But there was a reason why he loved his doll. You will soon discover it.
Now let us return to Suok.
She had decided to wait until evening.
After all, a doll wandering through the Palace in the middle of the day would have looked very strange.
After lessons were over, Tutti came back.
"You know," Suok said, "when I was sick in Doctor Caspar's house, I had a very strange dream.
I dreamed I became a real live girl, and that I was a circus performer.
I lived in a carnival wagon with the other performers.
We went from place to place, stopping at the fairs and large market squares to put on our show.
I walked a tight-rope, danced, did all kinds of acrobatic tricks, and played different parts in the pantomimes."
Tutti listened in wide-eyed wonder.
"We were very poor.
And we often had no dinner at all.
We had a big white horse named Anra.
I rode it and juggled, standing on the big saddle.
And then Anra died, because for a whole month we had too little money to feed her well."
"Poor?" Tutti repeated. "I don't understand you.
Why were you poor?"
"We put on shows for poor people.
They could only give us a few copper coins. Sometimes, after a show, when the clown August would pass his hat around the crowd, there'd be nothing in it at all."
Still Tutti the Heir did not understand her.
And so Suok talked to him until evening.
She told him of the hard life of the poor, of the large town, of the grand lady who wanted to thrash her, of rich people who set their dogs on little children, of Tibul the Acrobat and Prospero the Gunsmith. She told him that the workers, miners and sailors wanted to put an end to the rule of the rich and the fat.
But most of what she said was about the circus.
And, in the end, she was carried away and completely forgot she was supposed to be telling him her dream.
"I've been living in Uncle Brizak's carnival wagon for a very long time.
I don't even know when I learned to dance and ride a horse and swing on a trapeze.
Oh, what wonderful things I know how to do!" She clapped her hands. "Take last Sunday, for instance. We were performing in the harbour.
I played a waltz on apricot pits."
"On apricot pits? How could you do that?"
"Don't you know?
Didn't you ever see a whistle made of an apricot pit?
It's really very simple.
I took twelve pits and made them into whistles.
I rubbed each one on a stone until it had a little hole in it."
"How interesting!"
"I can whistle a waltz on twelve pits, and on other things, too.
I can even whistle on a key."
"A key?
How?
Show me!
I have a very nice key."
With these words Tutti the Heir unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and took a thin chain from his neck. A small white key hung from the chain.
"Here!"
"But why do you wear it around your neck?" Suok asked.
"The Palace Councillor gave it to me.
It's the key of one of the cages."
"Do you hang the keys from all the cages around your neck?"
"No.
But they said this was the most important key.