Kate DiCamillo - The Tale of Despereaux

“What it looks like. Spoons. Bowls. Kettles. All of them gathered here as hard evidence of the pain of loving a living thing. The king loved the queen and the queen died; this monstrosity, this junk heap is the result of love.”

“I don’t understand,” said Despereaux.

“And you will not understand until you lose what you love. But enough about love,” said Gregory. He blew out the candle. “We will talk instead about your life. And how Gregory will save it, if you so desire.”

“Why would you save me?” Despereaux asked. “Have you saved any of the other mice?”

“Never,” said Gregory, “not one.”

“Why would you save me, then?”

“Because you, mouse, can tell Gregory a story. Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.”

And because Despereaux wanted very much to live, he said, “Once upon a time . . .”

“Yes,” said Gregory happily. He raised his hand higher and then higher still until Despereaux’s whiskers brushed against his leathery, timeworn ear. “Go on, mouse,” said Gregory. “Tell Gregory a story.”

And it was in this way that Despereaux became the only mouse sent to the dungeon whom the rats did not reduce to a pile of bones and a piece of red thread.

It was in this way that Despereaux was saved.

Reader, if you don’t mind, that is where we will leave our small mouse for now: in the dark of the dungeon, in the hand of an old jailer, telling a story to save himself.

It is time for us to turn our attention elsewhere, time for us, reader, to speak of rats, and of one rat in particular.

AS OUR STORY CONTINUES, reader, we must go backward in time to the birth of a rat, a rat named Chiaroscuro and called Roscuro, a rat born into the filth and darkness of the dungeon, several years before the mouse Despereaux was born upstairs, in the light.

Reader, do you know the definition of the word “chiaroscuro”? If you look in your dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Rats do not care for light. Roscuro’s parents were having a bit of fun when they named their son. Rats have a sense of humor. Rats, in fact, think that life is very funny. And they are right, reader. They are right.

In the case of Chiaroscuro, however, the joke had a hint of prophecy to it, for it happened that when Roscuro was a very young rat, he came upon a great length of rope on the dungeon floor.

“Ah, what have we here?” said Roscuro.

Being a rat, he immediately began to nibble at the rope.

“Stop that,” boomed a voice, and a great hand came out of the darkness and picked the rat up by his tail and held him suspended upside down.

“Were you nibbling on Gregory’s rope, rat?”

“Who wants to know?” said Roscuro, for even upside down he was still a rat.

“You smart-alecky rat, you smart-alecky rat nib-nib-nibbling on Gregory’s rope. Gregory will teach you to mess with his rope.”

And keeping Roscuro upside down, Gregory lit a match with the nail of his thumb, ssssssttttttt, and then held the brilliant flame right in Roscuro’s face.

“Ahhh,” said Roscuro. He pulled his head back, away from the light. But, alas, he did not close his eyes, and the flame exploded around him and danced inside him.

“Has no one told you the rules?” said Gregory.

“What rules?”

“Gregory’s rope, rat, is off-limits.”

“So?”

“Apologize for chewing on Gregory’s rope.”

“I will not,” said Roscuro.

“Apologize.”

“No.”

“Filthy rat,” said Gregory. “You black-souled thing. Gregory has had it with you rats.” He held the match closer to Roscuro’s face, and a terrible smell of burnt whiskers rose up around the jailer and the rat. And then the match went out and Gregory released Roscuro’s tail. He flung him back into the darkness.

“Do not ever touch Gregory’s rope again, or you will be sorry.”

Roscuro sat on the dungeon floor. The whiskers on the left side of his face were gone. His heart was beating hard, and though the light from the match had disappeared, it danced, still, before the rat’s eyes, even when he closed them.

“Light,” he said aloud. And then he whispered the word again. “Light.”

From that moment forward, Roscuro showed an abnormal, inordinate interest in illumination of all sorts. He was always, in the darkness of the dungeon, on the lookout for light, the smallest glimmer, the tiniest shimmer. His rat soul longed inexplicably for it; he began to think that light was the only thing that gave life meaning, and he despaired that there was so little of it to be had.

He finally voiced this sentiment to his friend, a very old one-eared rat named Botticelli Remorso.

“I think,” said Roscuro, “that the meaning of life is light.”

“Light,” said Botticelli. “Ha-ha-ha — you kill me. Light has nothing to do with it.”

“What does it all mean then?” asked Roscuro.

“The meaning of life,” said Botticelli, “is suffering, specifically the suffering of others. Prisoners, for instance. Reducing a prisoner to weeping and wailing and begging is a delightful way to invest your existence with meaning.”

As he spoke, Botticelli swung, from the one extraordinarily long nail of his right front paw, a heart-shaped locket. He had taken the locket from a prisoner and hung it on a thin braided rope. Whenever Botticelli spoke, the locket moved. Back and forth, back and forth it swung. “Are you listening?” Botticelli said to Roscuro.

“I am listening.”

“Good,” said Botticelli. “Do as I say and your life will be full of meaning. This is how to torture a prisoner: first, you must convince him that you are a friend. Listen to him. Encourage him to confess his sins. And when the time is right, talk to him. Tell him what he wants to hear. Tell him, for instance, that you will forgive him. This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.”

“Why?” said Roscuro. His eyes went back and forth, back and forth, following the locket.

“Because,” said Botticelli, “you will promise it — ha — but you will not grant it. You gain his trust. And then you deny him. You refuse to offer the very thing he wants. Forgiveness, freedom, friendship, whatever it is that his heart most desires, you withhold.” At this point in his lecture, Botticelli laughed so hard that he had to sit down and catch his breath. The locket swayed slowly back and forth and then stopped altogether.

“Ha,” said Botticelli, “ha-ha-ha! You gain his trust, you refuse him and — ha-ha — you become what he knew you were all along, what you knew you were all along, not a friend, not a confessor, not a forgiver, but — ha-ha! — a rat !” Botticelli wiped his eyes and shook his head and sighed a sigh of great contentment. He set the locket in motion again. “At that point, it is most effective to run back and forth over the prisoner’s feet, inducing physical terror along with the emotional sort. Oh,” he said, “it is such a lovely game, such a lovely game! And it is just absolutely chock-full of meaning.”