"We live in such terrible times!" the doctor said.
He did not know that the executions had been postponed.
The Palace official was not a talkative man.
He had said nothing of what had happened at the Palace that day.
As the doctor examined the poor doll, he wondered aloud:
"Where did she get such wounds?
They were certainly made by a weapon, probably a sword.
This wonderful, child-like doll was pierced right through.
Who could have done it?
Who could have dared to run his sword through the doll that belongs to Tutti the Heir?"
The doctor had no idea that the Palace Guards had done it.
He could never imagine that they, too, would refuse to serve the Three Fat Men and would side with the people.
How happy he would have been if he had known!
Doctor Caspar was holding the doll's head.
The sun streamed in through the window.
Its beams fell right on the doll.
Doctor Caspar looked at it carefully.
"That's strange. That's very strange," he said to himself. "I've seen this face before.
Yes, I have!
I recognise it.
But where?
When?
It was alive, it was the face of a live girl. It was smiling, looking pretty, happy, sad.
Yes, I'm sure of it!
There can be no doubt about it!
But I'm so terribly near-sighted it's hard for me to remember faces."
He brought the doll's curly head close to his eyes.
"What a marvellous doll!
What a skilled craftsman made it!
It's not at all like an ordinary one.
Dolls usually have bulging blue eyes with no expression at all, a small turned-up nose, a mouth like a bow and stupid blonde curls like lamb's wool.
These dolls all look happy, but they're really stupid.
There's nothing at all doll-like about this one, though.
It's just like a girl who's been turned into a doll!"
Doctor Caspar admired his unusual patient.
And all the while he kept thinking that somewhere, some time before he had seen that pale face, those serious grey eyes and those short tousled curls.
He remembered the way she used to turn her head sideways and look up at him so seriously with a spark of mischief in her eyes.
The doctor heard himself saying:
"What's your name, doll?"
But it did not answer.
Then the doctor remembered that the doll was broken.
He had to fix her voice, fix her heart, teach her to smile again, to dance and behave like other little girls of her age.
"She seems to be about twelve."
There was no time to lose.
Doctor Caspar got down to work.
"I must bring the doll back to life again!"
Auntie Ganimed finished writing her letter.
Two hours passed. She was very bored.
And then she became curious.
"I wonder what sort of rush work the doctor is doing?