and his son, the heir to the throne, made sure he lacked nothing. Even his fading memory became a boon, for he felt carefree, as if he lived in a second childhood filled with fantasies and mythical creatures from distant, fairy-tale worlds. In old age, when he became ever more simple-minded, his imagination gained two powerful wings for antics and frivolity.
Now and again, accompanied by some of his caring servants, he would climb a hill that seemed strangely familiar (where did he know it from?) and sit on a rock there amidst a somehow familiar clearing. Taking the occasional bite of his favourite Turkish delight with coconut, tasty and soft enough for his toothless jaws, he would stare at the sky, where large and small clouds were in flight, changing shape from a horse into an elephant, an elephant into a train, a train into a snake – and so on, and so forth, almost without end.
This fairy tale is to be told to a little girl who has fallen and grazed her knee
The Dance of the Coloured Handkerchiefs
One day, a colourful silk handkerchief got angry with its mother, ran away from home and set off into the wide world in search of a boy or girl with a runny nose. It was very small and didn’t yet know how to wipe someone’s nose; it didn’t even know what a child looked like; but still, it left on the long journey.
It wandered for a long time until it came to a pretty yellow house with a red chimney and swirls of smoke coming out. The brave little handkerchief thought the house was a boy or girl, and the chimney its nose.
‘No, no. I am a house,’ it corrected the little traveller. ‘But come inside and perhaps you will find a child.’
Without further ado, the handkerchief went in and found itself in a large, well-lit room with a big round lamp in the corner.
‘That must be the head of the child, but where is its nose?’ our little hero asked itself when it saw the smooth, attractive lamp.
‘No, no. I am a lamp. But just wait a minute and André will come home from school.’
And, sure enough, a few moments later a tousled little head ran into the room. It had restless locks, a cheerful smile with a row of tiny white stones, and a snotty nose like a little potato that’s been in the pan for too long.
‘I’ve found you, I’ve found you,’ the handkerchief piped. ‘Let me wipe your nose!’
André blew his nose into it, laughed a hearty little laugh, and snatched the handkerchief. ‘You’re just what I need, but for something quite different. You can help me in my new act.’
Later, in the long evening by the fire, André told his new friend that he was the son of the great magician Petronius and that tomorrow they would start practicing a new act together – The Dance of the Coloured Handkerchiefs.
So the wayward handkerchief became a great star in the circus tent and beyond. Every evening, for an enthusiastic audience, it vanished into a magic hat and then flew out again as a white dove. Such a life was exciting for the handkerchief, and it enjoyed being pampered: it was washed, ironed, and even doused with exotic perfumes. At night it slept close to André’s heart, in the upper left-hand pocket of his juggler’s costume. In the meantime it made it up with its mother, and she became very, very proud of it. She all but forgot her anger at it having run away from home.
Still, even in the moments of glamour and shine, when the circus tent was filled with cheers and applause, the colourful silk handkerchief would look up yearningly at André’s nose:
Oh, if only I could wipe it one more time!
This fairy tale is not to be told at coffee break
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