“Well,” said one of them, “to satisfy you, we must acquaint you that we are all princesses, daughters of kings.  We live here together in the manner you have seen; but at the end of every year we are obliged to be absent forty days upon indispensable duties, which we are not permitted to reveal:  and afterwards we return again to this castle.  Yesterday was the last of the year; to day we must leave you, and this circumstance is the cause of our grief.  Before we depart we will leave you the keys of everything, especially those of the hundred doors, where you will find enough to satisfy your curiosity, and to relieve your solitude during our absence.  But for your benefit, and our own personal interests, we recommend you to forbear opening the golden door; for if you do we shall never see you again; and the apprehension of this augments our grief.  We hope, nevertheless, that you will attend to our advice; your own peace, and the happiness of your life, depends upon your compliance; therefore take heed.  If you suffer yourself to be swayed by a foolish curiosity, you will do yourself a considerable injury.  We conjure you to avoid the indiscretion, and to give us the satisfaction finding you here again at the end of forty days.  We would willingly take the key of the golden door with us; but that it would be an affront to a prince like you to question your discretion and firmness.”

This speech of the fair princesses grieved me extremely.  I omitted not to declare how much their absence would afflict me.  I thanked then for their good advice, assuring them that I would follow it, and expressed my willingness to perform what was much more difficult, to secure the happiness of passing the rest of my days with ladies of such beauty and accomplishments.  We separated with much tenderness, and after I had embraced them all, they departed, and I remained alone in the castle.

The agreeableness of their company, their hospitality, their musical entertainments, and other amusements, had so much absorbed my attention during the whole year, that I neither had time nor desire to see the wonders contained in this enchanted palace.  I did not even notice a thousand curious objects that every day offered themselves to my view, so much was I charmed by the beauty of those ladies, and the pleasure they seemed to take in promoting my gratification.  Their departure sensibly afflicted me; and though their absence was to be only forty days, it seemed to me an age to live without them.

I determined not to forget the important advice they had given me, not to open the golden door; but as I was permitted to satisfy my curiosity in everything else, I took the first of the keys of the other doors, which were hung in regular order.

I opened the first door, and entered an orchard, which I believe the universe could not equal.  I could not imagine any thing to surpass it, except that which our religion promises us after death.  The symmetry, the neatness, the admirable order of the trees, the abundance and diversity of unknown fruits, their freshness and beauty, delighted my senses.