Читать книгу Types of Prose Narratives - Harriott Ely Fansler - Страница 46

Once there lived a youth by the name of Juan. He was the only son of a family and so he was dearly loved. One day his father said to him, "Juan, you are quite old now so you have to study." "Yes, father," said Juan obediently. Juan was then sent to a large town to school. But he did not study; he spent all his time going to places of amusement. When vacation was coming near, Juan bought a reader so that he could give proof that he studied. His father was very anxious to see him and so prepared a large fiesta in honor of his arrival. When Juan arrived, he would not speak his dialect, and if he was asked something he just answered "Si, señor." Everybody then was astonished; for all thought that he had learned so much that he had forgotten his own dialect.

One day Juan threw his father's plow into a well because he wanted to show the people that he knew how to divine. The father came to him then and said, "Dear Juan, will you tell me where I can find the plow which I lost yesterday?" "Ah, father!" said Juan, "there is no difficulty in finding it; fetch my book and I will look it up." The father obeyed instantly and Juan looked in his book and said:

"A B C, A B C,

Oh, my father's plow is lost!

A B C, A B C,

It has the well for a host."

"Well, my book tells me that it is in the bottom of the well." The father ordered the servants to look in the well, and sure enough they found the plow in it. The father was very proud of his son now, for he had had a real proof of his ability. So Juan was called prophet and his name was heard everywhere.

Once the princess of his country lost a very valuable ring, and the king offered to marry her to the one who could find the ring. But he ordered that anyone who might attempt and not guess rightly should be beheaded. Many of the wise men in the kingdom attempted to guess, but nobody was right and so they had to be killed. The rumors of Juan's knowledge reached the king's ears, so he sent a carriage to his home in order to bring him to the palace. Juan did not want to go because he knew that he would surely be killed. He could not disobey the king, however, and so he got into the carriage. As soon as he entered the carriage he became very sad and thoughtful and repented of having tricked his father. When they were quite near the town of the king, Juan opened his book and groaned sadly:

"Someone is to die,

Not far from here, oh, my!"

Instantly the carriage stopped and the driver presented himself before Juan and said, "Oh, sir! I beg you to pardon me; I am the one who stole the princess's ring. She was washing her hands in a dish one day and took the ring off her hand, and then threw the water away. While I was cleaning the garden I saw it and picked it up. Kindly forgive me, here is the ring!" Juan did not take the ring, but said, "I forgive you now; I thought you would not tell me anything about it, and I was going to tell the king to have you killed, for I knew, that you were the one who stole it; my book said so. As soon as we arrive at the palace, place the ring under the stairs and cover it with a cocoanut shell." The driver was very happy and promised to do everything he was commanded.

Juan was received with honors in the palace and when he was asked about the ring, he told everything about the theft of it from the information he had got from the driver and said, "My book tells me all of this and says that now it is under a cocoanut shell under the stairs." Everybody went down to look for it and they found it. Once more now Juan's knowledge was talked of everywhere. According to the king's promise, he was married to the princess. The marriage ceremony was celebrated with much pomp and splendor, and many kings from different countries came to attend it.

Once a neighbor king came to Juan's country. When he went to the palace and met the other king, he said, "If your son-in-law is really a prophet, I propose to you a wager. I have three watermelons in my ship; one of them has one seed, the other has two, and the other has three. Should your son-in-law guess which has one, which has two, and which has three seeds, I will give you half of my kingdom. But if he fails, you will have to give me half of yours." The king was well pleased to hear the proposal, and being confident of Juan's knowledge, he accepted it. Fortunately, while the two kings were conversing, the vassals of the foreign king stood near the door of Juan's room and talked about the watermelons. One of them said, "If I were the one to guess I would say that the smallest has three seeds, the largest has two, and the middle-sized has one, then I should be very rich and would be as powerful a king as our master." Juan, after hearing all that the men had said, went to his bed and pretended to be asleep. When the foreign king had gone away, his father-in-law went to awake him in his room, and told him everything about the challenge. Juan said that he was afraid of no defiance so long as he had his book. The next morning, when the king and he went to the boat, Juan told exactly the number of seeds in each watermelon, according to what he had heard, after reading, or rather feigning to read, some characters in his book. The fruits were cut open then and it was found out that Juan was right. The king, his father-in-law, was very happy and liked Juan very much, for he said that Juan was, without any doubt, the wisest man the world ever knew.

Not long after this another king came on a large ship loaded with money. He came to propose another challenge. He said that he had three earthen jars, filled with salt, water, and vinegar. And if Juan should guess what each contained, the load of this ship would be his father-in-law's; but if he should fail, the king had to give him in turn another ship full of money also. The king accepted the proposal immediately; but Juan was very sad because he knew that the king would order him to be beheaded if he should not guess rightly. So he decided to commit suicide before the day when he should appear before the contending monarchs. During the night he went down silently and threw himself in the river behind the palace, in which the foreign ship was anchored. He tried to drown himself, but he could not, for he knew how to swim. He heard then some men talking in the ship, and one of them said, "If that guesser could just know that the jar with white marking on the neck contains salt, and the one which has the largest lid holds vinegar, he would be the richest man on earth." Juan swam quietly back after hearing this and slept. The next morning Juan and the king went to the ship, and Juan, after turning back and forth the leaves of his reader, told rightly the contents of every jar. The king was very happy and held a large festival in honor of the wise Juan the Prophet.

Juan was afraid to hazard his life any more, so he burned his magic volume. From that time on he never guessed any more, because he said that his book was gone and so his knowledge, too.

—Bienvenido Gonzales.