Золушка. Часть 7

CINDERELLA; OR THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER.

Part 7

The next day the two sisters were at the ball, and so was Cinderella, but dressed more magnificently (еще более великолепно) than before. The King’s son was always by her, and never ceased his compliments and kind speeches to her, to whom all this was so far from being tiresome that she quite forgot what her Godmother had recommended to her, so that she at last counted the clock striking twelve when she took it to be no more than eleven. She then rose up and fled as nimble as a deer. The Prince followed, but could not overtake her. She left behind one of her glass slippers, which the Prince took up most carefully. She got home, but quite out of breath, and in her old clothes, having nothing left her of all her finery (пышный наряд) but one of the little slippers, fellow to (парный к) that she dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a Princess go out.

They said they had seen nobody go out but a young girl, very meanly dressed, and who had more of the air of a poor country girl than a gentlewoman (леди).

When the two sisters returned from the ball Cinderella asked them if they had been well diverted (книжн.: развлекать) and if the beautiful Princess had been there.

They told her yes, but that she hurried away immediately when the clock struck twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world, which the King’s son had taken up; that he had done nothing but look at her all the time at the ball, and that most certainly he was very much in love with the beautiful person who owned the glass slipper.