The Violet Fairy Book (15 page)

And she answered, 'Forgive me, my son. I did not know this was
our master,' and she threw open all the doors so that the master
might see everything that the rooms and storehouses contained.
Sultan Darai looked about him, and at length he said:

'Unfasten those horses that are tied up, and let loose those
people that are bound. And let some sweep, and some spread the
beds, and some cook, and some draw water, and some come out and
receive the mistress.'

And when the sultana and her ladies and her slaves entered the
house, and saw the rich stuffs it was hung with, and the
beautiful rice that was prepared for them to eat, they cried:
'Ah, you gazelle, we have seen great houses, we have seen people,
we have heard of things. But this house, and you, such as you
are, we have never seen or heard of.'

After a few days, the ladies said they wished to go home again.
The gazelle begged them hard to stay, but finding they would not,
it brought many gifts, and gave some to the ladies and some to
their slaves. And they all thought the gazelle greater a
thousand times than its master, Sultan Darai.

The gazelle and its master remained in the house many weeks, and
one day it said to the old woman, 'I came with my master to this
place, and I have done many things for my master, good things,
and till to-day he has never asked me: "Well, my gazelle, how
did you get this house? Who is the owner of it? And this town,
were there no people in it?" All good things I have done for the
master, and he has not one day done me any good thing. But
people say, "If you want to do any one good, don't do him good
only, do him evil also, and there will be peace between you."
So, mother, I have done: I want to see the favours I have done
to my master, that he may do me the like.'

'Good,' replied the old woman, and they went to bed.

In the morning, when light came, the gazelle was sick in its
stomach and feverish, and its legs ached. And it said 'Mother!'

And she answered, 'Here, my son?'

And it said, 'Go and tell my master upstairs the gazelle is very
ill.'

'Very good, my son; and if he should ask me what is the matter,
what am I to say?'

'Tell him all my body aches badly; I have no single part without
pain.'

The old woman went upstairs, and she found the mistress and
master sitting on a couch of marble spread with soft cushions,
and they asked her, 'Well, old woman, what do you want?'

'To tell the master the gazelle is ill,' said she.

'What is the matter?' asked the wife.

'All its body pains; there is no part without pain.'

'Well, what can I do? Make some gruel of red millet, and give to
it.'

But his wife stared and said: 'Oh, master, do you tell her to
make the gazelle gruel out of red millet, which a horse would not
eat? Eh, master, that is not well.'

But he answered, 'Oh, you are mad! Rice is only kept for
people.'

'Eh, master, this is not like a gazelle. It is the apple of your
eye. If sand got into that, it would trouble you.'

'My wife, your tongue is long,' and he left the room.

The old woman saw she had spoken vainly, and went back weeping to
the gazelle. And when the gazelle saw her it said, 'Mother, what
is it, and why do you cry? If it be good, give me the answer;
and if it be bad, give me the answer.'

But still the old woman would not speak, and the gazelle prayed
her to let it know the words of the master. At last she said:
'I went upstairs and found the mistress and the master sitting on
a couch, and he asked me what I wanted, and I told him that you,
his slave, were ill. And his wife asked what was the matter, and
I told her that there was not a part of your body without pain.
And the master told me to take some red millet and make you
gruel, but the mistress said, 'Eh, master, the gazelle is the
apple of your eye; you have no child, this gazelle is like your
child; so this gazelle is not one to be done evil to. This is a
gazelle in form, but not a gazelle in heart; he is in all things
better than a gentleman, be he who he may.'

And he answered her, 'Silly chatterer, your words are many. I
know its price; I bought it for an eighth. What loss will it be
to me?'

The gazelle kept silence for a few moments. Then it said, 'The
elders said, "One that does good like a mother," and I have done
him good, and I have got this that the elders said. But go up
again to the master, and tell him the gazelle is very ill, and it
has not drunk the gruel of red millet.'

So the old woman returned, and found the master and the mistress
drinking coffee. And when he heard what the gazelle had said, he
cried: 'Hold your peace, old woman, and stay your feet and close
your eyes, and stop your ears with wax; and if the gazelle bids
you come to me, say your legs are bent, and you cannot walk; and
if it begs you to listen, say your ears are stopped with wax; and
if it wishes to talk, reply that your tongue has got a hook in
it.'

The heart of the old woman wept as she heard such words, because
she saw that when the gazelle first came to that town it was
ready to sell its life to buy wealth for its master. Then it
happened to get both life and wealth, but now it had no honour
with its master.

And tears sprung likewise to the eyes of the sultan's wife, and
she said, 'I am sorry for you, my husband, that you should deal
so wickedly with that gazelle'; but he only answered, 'Old woman,
pay no heed to the talk of the mistress: tell it to perish out
of the way. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot drink, for
the worry of that gazelle. Shall a creature that I bought for an
eighth trouble me from morning till night? Not so, old woman!'

The old woman went downstairs, and there lay the gazelle, blood
flowing from its nostrils. And she took it in her arms and said,
'My son, the good you did is lost; there remains only patience.'

And it said, 'Mother, I shall die, for my soul is full of anger
and bitterness. My face is ashamed, that I should have done good
to my master, and that he should repay me with evil.' It paused
for a moment, and then went on, 'Mother, of the goods that are in
this house, what do I eat? I might have every day half a
basinful, and would my master be any the poorer? But did not the
elders say, "He that does good like a mother!" '

And it said, 'Go and tell my master that the gazelle is nearer
death than life.'

So she went, and spoke as the gazelle had bidden her; but he
answered, 'I have told you to trouble me no more.'

But his wife's heart was sore, and she said to him: 'Ah, master,
what has the gazelle done to you? How has he failed you? The
things you do to him are not good, and you will draw on yourself
the hatred of the people. For this gazelle is loved by all, by
small and great, by women and men. Ah, my husband! I thought
you had great wisdom, and you have not even a little!'

But he answered, 'You are mad, my wife.'

The old woman stayed no longer, and went back to the gazelle,
followed secretly by the mistress, who called a maidservant and
bade her take some milk and rice and cook it for the gazelle.

'Take also this cloth,' she said, 'to cover it with, and this
pillow for its head. And if the gazelle wants more, let it ask
me, and not its master. And if it will, I will send it in a
litter to my father, and he will nurse it till it is well.'

And the maidservant did as her mistress bade her, and said what
her mistress had told her to say, but the gazelle made no answer,
but turned over on its side and died quietly.

When the news spread abroad, there was much weeping among the
people, and Sultan Darai arose in wrath, and cried, 'You weep for
that gazelle as if you wept for me! And, after all, what is it
but a gazelle, that I bought for an eighth?'

But his wife answered, 'Master, we looked upon that gazelle as we
looked upon you. It was the gazelle who came to ask me of my
father, it was the gazelle who brought me from my father, and I
was given in charge to the gazelle by my father.'

And when the people heard her they lifted up their voices and
spoke:

'We never saw you, we saw the gazelle. It was the gazelle who
met with trouble here, it was the gazelle who met with rest here.

So, then, when such an one departs from this world we weep for
ourselves, we do not weep for the gazelle.'

And they said furthermore:

'The gazelle did you much good, and if anyone says he could have
done more for you he is a liar! Therefore, to us who have done
you no good, what treatment will you give? The gazelle has died
from bitterness of soul, and you ordered your slaves to throw it
into the well. Ah! leave us alone that we may weep.'

But Sultan Darai would not heed their words, and the dead gazelle
was thrown into the well.

When the mistress heard of it, she sent three slaves, mounted on
donkeys, with a letter to her father the sultan, and when the
sultan had read the letter he bowed his head and wept, like a man
who had lost his mother. And he commanded horses to be saddled,
and called the governor and the judges and all the rich men, and
said:

'Come now with me; let us go and bury it.'

Night and day they travelled, till the sultan came to the well
where the gazelle had been thrown. And it was a large well,
built round a rock, with room for many people; and the sultan
entered, and the judges and the rich men followed him. And when
he saw the gazelle lying there he wept afresh, and took it in his
arms and carried it away.

When the three slaves went and told their mistress what the
sultan had done, and how all the people were weeping, she
answered:

'I too have eaten no food, neither have I drunk water, since the
day the gazelle died. I have not spoken, and I have not
laughed.'

The sultan took the gazelle and buried it, and ordered the people
to wear mourning for it, so there was great mourning throughout
the city.

Now after the days of mourning were at an end, the wife was
sleeping at her husband's side, and in her sleep she dreamed that
she was once more in her father's house, and when she woke up it
was no dream.

And the man dreamed that he was on the dust-heap, scratching.
And when he woke, behold! that also was no dream, but the truth.

(Swahili Tales.)

Once upon a time an old man and his wife lived together in a
little village. They might have been happy if only the old woman
had had the sense to hold her tongue at proper times. But
anything which might happen indoors, or any bit of news which her
husband might bring in when he had been anywhere, had to be told
at once to the whole village, and these tales were repeated and
altered till it often happened that much mischief was made, and
the old man's back paid for it.

One day, he drove to the forest. When he reached the edge of it
he got out of his cart and walked beside it. Suddenly he stepped
on such a soft spot that his foot sank in the earth.

'What can this be?' thought he. 'I'll dig a bit and see.'

So he dug and dug, and at last he came on a little pot full of
gold and silver.

'Oh, what luck! Now, if only I knew how I could take this
treasure home with me—-but I can never hope to hide it from my
wife, and once she knows of it she'll tell all the world, and
then I shall get into trouble.'

He sat down and thought over the matter a long time, and at last
he made a plan. He covered up the pot again with earth and
twigs, and drove on into the town, where he bought a live pike
and a live hare in the market.

Then he drove back to the forest and hung the pike up at the very
top of a tree, and tied up the hare in a fishing net and fastened
it on the edge of a little stream, not troubling himself to think
how unpleasant such a wet spot was likely to be to the hare.

Then he got into his cart and trotted merrily home.

'Wife!' cried he, the moment he got indoors. 'You can't think
what a piece of good luck has come our way.'

'What, what, dear husband? Do tell me all about it at once.'

'No, no, you'll just go off and tell everyone.'

'No, indeed! How can you think such things! For shame! If you
like I will swear never to—-'

'Oh, well! if you are really in earnest then, listen.'

And he whispered in her ear: 'I've found a pot full of gold and
silver in the forest! Hush!—-'

'And why didn't you bring it back?'

'Because we'll drive there together and bring it carefully back
between us.'

So the man and his wife drove to the forest.

As they were driving along the man said:

'What strange things one hears, wife! I was told only the other
day that fish will now live and thrive in the tree tops and that
some wild animals spend their time in the water. Well! well!
times are certainly changed.'

'Why, you must be crazy, husband! Dear, dear, what nonsense
people do talk sometimes.'

'Nonsense, indeed! Why, just look. Bless my soul, if there
isn't a fish, a real pike I do believe, up in that tree.'

'Gracious!' cried his wife. 'How did a pike get there? It IS a
pike—you needn't attempt to say it's not. Can people have said
true—-'

But the man only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and
opened his mouth and gaped as if he really could not believe his
own eyes.

'What are you standing staring at there, stupid?' said his wife.
'Climb up the tree quick and catch the pike, and we'll cook it
for dinner.'

The man climbed up the tree and brought down the pike, and they
drove on.

When they got near the stream he drew up.

'What are you staring at again?' asked his wife impatiently.
'Drive on, can't you?'