Conduct of life -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Parables
It was finished just at sunset. She scarcely needed any tea, so eager
and impatient was she to get away.
And then she appeared before the Governor with this precious prize.
“I’ve found something really, at last,” said she, with bright eyes and
cheeks.
As of old he held his hand out for it, but said nothing.
“Why don’t you speak?” she asked.
“It is not for me to speak,” he answered; and so she went away.
But Rosalie was scarce content with waiting now. She doubted not that
all would see the value of the stone she had so lately found, and most
of all an expert. And indeed there seemed to be no time for waiting. The
voice said, “Go on.” Truly the harvest was beginning. Who would sit down
with but one sheaf tied?
And she was justified in doing so. Another lump of hard black earth (to
be chipped away slowly and surely) appeared amongst the looser soil. And
after a time the under surface partly appeared, and it, too, as far as
she could see, was bright and brilliant.
But as this was in process the message arrived at breakfast, the
Governor wished to see her.
She did not allow herself to think, because she dare not, but whatever
thought rose in her mind it was success.
She knocked at the study door and entered. There, in the same place that
all the others had been in turn, lay the shining jewel, and the cold
voice answered:
“The decision is that it is rubbish.”
The pain within was so great that Rosalie could have screamed, and then
came sickness and faintness, so that she leant against the door and
looked at him.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“It is accounted of no worth.”
“Oh, but it is! it is!” she cried, and looked at him so hard that he
looked back at her.
“I have told you the decision.”
“But what do _you_ say?”
“I say nothing.”
“But what is wrong with it?”
“I believe the decision was that it was gaudy. It shone too much.”
She looked at him dully, and then turned and went away.
There in the plantation was the work she was engaged on. Her eyes were
too dull to see the sparkle of light, her heart too black to care. And
suddenly she laughed, and picking up the fork lying near, began to dig
again. The frog sat by and watched.
In furious haste, without apparent thought, she worked, and at last came
upon a much smaller mound, containing one much smaller stone of
transparent substance that had no lustre at all. But bitter tears were
running fast from her swollen eyes, and two of them flashed on it. When
she tried to rub them off upon her sleeve they seemed quite hardened,
and they never moved.
“Is this gaudy?” she asked, turning suddenly to her companion.
“I don’t think so,” it answered meekly. And then she sighed.
“It seems to me it’s hardly bright enough, except the tears.”
And in the evening she went with it again to the Governor.
After that the time was very short till she was again summoned to the
house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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