Prevod

Long ago, on a mild, sunny day in spring, a woman of about sixty was sitting picking lice from her clothes. A sparrow was hopping about in the garden when some children threw stones at it. One struck the bird and broke its back. As it fluttered its wings in distress, a crow came swooping about. “Oh, the poor thing! The crow will get it!” said the woman. She hurried to pick it up, warmed it with her breath, and gave it food. She put it in a little tub and kept it indoors at night. Every morning she fed it rice, scraping copper into its medicine and giving it that as well. Her children and grandchildren mocked her. “Just look at her! An old woman like that, keeping a sparrow!” But she tended it carefully for months, and little by little it began to hop about. In its heart the sparrow was deeply grateful that she had cared for it and saved its life. Even when the woman went out for only a moment, she would tell someone, “Look after this sparrow. Be sure to feed it.” Her children and grandchildren laughed at her fondness for such a creature, but she went on caring for it. “Whatever you may say, I feel sorry for it,” she told them. At last it grew strong enough to fly. “Now surely a crow won’t catch you,” she said, and carried it outside on her hand. She raised her hand to see whether it could fly, and it fluttered away. For so many days and months she had put it safely away at dusk and fed it every morning that she felt lonely without it. “Ah, it has flown away! I wonder whether it will ever come back,” she said, and everyone laughed at her. About twenty days later, she heard a sparrow chirping loudly near the place where she was sitting. “How loudly that sparrow is calling! Could it be the one I looked after?” she thought, and went outside to see. It was indeed her sparrow. “How dear of you to remember me and come back!” she said. The bird looked up into her face, dropped something tiny from its beak, and flew away. “What can it have left behind?” she wondered. Going over to look, she found a single gourd seed. “It seems to have brought this for me,” she said, and picked it up and kept it. “How wonderful! She has received a present from a sparrow and is treasuring it!” her children laughed. “Say what you like; I shall plant it and see,” she replied. She planted the seed, and as autumn approached, the vine spread astonishingly far and bore an abundance of great gourds, quite unlike ordinary ones. The woman was delighted. She gave them to people throughout the village and the neighboring houses, and however many she picked, there always seemed to be more. The children and grandchildren who had laughed at her ate them morning and evening. After sharing them all around the village, she kept seven or eight exceptionally large ones to make into vessels and hung them up inside the house. Months passed, and at last she thought, “They must be ready by now.” When she examined them, they seemed well dried. She took one down to cut an opening in it, but found it rather heavy. Though puzzled, she cut it open and saw that it was filled with something. “What can this be?” she wondered, and tipped it out. It was polished white rice. Astonished by this unexpected discovery, she poured it all into a large container, only to find the gourd as full as before. “This is no ordinary thing! It must be the sparrow’s doing!” she thought, beside herself with wonder and delight. She put the rice away out of sight and examined the other gourds. They were all filled in just the same way. However much she poured out and used, there was no end to the rice. Thus she became a truly prosperous woman. The people of the village and the neighboring houses marveled at her good fortune and envied her greatly. Now the children of a woman who lived next door said to their mother, “Other people manage things like this, yet you never do anything worthwhile!” Stung by their words, the neighbor went to the old woman. “Now, now, however did all this happen? I have heard something about a sparrow, but I don’t really know the story. Tell me just how it began.” “It dropped a single gourd seed, and all this has come from planting it,” the woman answered, without going into detail. But the neighbor pressed her. “Do tell me everything, exactly as it happened.” The woman thought it would be petty to keep the matter to herself, so she said, “There was a sparrow with a broken back, and I looked after it and saved its life. Perhaps it was grateful, for it brought me a single gourd seed. I planted it, and this is what came of it.” “Then give me just one of those seeds,” said the neighbor. “I will gladly give you some of the rice from the gourds,” the woman replied, “but I have no seed to give you. I really cannot scatter any about.” Since she would not give her a seed, the neighbor thought, “I must find a sparrow with a broken back and keep it myself.” She searched keenly, but could not find one anywhere. Early each morning she kept watch, and one day she saw sparrows hopping about in the lane, eating scattered grains of rice. She picked up a stone and threw it, thinking she might hit one. There were so many birds, and she threw so often, that at last she struck one and left it unable to fly. Delighted, she went over, made quite sure its back was broken, then picked it up and gave it food and medicine. “If one sparrow can bring such good fortune, how rich I should be with several! I shall do better than that woman next door, and my children will praise me.” With this in mind she scattered rice about her yard and lay in wait. Sparrows gathered to eat it, and she kept throwing stones until she had crippled three. “That should be enough for now,” she thought. She put the three sparrows with broken backs into a tub and fed them, scraping copper into their medicine. After some months, they all recovered. Delighted, she carried them outside, and they fluttered away. “I have done wonderfully well!” she thought. But the sparrows bitterly resented having their backs broken and being shut up for all those months. About ten days later they returned. The woman was overjoyed and looked at once to see whether they held anything in their beaks. Each dropped a single gourd seed and flew away. “Just as I expected!” she exclaimed happily, and hurried to plant the seeds in three places. The vines shot up faster than ordinary ones and grew to an enormous size. They did not bear very many gourds, however—only seven or eight. The woman gazed at them with a broad smile and said to her children, “You said I never did anything worthwhile, but now I shall do better than the woman next door!” Her children thought that indeed she might. Since there were so few gourds, she wanted to get as much rice from them as possible, and so neither ate any herself nor gave any away. But her children said, “The woman next door gave hers to everyone in the village and the neighboring houses, and ate some herself as well. You have the fruit of three seeds, so surely you can eat some and share them with others.” “That is true,” she thought. She gave some to her close neighbors and cooked a generous quantity for herself and her children. But when they ate it, it was bitter beyond anything they had ever tasted, like the bark of the Amur cork tree, and they became dreadfully ill. Those who had eaten only a mouthful were writhing and vomiting, as were the woman and her children. The neighbors, all sick as well, came together to her house. “What have you fed us? This is terrible! Even those who barely touched it are vomiting and writhing as though they might die!” They had come in anger to scold her, but found the woman herself and all her children lying about senseless, with vomit everywhere. There was nothing to be said, and they all went home. After two or three days, everyone recovered. The woman thought, “They were all going to turn into rice, but I was too hasty and ate them before they were ready. That must be why such a strange thing happened.” So she hung up all the gourds that remained. Months passed, and at last she thought, “Now they must surely be ready.” Taking with her tubs into which she intended to pour the rice, she went into the storeroom. So delighted was she that her toothless mouth stretched in a solitary grin from ear to ear. She drew a tub close and tipped out a gourd. Out came horseflies, wasps, centipedes, lizards, and snakes. They swarmed all over her, biting and stinging, sparing neither eyes nor nose. Yet the woman did not even notice the pain, imagining that it was rice spilling over her. “Wait a little, sparrows! I shall take it a little at a time, a little at a time!” she said. From the seven or eight gourds poured a multitude of venomous creatures. They bit and stung her children as well, and stung the woman to death. The sparrows, bitterly resenting the breaking of their backs, had gathered all manner of creeping things and persuaded them to go inside the gourds. The other woman’s sparrow, by contrast, had already had its back broken and was about to be eaten by a crow when she took it in and saved its life, and so it had been grateful. Thus one should never envy others.