She seemed very small in the huge halls that the shiny floors made higher and the mirrors made wider.
She looked like a little flower basket floating over still waters.
She walked on, smiling happily, past the sentries, past the men in leather and iron, who looked at her with awe, past the Palace officials, who were smiling for the first time in their lives.
They stepped back respectfully as she passed, just as if she were the rightful owner of the Palace, newly come to take possession.
It became so still that her light steps, which were no louder than the sound of a petal falling, could be heard in the hall.
Meanwhile, a little boy, as radiant as she, was running down the wide staircase. It was Tutti the Heir.
They were both the same height.
Suok stopped.
"So that's what Tutti the Heir is like!" she thought.
Standing there before her was a thin boy who looked more like an angry little girl. He had grey eyes and he was rather sad. His tousled head was tilted.
Suok knew who Tutti the Heir was.
Suok knew who the Three Fat Men were.
She knew that the Three Fat Men grabbed all the iron, all the coal and all the grain that the poor and hungry people of the country produced.
She remembered only too well the grand lady who had set her servants upon her.
She knew that they were all in it together: the Three Fat Men, the grand ladies, the fops, the shopkeepers, the Guards-all those who had locked Prospero the Gunsmith in an iron cage and were now after her friend, Tibul the Acrobat.
When she had started out for the Palace she had thought that Tutti the Heir would be horrible, just like the grand lady, except that he would have a long tongue hanging out of his mouth.
But she didn't feel at all disgusted when she saw him.
In fact, she was glad to meet him.
Her grey eyes looked at him happily.
"Is that you, doll?" Tutti said, touching her hand.
"Oh dear, what shall I do?" Suok was really frightened. "Do-dolls talk?
Oh, no one told me what to do!
I don't know what the doll the Guards broke could do."
Doctor Caspar came to the rescue.
"Your Highness," he said to Tutti the Heir. "I have cured your doll!
As you see, I have not only brought her back to life, I have made her still more wonderful.
The doll looks prettier than before, she has a magnificent new dress and, what is most important, I have taught your doll to talk, to sing and to dance."
"How wonderful!" Tutti said softly.
"It's time to begin," Suok decided.
And then the little actress from Uncle Brizak's carnival wagon made her debut on a new stage.
The stage was the Grand Palace Ballroom.
A large audience had gathered to watch her.
They crowded round on all sides, standing at the top of the stairs, in the passages, on the balcony.
They peered through the round windows and climbed the columns to get a better view.
Many heads and shoulders, of the most varied colours and hues, glittered in the bright sunlight.
Suok saw that the faces watching her were all smiling.
There were the kitchen-boys from whose fingers sweet syrups and greasy sauces dripped like sap; there were the ministers in coloured frock-coats who were like monkeys dressed up to be peacocks; there were the plump little musicians in tight-fitting tailcoats, courtiers, grand ladies, hunchbacked physicians, long-nosed scholars, curly-headed messengers; there were the servants dressed as brightly as the ministers.
The entire crowd was hanging on to any support they could find.
And everyone was silent.
They watched the pink little creature with bated breath. She met their glances calmly and with all the dignity of a twelve-year-old actress.
She wasn't at all shy.
This audience could hardly be more demanding than the audiences of the market squares where Suok had performed nearly every day.
Oh, those had been very demanding audiences-the idlers, soldiers, actors, schoolchildren and little vendors!
And Suok had never been afraid of them.
They would say:
"Suok is the best actress in the world!"
And they would toss their last small coin on to her little rug, though it could buy a liver pie, which was all some poor hosier had for breakfast, dinner, and supper.
And so Suok began to play the part of the doll.
She brought her toes together, then stood on tiptoe and raised her bent arms, wiggling her pinkies like a Chinese mandarin. Then she began to sing.
Her head wagged right and left in time to the music.