His mother, who was not seventy-five but actually eighty, could finally be proud of her son. He wore his wings like a royal cloak draped over his left arm.
‘Mother, so far I have caused you nothing but trouble with my restlessness and complexes, but now I am strong and self-confident. Tell me, is there a wish I can fulfil to gratify you for once?’
His mother was quiet and thought for a minute or more, and then she spoke in a rush, like a river suddenly released: ‘My son, it’s true you were awkward and idle for many years and caused me much pain and embarrassment. My friends gossiped about you time and again, and afterwards I couldn’t sleep for nights on end. I’m not saying it was your fault – perhaps we had to go through it all because fate decided it should be that way. But we cannot change the past. And when I see you now, so tall and handsome, I could cry... with happiness...’
‘Don’t cry, mother!’
‘I have become old and sentimental, but it will pass. Let me think of a wish you could fulfil for me.’
‘Tell me, mother, tell me!’
‘Ah, I know. Last night, or the night before, I dreamed of a girl. She was beautiful and she lived by the shore of a mountain lake, so high that in winter the moss was covered in six inches of snow.’
‘It suits me that it should be high up. Since I’ve had two wings I’ve become very fond of heights.’
‘Yes, I believe you. But there was something else in the dream, too, some little problem. Just let me just try and remember what it was.’
‘Don’t strain, mother. Whatever it is, I shall overcome the problem.’
Later, back on his throne, the former man with one wing and current king of the eagles steeled his resolve: A man, even one with two wings, must follow the path fate has chosen for him without turning aside. He must walk it to its end and then, if he can, he must understand his role in the wheel of life.
He ordered all his winged subjects to begin searching near and far for a girl of indisputable beauty living by the shore of a high mountain lake. All the eagles immediately set off to the four corners of the world, and our hero, not wishing to sit alone and bored in his eyrie, joined in the search himself.
He flew long and hard until, after a whole week, one day at high noon he saw a dark-blue lake at the peak of a tall mountain. Three swans were bathing in its clean, clear waters, and three dresses lay on the shore. Why are there swans this high up? And what are these dresses doing here? He was right to wonder. He hid behind a snow-covered pine tree and peered out: one of the swans emerged from the water, shook its feathers and began to change into a beautiful girl. Shivering with cold, she donned her golden dress and ran barefoot across the snow, down to a stone cottage. The second swan came out and the same process was repeated. It too turned into a beautiful girl who, predictably, put on her silver dress and ran after her sister.
But before the third swan could leave the lake, the eagle king sneaked out from behind the pine tree and snatched the white dress. Terrified, the swan paddled back over the water and spoke to him in the gentle voice of a girl: ‘Please give me my dress back.’
‘All right, come up onto the shore and take it. I’ll hang it on this pine branch and go round behind the tree.’
The swan-girl thought to herself: I’ll grab my dress and start running.
But the eagle king thought: As soon as she comes nearer she’s mine!
The swan-girl ran up onto the shore, making for the branch where her white dress was hanging. She moved fast, but the eagle king was faster. He leapt in front of her and seized her in his eagle’s embrace. At that instant, her body began to change and shed its feathers, first revealing her long, white, fragrant neck, and soon a shock of blonde curls danced in front of him and tickled his nose. He was no longer touching the body of a swan but that of a young woman, whose skin breathed and shone much more suggestively than the feathers. He took half a step backwards, less in shyness than from the desire to feast his eyes on her. As her body was gradually exposed to him, disclosing its beauty inch by inch, his excitement grew and redoubled; he relished the sight but was aware that there were enticing secret chambers and shady gardens yet to be discovered. He was still holding her in a half-embrace. Was it just his imagination that her velvety eyes, darker than her hair, grew large and moist when his old right wing brushed against the hard nipple of her now fully human, orange-shaped breast? As he hugged her nymphean body, his wing feathers reacted with unseen sensitivity and puffed up like the plumage of a strutting rooster.
He so revelled in the view that he scarcely heard her softly spoken words: ‘Would you mind passing me my dress?’
Only then did he realize that she was wet and shivering with cold. He handed her the dress, and as she raised her arms to pull it over her head she revealed all her feminine beauty: her slender waist, wide white hips and bushy mound. It took him a few moments to come to his senses and understand what she was saying, because as soon as she had put on her dress she began telling her story. It seemed strangely familiar (had he heard it from his mother or someone even older?).
Eliza, for that was the name of this gentle yet voluptuous creature, and her sisters, all of them of noble birth, had become entangled in the dark magic of their stepmother. She was in fact a witch, who had enchanted their frivolous father, and then one afternoon when he was away she cast a bewitched shirt over each of the girls and turned them into swans. So no one would see their misery, they flew far away to a lake at the peak of a mountain. And so they had been living here as swans for seven years. They could only return to human form at noon, and never for more than one hour, after which they turned back into swans.
‘And I so yearned for a second wing,’ our hero let slip, but Eliza was carried away in relating her own sad story and didn’t quite catch his comment.
‘Yes, I also yearn to be what I was... there is a way we can be saved, but it would be such a long, hard road for our redeemer,’ she sighed.
‘Tell me how! Tell me right away!’
‘I don’t know if it’s proper...’
‘Proper or not, I want only to make you happy, you and myself.’
‘All right: you must not smile or speak a word to anyone for a whole year.’
‘That will be far from easy, to be sure, but if needs be I will neither smile nor speak a single word. My eagles might not understand at first, but I’ll find a way. There’s mime, after all.’
‘You’re making a big sacrifice for me. But that’s not all. There’s another very difficult task.’
‘I will face the challenge, I can’t give up now. But why are you being so self-conscious? There’s no need, although it makes me even fonder of you.’
‘Then I’ll tell you: in the year ahead, as well as not speaking or smiling, you must knit three shirts. For me and my sisters.’
‘Three shirts? Now that really amazes me. I’ve never done any women’s work in my life. Men don’t knit, you know.’
‘There’s something more I have to tell you. The shirts must be made of stinging nettles. Now you see all the trials and tribulations you have to undergo to save me from the spell. Me and my sisters.’
‘Eliza, your solidarity
