The Prince was silent long enough for it to be considered a spectacular pause, and Gaston hurried him on:
"Well, so? How did you look?"
Adam averted his eyes.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Gaston even choked up and swung his arms around so much that he spilled some cognac on the fine carpet.
"What do you mean you don't want to? I do. I'm interested!"
The prince's eyes widened in surprise and he blinked rapidly as if he had heard something unusual.
- Well?" Gaston leaned forward with his ears perked up. "What did you look like? I'm dying of curiosity!"
"I told you I don't want to talk about it," Adam repeated with pressure, as if those words would stop Gaston.
"I've heard that before," the hunter said casually. "Now tell me, because I won't be able to sleep wondering what the hell you looked like."
The prince was silent, as if thinking something over.
"You talk so strangely," he said at last. "No one has ever spoken to me like that."
"Oh, am I supposed to say 'Your Highness' and all that? But while I'm saying all your titles, I'll never get to the point..."
"No, no, no!" Adam stopped Gaston. "Don't start that again, it's very good that you've stopped practising these honours. No... You see, everybody always does what I want them to do. They anticipate what I want. If I don't want something, of course it won't happen. Only one person ever argued with me. Belle."
"Well, I don't know," Gaston said and put his feet up on the table. "Everyone around here is happy to do what I ask. I don't have a problem with it. Why are you being so stubborn?"
For a while the prince made some strange grimaces, but Gaston did not understand this pantomime.
"Because I looked like a beast! A hideous monster!"
"Well, it's all right now. We can laugh about it."
"Laugh?" Adam raised his eyebrows.
"Well, yeah."
"Don't you think that's a little unfriendly?" The prince frowned.
"Why?" Gaston wondered. "It's very friendly. I laugh at Lefou, he laughs at me... Only those who are pitied or feared are not laughed at."
Adam was silent for a moment, pondering this explanation.
"You know, there's something to it," he said slowly. "I guess I really should tell it to someone like you. Someone who takes things so easily and... doesn't feel sorry for me. And not afraid," the prince said, looking thoughtfully at the empty glass. "At first I saw my hands, which I had been holding out to that witch, begging her to forgive me, suddenly turn into huge hairy paws with long claws. I was terrified, I felt that something was happening to me, that my body was somehow changing, and I kept begging her for forgiveness. But it was useless," he shook his head. "It was useless. While I was lying at her feet, the castle itself changed - everything turned black and ugly. The fairy disappeared and I finally got up," Adam was silent again for a while. "I walked back into the hall and went to the mirror to see how bad it was."
"And how bad was it?"
"I was scared of my own reflection! It was some ugly hybrid - some horrible mixture of different animals... I fainted twice in terror and went to the mirror five times to make sure it was me. And then I saw the servants. They were cursed too. They looked like reanimated household utensils. Those were scary days, days when we all denied what had happened to us and thought it was some nightmare that would magically end soon. It wasn't until a few weeks later that we reconciled ourselves to the fact that this look of ours was forever."
"Well, what did you look like exactly? What kind of animals did you look like? Did you have horns?" Gaston took a professional interest.
"I wasn't an animal, Gaston!" The prince frowned irritably.
"Well, did you have horns?"
"God..." Adam rolled his eyes. "Yes, I had horns. Are you happy with it?"
"Were they beautiful?
"How the hell can antlers be beautiful?"
"You know, like a deer ones. Nice antlers. I don't hang parts of dead animals on my walls now, but if your antlers have just fallen off, like deer during rutting season, I'd hang antlers like that in my house, where the fireplace is. Well, if they're unusual. Where did they fall off?"
Adam stared at him, his mouth opening soundlessly.
"Are you out of your mind? My horns? Hang them in your room?" The prince finally managed to ask.
"Jesus, you don't want to give me your horns, do you? You don't need them anymore. I like to decorate my walls with horns. It looks intimidating. So where did they fall off?"
The prince was silent for a while, and then he shook his head and laughed in a sort of frenzy. He laughed so hard that for a moment Gaston feared he was losing his mind, Adam was like Lefou, who always laughed for a long time, and when he tried to calm down, he would have another fit of laughter. But to Adam, this looked completely out of character.
"No, Gaston, unfortunately, those horns are gone," the prince said at last, having laughed enough. "And they weren't pretty. Like a bull ones."
"Oh, no, I don't want such horns."
"Well," said the prince, smiling, as if the subject had suddenly ceased to disturb him and was now a source of laughter, "what else do you want to know?"
"Well... Did you walk on two paws or did you race on all four ones?"
"I was on all four... racing, as you say..." Adam barely spoke, choking with laughter.
They poured the rest of the cognac into glasses and continued to laugh.
"Damn, damn it..." Gaston said, between fits of laughter. - You understand, I kept thinking how I should treat you... A prince after all... I thought I should bow in a special way, I wanted to buy a hat to go to your audience... And you were running on four paws..."
"That's not all! On four paws... I also had a tail."
"Are you trying to kill me? I'm gonna die laughing, a-ha-ha-ha-..."
When they tired of laughing, they fell silent.
"Well, when Belle appeared I started to walk on two legs, I mean paws," the prince raised his finger up.
"Well, Belle can make a human out of anyone," said Gaston and put his feet down from the table. "And did you know how to hunt? Were you predatory?"
"I wasn't an animal, Gaston! I tell you... Though... I once fought a pack of wolves and won."
"Wow!" Gaston even became jealous. "I once killed two wolves at the same time, but a pack... I must admit, you beat me there, so to speak. How many wolves were there exactly?"
"Six wolves, my dear. Six!" the prince snapped his fingers proudly. "I scattered them to the sides like the wind carries dry leaves in a storm."
Gaston cursed in shock. So much for the white little hands.. Six wolves at a time... But of course, ugly appearance destroys everything. Of course, the prince was happy to get rid of even his strength just to look pretty again.
Adam was silent for a while, and the smile disappeared from his face.
"When Belle was here, I stopped thinking about myself and how miserable I was and started thinking in terms of what was best for her. And then she left. The spell was that I had to fall in love with a girl before I turned twenty-one, and the love had to be mutual. When she left, I realised I was going to remain a monster. But I didn't tell her that, of course. She left with a light heart, I hoped so. Then I just existed, waiting for my most hopeless birthday. But somehow, when I turned twenty-one, I turned back into a human, the servants became human too, and the castle stopped being gloomy. I guess it turned out to be because I thought more of the other person's happiness than I did of my own. But now I'm always afraid I'll do something wrong and turn back into a monster."
"Look, I don't think it's that complicated. Maybe the spell just had a time limit of ten years, have you thought about that? The witch was just trying to torture you, made impossible demands. What kind of girl goes into a forest full of wolves? And the fact that you've been nice to Belle... Well, you know, you'd have to be a complete scum to be mean to her. Any man would be nice to her. I realised at one point I was being a wretch myself."
"Don't you think I should have changed? To be kinder and less selfish to others?"
"I don't think it's a good idea to change who you are."
"Why? Shouldn't a person strive to be a better person?"
It was hard to explain. Gaston decided to use an example.
"It seems like it, but then it turns out it's not. Look at this. All men dream that their wife was meek, economic, well cooked and kept the house clean. It would seem that if a woman will remake herself to become such a wife, what can be bad? But by remaking oneself a person becomes unhappy. One cannot become a different person. And people around you become unhappy. I wasn't happy at all when Belle tried hard to be the wife I dreamed of. It was only when she became herself again that we were both happy. Maybe your servants miss their irascible master, who, though he shouts and breaks things, seems alive, not a saint you don't know how to approach? You weren't seriously hurting them or causing them trouble, were you? Maybe they liked it that you were just the way you were? With all the flaws."
Adam thought for quite a while.
"So I can be the way I've always been? Not hold myself back all the time and not reinvent myself? Then what were those ten years as a monster for?"
"Nothing. I'm gonna say the scary thing, but you're just unlucky. Bad things don't necessarily happen because you do something wrong. It's just that the sorceress wanted to take out her anger on someone, and you got in her way," Gaston thought, coming to terms with what had happened to him. "Belle and I were unlucky, too. If we had come to Toulon a day later or earlier, we would have just looked at the sea and walked around the town... Well, you asked what happened, didn't you?"
"Yes, Gaston, what happened?" Belle came into the room. She was wearing a light pink dress, which suited her well. It was beginning to dawn outside the window.