The Tale of Despereaux - Kate DiCamillo [33]
“Forgive me,” said Lester again.
Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love, a powerful, wonderful thing.
And a ridiculous thing, too.
Isn’t it ridiculous, after all, to think that a son could forgive his father for beating the drum that sent him to his death? Isn’t it ridiculous to think that a mouse could ever forgive anyone for such perfidy?
But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, “I forgive you, Pa.”
And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.
And then he turned from his father and spoke to the whole Mouse Council. “You were wrong,” he said. “All of you. You asked me to renounce my sins; I ask you to renounce yours. You wronged me. Repent.”
“Never,” said the Head Mouse.
Despereaux stood before the Mouse Council, and he realized that he was a different mouse than he had been the last time he faced them. He had been to the dungeon and back up out of it. He knew things that they would never know; what they thought of him, he realized, did not matter, not at all.
And so, without saying another word, Despereaux turned and left the room.
After he was gone, the Head Mouse slapped his trembling paw on the table. “Mice of the Council,” he said, “we have been paid a visit by a ghost who has told us to repent. We will now take a vote. All in favor of saying that this visit did not occur, vote ‘aye.’ ”
And from the members of the Mouse Council, there came a tiny but emphatic chorus of “ayes.”
Only one mouse said nothing. That mouse was Despereaux’s father. Lester Tilling had turned his head away from the other members of the Mouse Council; he was trying to hide his tears.
He was crying, reader, because he had been forgiven.
DESPEREAUX FOUND THE KING in the Pea’s room, sitting on his daughter’s bed, clutching the tapestry of her life to his chest. He was weeping. Although “weeping,” really, is too small a word for the activity that the king had undertaken. Tears were cascading from his eyes. A small puddle had formed at his feet. I am not exaggerating. The king, it seemed, was intent on crying himself a river.
Reader, have you ever seen a king cry? When the powerful are made weak, when they are revealed to be human, to have hearts, their diminishment is nothing short of terrifying.
You can be sure that Despereaux was terrified. Absolutely. But he spoke up anyway.
“Sir?” the mouse said to the king.
But the king did not hear him, and as Despereaux watched, King Phillip dropped the tapestry and took his great golden crown from his lap and used it to beat himself on the chest over and over again. The king, as I have already mentioned, had several faults. He was nearsighted. He made ridiculous, unreasonable, difficult-to-enforce laws. And, much in the way of Miggery Sow, he was not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.
But there was one extraordinary, wonderful, admirable thing about the king. He was a man who was able and willing to love with the whole of his heart. And just as he had loved the queen with the whole of his heart, so, too, he loved his daughter with the whole of it, even more than the whole. He loved the Princess Pea with every particle of his being, and she had been taken from him.
But what Despereaux had come to say to the king had to be said and so he tried again. “Excuse me,” he said. He wasn’t certain, really, how a mouse should address a king. “Sir” did not seem like a big-enough word. Despereaux thought about it for a long moment.
He cleared his throat. He spoke as loudly as he was capable of speaking. “Excuse me, Most Very Honored Head Person.”
King Phillip stopped beating his crown against his chest. He looked around the room.
“Down here, Most Very Honored Head Person,” said Despereaux.
The king, tears