Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal
outside and inside
SEVEN LINES
- FerrixThen I will be a paleface.
- PolyphaseNo, Prince. Her madness is that ugliness is beautiful, and beauty ugly.
- FerrixTears!
- FerrixIt is not a game, Highness. Life lives on life. We have only made the necessity into an art.
- The palefaceMe paleface!
- NarratorHe stood there with no disguise, waiting for his sentence. In her crystal face he saw admiration.
- NarratorBut even if the story is not true, there is a grain of sense in it.
HOW IT IS MADE
The film is a diptych. Once Ferrix is in costume, the frame splits down the middle. The left half is what the princess sees: a steel prince plastered with grease, then chalk, with watery eyes and a clump of rust on top. The right half is the same scene at the same moment, through the same camera, but with the costume drawn only as a dotted outline, so you can see what is underneath: the steel body, four bladders of cinnabar, a bellows in the chest, and two glass tubes of water by the eyes.
Both halves are drawn by one scene function, called twice. A single flag, INSIDE, decides whether a character draws its surface or its works. The princess, the real paleface and the walls draw the same either way, because they have nothing hidden. Only Ferrix and his vizier look different in the two halves. In the duel the clay falls off, the two halves become the same picture, and the split closes into one frame.
The sound is split the same way. The left channel carries what the princess hears: voices, footsteps, the palace ringing. The right channel carries the inside: the hum and escapement of Ferrix’s own works, the squelch of the bladder, the wheeze of the bellows, drips in the tubes, and the vizier whispering each answer a moment before Ferrix says it. His steps are a steel chime smothered by a wet slap, mixed by how much clay he is wearing. When the clay comes off, the chime comes back.
AFTER THE OTHER FILMS
In The Dragons of Probability a dragon is a number that can be turned up or down, and Trurl hides inside a dragon skin with shields under it. Here the disguise is the whole story. The princess has a test for what a paleface is, and every test checks only what comes out: something red, something that smells, something wet. Ferrix passes every test without being the thing tested for. What finally changes her mind is not a test but a comparison, when the real paleface stands next to him.
FOR THE BENCH
Write two objects that both have methods bleed(), breathe() and weep(). One computes them from what it is. The other returns stored answers. Write the princess as a function that calls the three methods and decides. Can she tell them apart? What would she have to ask that the second object could not answer from storage? In p5, draw both objects twice side by side, once with inside = false and once with inside = true, from the same draw function.
Narration and dialogue paraphrase Stanisław Lem, “Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal,” The Cyberiad. Download the film.
THE SCRIPT
THE IONID COURT
Narrator. Prince Ferrix loved the Princess Crystal, whose face rang like a bell. When she walked past, plain iron threw sparks.
The King. Give it up, my son. She has sworn to marry no one but a paleface.
Ferrix. A paleface? What is that?
The King. A creature of slush and splashes. They began as mold in the sea, and ate each other, and stood up on scaffolds of chalk, and at last they built machines. Our first father set us free from them.
The King. She tests every suitor. Every one who is caught lying, she beheads.
Ferrix. Then I will be a paleface.
THE LABORATORY
Narrator. The vizier Polyphase went into his laboratory and brewed things that were gluey and dripping.
Polyphase. Shall I go on, Prince?
Ferrix. Do what you must.
Narrator. Grease and old crud over the steel. Over that, a paste of chalk and powdered rubies. On top of the head, a clump of rust.
Polyphase. Behold.
Ferrix. Get this abomination off me! She will hate me on sight!
Polyphase. No, Prince. Her madness is that ugliness is beautiful, and beauty ugly.
Polyphase. Now the inside. Under your cloak, cinnabar. In your chest, a bellows of dungeon air. By your eyes, little tubes of water.
Polyphase. When she asks what it is, you answer. Blood. Breath. Tears.
THE VILLAGE SQUARE
Narrator. Polyphase dressed as a portly merchant, with the books on paleface customs stuffed inside his robe. He locked the prince in a cage and cried him for sale.
Polyphase. A young paleface, from far away! A real one!
Princess Crystal. A hoax. But no one knows palefaces as I do. Bring him to me.
THE THREE TESTS
Princess Crystal. You worked hard, old man, plastering this scarecrow with mud and chalk. When I expose it, you will both lose your heads.
Princess Crystal. What is that?
Ferrix. Blood!
Princess Crystal. What is that?
Ferrix. Breath!
Princess Crystal. You are a clever craftsman. But you have lied to me, and you will die, and your scarecrow with you.
Princess Crystal. What is that?
Ferrix. Tears!
THE QUESTIONS
Princess Crystal. Tell me, Myamlak. What do your brothers do all day?
Ferrix. In the morning they pour clear water over themselves, and into themselves, for pleasure. When something grieves them, salt water runs from their eyes. When something cheers them, they shake and hiccup, and their eyes stay dry. The wet kind we call weeping. The dry kind, laughter.
Princess Crystal. And where do you get the energy to slosh about?
Ferrix. Other palefaces walk on four legs. We perforate them, bake them, and put them inside ourselves, through a hole called the mouth. We call it gastronomy. It has nothing to do with astronomy.
Princess Crystal. So you make yourselves into coffins for your brothers?
Ferrix. It is not a game, Highness. Life lives on life. We have only made the necessity into an art.
Princess Crystal. It sounds as if it makes sense, and it does not, not at all. You are a paleface.
Princess Crystal. One last test. Give me your hand.
Princess Crystal. Why did you cry out?
Ferrix. From the pain!
CYBERHAZY
Narrator. Then the Cybercount Cyberhazy landed, back from the stars, with a paleface of his own.
Cyberhazy. Highness, you have been deceived. Your Myamlak is no paleface. Here is the real one.
The paleface. Me paleface!
Narrator. When it spoke, a pink worm seemed to crawl in its mouth. Its breath fogged the mirrors, and nearby iron rusted. Now the princess saw what a paleface was. She was too proud to say so.
Princess Crystal. Let them fight. The winner has my hand.
Ferrix. If I crush it, the clay will fall off me, and the steel will show.
Polyphase. Then don’t attack. Only defend.
THE DUEL
Narrator. He stood there with no disguise, waiting for his sentence. In her crystal face he saw admiration.
Narrator. Her heart had changed.
THE MUSEUM
Narrator. They married, and reigned long and well. The paleface was stuffed and put in the royal museum, where it stands to this day, a scarecrow thinly overgrown with hair.
Narrator. Some say there never were any palefaces. Perhaps. There are fables enough in this world.
Narrator. But even if the story is not true, there is a grain of sense in it.