The Slim Princess

Summary

A court of corpulence where plumpness is currency, Morovenia’s marble terraces echo with the hush of unspoken shame: Princess Kalora, reed-slender amid a dynasty of butter-fed belles, glides like a candle-flame through corridors upholstered in silk and sighs. Her father, Count Selim Nalagaski—half pasha, half provincial tyrant—has stuffed palace larders with sugared roses and clarified goat’s milk, yet her collarbones still jut like ivory half-moons. Enter Popova, tutor-cum-sorcerer of resentment, slipping brine-soaked pickles beneath the royal napkin to sabotage every calorie, a quiet vengeance for being labelled “Christian cur.” Suitors swarm the pomegranate court, but custom’s iron handcuff forbids the radiant younger Jeneka to wed until Kalora’s waistband balloons; desperation breeds farce—bolsters, eiderdown, a whole aviary of pillows strapped beneath brocade create a counterfeit Rubens, yet the jest collapses when the beaus test her avoirdupois upon a cedar swing and find her lighter than gossip. From this carnival of ridicule strides Alexander H. Pike, breezy American Croesus, pockets rattling with ticker-tape dividends and a copy of The Saturday Evening Post that sanctifies sylphlike silhouettes. Smitten, he brandishes rotogravure proof that Kalora’s leanness is couture, not curse; discovery unleashes scimitars, a midnight chase over moonlit crenels, and Pike’s steamship retreat across the Atlantic. Back home he places a quack advert—pills, potions, pneumatic promises of poundage—dropped like a breadcrumb to lure the Count, who dispatches Kalora to Manhattan’s clangor. Reunion blossoms aboard ocean liners and automat lunch counters; love’s arithmetic outpaces her waistline, but impatience crackles along telegraph wires: return, or be disowned. Pike pursues, storms the palace masquerading as Grand Exalted Ruler, Knight Templar, King of the Hoo Hoos—titles as ornate as the mosaics underfoot—and bargains for the hand of the “slim princess.” The Count, dazzled by heraldic mumbo-jumbo and relieved that the heir will finally vacate the bridal queue, consents; gloom evaporates, trumpets flare, and the lovers steam westward toward a horizon stocked with kosher dills and the democratic right to choose one’s own silhouette.

Synopsis

Gloom overcasts the palace of Count Selim Nalagaski, governor general of Morovenia, Turkey. All efforts to make the count's elder daughter, the Princess Kalora, fat, synonymous with beauty in that country, have failed. Popova, the Princess's tutor, devises a terrible revenge because the count called him a Christian dog. He feeds the princess pickles to keep her thin. The beaux of the country pay assiduous court to the Princess Jeneka, the younger daughter, but the laws of the country forbid her marrying before her elder sister. As a last resort the count orders the slim princess to stuff her clothing with pillows and invites all the dandies to a garden party. But they are deceived. They try the weight of the princess and find her as light as a feather. Coming uninvited to the party is Alexander H. Pike, an American millionaire. He falls in love with the princess and comforts her by showing her pictures in a magazine, proving that in his country slim persons are considered most beautiful. But Pike is discovered by the count's slaves and barely escapes with his life. He returns to America. The count finds an advertisement in a magazine Pike had dropped in his flight, which promises to make thin persons fat. He sends the princess to America to try the cure. T'here she meets Pike, who renews his courtship. But the impatient count learns from the ambassador that the princess is getting no fatter and orders her to return. Pike follows. The young American then visits the court, tells the count he is Grand Exalted Ruler of a fraternal order, a Knight Templar and King of the Hoo Hoos, and asks for the hand of his daughter. The count, much impressed with the titles, consents, especially after he finds that it is the slim princess the American loves. The cloud of gloom is lifted from the palace and Pike prepares to leave with the princess for America, where she can have all the varieties of pickles to suit her taste.