Chapter 7

"Or we could cheat the king the next time he buys wood," said the woodcutter sarcastically. "But we won't do any of those things. You know that it isn't right to do wrong, even to bring good. God has brought us this child; I pray that he will help us feed it."

Now, the old woodcutter had been saving a few coins from his meager earnings over the past three years in order to buy himself a new axe head in the spring. "But," he thought to himself, "I suppose I could sharpen this old head one more season, and with a little longer handle, it ought to be good enough to get my by." So he took the money he had saved and gave it to his wife, instructing her to buy the child proper food and raiment.

The old woman was so moved by this sacrifice that she took off her locket--other than her wedding ring the only piece of jewelry she owned, and an heirloom from her great grandmother, at that--and contributed it to the welfare of the child. "For," she said, "I was never so foolish as to believe that love had no price."

Just a few days later a rider from the traveling caravan arrived, and visited the woodcutter's neighbor. Because the woodcutter was not far away at the time, he overheard the conversation. "Have you seen anyone with a baby in the past week?" demanded the rider roughly.

"Who's asking?" asked the neighbor, without excessive politeness. As the woodcutter heard the angry, cursing, threatening reply of the rider, he ambled back to his hut to inform his wife of what was going on. The couple was quite shrewd enough not to reveal anything to a rude, angry, and ill-dressed man on horseback, because, they concluded that, however deficient their own hospitality to the child, it was likely to be better than whatever would be offered by such a ruffian. "And besides," the woodcutter's wife said, "I already love the child too much to give him up."

As the days passed, the old couple grew thoroughly attached to the baby. They both found themselves unexpectedly humming little tunes or smiling for no apparent reason, and they both found their chores suddenly lighter and easier. They worked faster, eager to finish and once again spend some time playing with the child.

However, it wasn't many weeks before the old woodcutter and his wife were forced to admit that they were simply too old and too poor to raise the child as it should be, and that they ought in all fairness to the babe to find a better home for it. "For," as the old woman explained, "I love the child too much to keep him."

So the woodcutter took the child to a house where several holy women lived and, after explaining the brief history of the child as he knew it, asked for their help. "The wife and I don't have the learning behind us, the money with us, or the years ahead of us to raise this child as it ought to be raised," said the woodcutter to the matron of the house, "so we'd appreciate it if you could find it a proper home."

"Our small endowment provides us with only a modest living," the matron said, "but we will care for the child until we can find out whom it belongs to, or until we can find it a good home." So the man left the child with them and went on with his wood cutting. The matron of the house assigned care of the child to one of the newest of the holy women, who could nurse it.

About this season in the kingdom, the queen gave birth to a son also. The child, however, was weak and sickly, and failed to flourish. In just a few weeks it developed a fever and died suddenly in the night. The queen, in addition to her grief, was frantic with anxiety, knowing that the king was such a hard man that if he knew his only son had died, he would hate the queen and perhaps divorce her. So she sent, with the utmost secrecy, a trusted servant to find another child to replace the one she had lost. "Bring me a child with no past," she told her servant, "and I will give it a future."

Finding such a child was a tiring and frustrating task for the servant, and he met with humiliation and rejection and insult and false leads and failure at every turn. But since this story is not about him, nor about the rewards of perseverance, let us say simply that eventually he found himself at the door of the holy order of women we have mentioned above.

"Yes, we do have such a child as you seek," the matron told him. "We were keeping him until we could find his parents, or until we could find him a good home. Perhaps your mistress, whoever she is, will care for him well." The servant assured the matron that this would be so and gave her a large gift to maintain the house and its charitable work. As she handed him the child, she said, "The woman who has been nursing the child says that this parting is like a death to her, for she has become very attached to him. But she loves him too much to think of her feelings. I hope that what is a sadness for her will be a happiness for the child."

"Truly, good woman," replied the servant, "it is rightly said that the death of every fruit is the seed of new life. Every ending is also a beginning."

As the years passed, the baby grew up into a fine, strong young man. The king, who remained crusty and harsh toward everyone else, changed completely when his son (as he supposed) entered the room. The king became actually friendly and laughed some and often engaged in animated conversation with the young prince. The king was often heard to say that he would never let the prince part from him even for a day but that the prince should be his always. They often rode on horseback through the forest all day or sat together by the fire until the servants fell asleep, discussing the kingdom and enjoying each other's company.

When the prince reached his early manhood, the king not only took him into confidence on affairs of state, but began to share power with him, knowing that not many more years would pass before there would necessarily be a new king. Many of the king's decisions were now submitted to the prince before they were made, and the prince, to his credit, frequently moderated the king's stern and often cruel decrees.

By this time, the queen was in poor health, troubled by constant pain and a lingering cough. Everyone at the court eventually recognized that she was about to die. For several days the queen debated with herself whether or not to let the secret of the prince die with her, but at last, showing the heritage of her daughter's honesty, she decided that she must reveal it to the king.

By the time she reached this decision, the queen was truly on her deathbed, so she called the king to her and sat up weakly. "My king," she began, "I have a matter to disclose to you that has burdened my heart for many years. It concerns the prince." And here she hesitated for a few moments. The king waited in silence. "You," she continued, "are not his father."

The king, immediately concluding that the sanctity of his marriage bed had been violated, exploded into a rage that would likely have ended the queen's suffering prematurely had she not added as loudly as she could, "And I am not his mother." The king then, though still in shock, calmed himself enough to hear her explanation of the death of their natural son and her subterfuge in adopting the child who was now the prince. The king at first gave little credit to this tale, thinking that the queen was either delirious or scheming against him and his beloved son in some way. But he sent attendants to the holy order to discover the truth. They soon returned with the matron of the house and the woman who had nursed the prince as a baby.

"If what the queen tells me is true," said the king, "I have no happiness, no reason to live. For the only thing I love has been taken away."

The matron from the holy order solemnly attested to the truth of the queen's story. "The prince was indeed the baby given us by the woodcutter so many years ago," she said. As the king felt a wave of despair washing over him, the nurse from the holy order came forward and spoke.

"With all deference to my Lady and to her majesty," she said, "the queen is only half correct. For the child was indeed not hers, but he is the king's son." She then pulled back the cowl of her robes, took down her hair and showed the king her face. Even through the ravages of two decades, the king could still clearly see the face of his daughter's lady in waiting, his lover who had borne his child without his knowledge so many years ago. The lady briefly explained what had happened then and how she had immediately recognized the child when the woodcutter brought it to the holy house.

"You willingly gave me your son, even though I was evil?" the king asked in disbelief.

"I loved you," the lady in waiting said simply. "And I loved my son--our son--more."

When he realized how unjust and hypocritical he had been toward the lady, the princess, and the queen, the king was so overwhelmed with shame and humiliation that he fell to his knees and began pulling on his hair and sobbing loudly. His crying was the only sound in the room until the queen spoke.

"I forgive you, my husband and my king," she said. "And I love you."

"You love me?" the king asked, rising and turning to her with astonishment. "You love me after I have banished your daughter and proven unfaithful to you?" But there was no answer, for the queen had already closed her eyes for the last time.

The king stood as one who had been stunned. He could not speak or think. As he sat down in a stupor at the foot of the queen's bed, the prince suddenly spoke. "I have found a mother today," he said. "I must now find a sister, too. I shall leave immediately in search of her."

"No!" the king yelled, standing up. But then, recollecting himself, he said, "No, you're right. You must go from me and find your sister."

In the days to come, as the king sat alone in his richly tapestried rooms, he had many hours to think over the events that had formed his life and to ask himself whether there was not in love some quality that can be shown only in sacrifice, not in advantage; only in surrender, and not in triumph.

The Fly and the Elephant

A fly sat on an elephant's back. When the elephant shuffled down a dirt road, the fly said, "What a dust we are making!" When the elephant trudged knee-deep in the mud, the fly said, "How heavy we are!"

The Man Who Talked Backwards

There was once a bizarre old philosopher who always seemed to say the opposite of what those who sought his advice expected. So contrary were his words that he was known as The Man Who Talked Backwards. His blessing on those he loved was, "May you have difficulty in this life," and his bitterest curse on his enemies was, "May your life pass without a single sorrow." Whenever someone asked him what course of learning to undertake in order to increase his knowledge, the philosopher would reply, "If you want to learn something, become a teacher." Whenever some grateful hearer would ask how he could repay the philosopher for his advice, he would always answer, "The best way to repay a debt to me is to cancel a debt owed to you."

The Man Who Talked Backwards reversed even the most common of proverbs. Instead of repeating that "to love is to be patient," he would always quote, "To be patient is to love." Rather than noting that "seeing is believing," he would say, "Believing is seeing." For, he explained, what you believe controls what you see.

A young woman once asked him, "What can I do to make someone my friend? Shall I oil my skin or brush my hair?"

"Rather you should oil the skin and brush the hair of the one you like," answered the philosopher.

Another day a young scholar approached The Man Who Talked Backwards and asked him what books he should read, "For," the student said, "I realize that the more I read the more I will know."

"You will indeed learn something by reading," answered the philosopher, "but the more you read the less you will know. That is what makes reading of value."

"But how shall I know what beliefs I should hold in order to live the best life?" the young scholar asked.

"You think that your beliefs shape your actions," replied the philosopher, "but I tell you, it is your actions that shape your beliefs."

One day a woman came to the Man Who Talked Backwards for advice. "I know," she said, "that 'to live is to choose,' so I have come here to discover how I might fix my choices to live a fuller, more productive life."

"The better saying," said the philosopher, "is that 'to choose is to live.' But if you want to live life more fully, do less."

"Do less?" the woman asked with surprise. "But I'm an achiever. I thrive on accomplishment."

"Perhaps you have already diluted your life into meaninglessness," suggested the philosopher.

"But I'm easily bored," said the woman.

"I am truly sorry," said the philosopher. "Did you ever seek help for yourself?"

"What do you mean?"

"For your infirmity of being bored."

"My infirmity?" asked the woman, again surprised.

"Ah," said the philosopher, "You attribute your boredom to others or to external circumstances."

"Well, of course," she said.

"In that case, I am sorry for your two infirmities."

"But I want to get as much out of life as I can," the woman protested. "You philosophers all say that one's life does not consist in material things because they disappear, but what then can I gain that I can keep?"

"The only thing that you can really keep--and keep forever--is what you give away," said the philosopher.

Late one afternoon a blunt young man came up to The Man Who Talked Backwards and asked him, "Now that you are old and about to drop dead, do you look forward to death or fear it--or perhaps I should ask, Did you live a good life or a bad one?"

"It is not one's life that determines his view of death," replied the philosopher, "but one's view of death that determines how he lives."

"So you are ready to end your life?" asked the blunt young man.

"Death is not an end to life, as you suppose," said the philosopher. "This world is but a mirror that reverses everything as it reflects it. Death therefore is merely the shattering of a mirror."

"Your mirror already has a large crack in it," said the blunt young man, with a laugh.

"Thank you," said the philosopher.

The Clue

In every civilization, someone has to put up the signs that guide us on our way. --Proverb

Sometimes they had to drill the post holes up on Rocky Bluff--and it was a tough dig, what with the rocks and the hardness of the soil. They came home plenty tired and dirty on those days. Other times they drilled the holes down in Sandy Meadow, where the augur slipped in smoothly, quickly, and easily. They all praised the meadow and said how great it was to get an assignment to put up some signs there. And yet, when they told the stories of their lives--the stories that animated their faces and brightened their eyes--they always seemed to be speaking of Rocky Bluff.

An Analogy

As he clung to the sheer face of the rock, he could hear in his mind the voice of his climbing instructor: "If you make even a slight mistake, you will die instantly." He knew then that he need not debate whether to be attentive in his climb. And he was glad also that God is like a rock only in his steadfastness.

About the Author

Robert Harris was born in Los Angeles, California in 1950. He is currently (1995) an English professor at Southern California College in Costa Mesa, California. He lives in Costa Mesa with his wife, Rita.

(C)1992 Robert Harris

End of Project Gutenberg's Stories From the Old Attic, by Robert Harris