jene­ka at a dis­tance, when she wad­dled to her car­riage or turned side-​wise to en­ter a shop-​door, had writ­ten vers­es about her in which they com­pared her to the blush­ing pomegranate, the ripe mel­on, the lus­cious grape, and oth­er veg­etable lux­uries more or less glob­ular in form.

No one had ded­icat­ed any vers­es to Kalo­ra. Kalo­ra was the el­der of the two. She had come to the alarm­ing age of nine­teen and no one had start­ed in bid­ding for her.

In court cir­cles, where there is much time for idle gos­sip, the most in­ti­mate se­crets of an im­por­tant house­hold are of­ten bandied about when the black cof­fee is be­ing served. The mar­riage­able young men of Mo­rove­nia had learned of the calami­ty in Count Mala­gas­ki's fam­ily. They knew that Kalo­ra weighed less than one hun­dred and twen­ty pounds. She was tall, lithe, slen­der, sin­uous, wil­lowy, hideous. The fact that poor old Count Mala­gas­ki had made many un­suc­cess­ful at­tempts to fat­ten her was a stock sub­ject for jokes of an un­re­fined and Turk­ish char­ac­ter.

Where­as Jene­ka would re­cline for hours at a time on a shad­ed ve­ran­da, munch­ing sug­ary con­fec­tions that were load­ed with nu­tri­tious nuts, Kalo­ra showed a far-​west­ern pref­er­ence for pick­les and olives, and had been de­tect­ed sev­er­al times in the act of brib­ing ser­vants to bring this con­tra­band food in­to the harem.

Worse still, she in­sist­ed up­on tak­ing ex­er­cise. She loved to play romp­ing games with­in the high walls of the in­clo­sure where she and the oth­er fe­male at­tach­es of the roy­al house­hold were kept penned up. Her fa­ther coaxed, plead­ed and even threat­ened, but she re­fused to lead the in­do­lent life pre­scribed by cus­tom; she scorned the sweet and heavy foods which would en­able her to ex­pand in­to love­li­ness; she per­sis­tent­ly de­clined to be fat.

Kalo­ra's ed­uca­tion was be­ing di­rect­ed by a su­per­an­nu­at­ed pro­fes­sor named Popo­va. He was so an­tique and book-​wormy that none of the usu­al ob­jec­tions urged against the male sex seemed to hold good in his case, and he had the free run of the palace. Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki trust­ed him im­plic­it­ly. Popo­va fawned up­on the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al, and seemed slav­ish in his de­vo­tion. Se­cret­ly and stealthi­ly he was work­ing out a fright­ful vengeance up­on his pa­tron. Twen­ty years be­fore, Count Se­lim, in a mo­ment of anger, had called Popo­va a “Chris­tian dog.”

In Mo­rove­nia it is flat­tery to call a man a “liar.” It is just the same as say­ing to him, “You be­long in the diplo­mat­ic corps.” It is no dis­grace to be brand­ed as a thief, be­cause all busi­ness trans­ac­tions are sat­urat­ed with treach­ery. But to call an­oth­er a “Chris­tian dog” is the thir­ty-​third de­gree of in­sult.

Popo­va writhed in spir­it when he was called “Chris­tian,” but he cov­ered his wrath and re­mained in the no­ble­man's ser­vice and wait­ed for his re­venge. And now he was sac­ri­fic­ing the in­no­cent Kalo­ra in or­der to pun­ish the fa­ther. He said to him­self: “If she does not fat­ten, then her fa­ther's heart will be bro­ken, and he will suf­fer even as I have suf­fered from be­ing called Chris­tian.”

It was Popo­va who, by guard­ed meth­ods, en­cour­aged her to vi­olent ex­er­cise, where­by she be­came as hard and trim as an an­te­lope. He con­tin­ued to sup­ply her with all kinds of sour and bit­ing foods and sharp min­er­al wa­ters, which are the sworn en­emies of any se­ba­ceous con­di­tion. And now that she was nine­teen, al­most at the fur­ther bound­ary of the mar­ry­ing age, and slim­mer than ev­er be­fore, he re­joiced great­ly, for he had ac­com­plished his deep and ma­lign pur­pose, and laid a heavy bur­den of sor­row up­on Count Se­lim Mala­gas­ki.