Barbara I.

Mazul and the Magician

Mazul stood in front of the entrance of the cave. He found his destination. At last! Mazul had overcome the seven glacial mountains and passed through the seven dark gorges. He had encountered innumerable dangers, quite often surviving only by chance. Now it would have to be proofed, whether the exertion would be rewarding. Tired and exhausted he remained standing there for an instant and breathed deeply. He visualized again how he would formulate his request to dispose the wise magician. Nevertheless by learning about Mazul's destiny needn't he give his consent? The powerful old man was said to be kind.

Mazul stepped forward into the dusk and followed the short passage into the cave. The space which received him seemed to be very much like the only room of the huts at his home village. A table there stood, two chairs, a fireplaces and in the corner behind a simple bed. The only difference was, that light did not appear from the entrance but through some holes cut out of the walls. Mazul asked himself, whether there was no danger of incoming rain then and now.

"Doesn't matter, my son. One must be able to look outside." a sudden voice said.

Mazul twitched. He couldn't make out the speaker at once. That it was the voice of a man was quite obvious. Neither from a young one, nor brittle by age.

Now a shape detached from the dusky shine the evening sun threw towards these strange holes.

"Great magician." Mazul said respectfully and bowed. It must have been him. Otherwise he couldn't have guessed his thoughts. Mazul scarcely dared to lift his head again.

"Now, my son, I am not that great." the old man smiled amused, just standing in front of him, carrying his head in about the same level as Mazul. "Sit down. You certainly come from far. Meal will be prepared soon."

"I ... I came here to ask a favor." Mazul stuttered puzzled while the shape turned to the fireplace and keenly stirred in a big pot. Everything he had figured out exactly during his way here was lost by this strange behavior of the magician.

"But of course." was the answer. "That's the reason for all or them. I can't remember only one during all those years who came here just to inquire after my health or something like that. I do will listen to you later on and learn about the burden you carry with you. But at the moment I am hungry and you, too, I guess. So first of all we will eat."

Intimidated Mazul took a seat. A wooden bowl was placed in front of him and filled with something he has never tasted before. The old man sat down beside him, blessed the meal just the way they did it at home and started to eat with good appetite. And Mazul himself had no choice but sticking his spoon into the indefinable and fill his rumbling stomach with it.

No! This was not at all the way he has imagined his arrival. With great difficulties he had managed himself to come here, to see an elevated magician and now he had to sit besides an ordinary old man at a rickety wooden table and eat some hot-pot. But: who could know! Perhaps he himself was to be examined whether he'd pay the required honors to this plain shape. And perhaps the desired obligingness would depend on that?

Mazul appeased his real big hunger silently and than waited until the magician had cleared the table and sat down with him again. He felt inspected, which was awkward but he would have had no choice again as to stand this searching look.

"Well, my son, what do you have on your mind?" the magician asked after a while, which disconcerted him completely. The artificial and well-considered formulations he had troublesome constructed on his way seemed senseless considering the prosaic question. Finally he collected himself as far as possible under these circumstances and responded just as directly: "I want a different face."

"Why?" the old man asked.

The polite intonation made him angry. Wasn't it quite obvious?

"I am ugly! And I have been getting sick of it!"

And that indeed was the point. The reason which could not be ignored at all, even though the light now came into the cave meager and his face remained in the dusk. How often he had heard this: "You are ugly." "Leave me! I do not want to see you." "What do you want here? We don't want one looking like that!� Sometimes there had been only views, rejecting, embarrassed, reserved or even such which gloating over him with secret horror. How many things were debarred from him by his face!

"Not everyone is born clever, not everyone handsome." the magician said imperturbably. "What's the problem?"

Mazul immediately forgot that he was just a petitioner and his behavior therefore had to be humble. For the reason alone not to provoke the old wise man from the mountains, whose power everyone knew.

"I do understand!" Mazul exclaimed. "You live all alone here and it is of no consequence whether you appeal to the others or not. In addition to that you can give yourself every shape you would find useful and agreeable. But I have to live among people who agonize me, only because they do not like my appearance and I have to suffer from it. Daily, at any hour I'd be laughed at, excluded, humiliated. And you like to ask me: 'Where is the problem?' Life is disgusting to me. That's it!"

And now after this angry and heated speech Mazul became scared again. Certainly it hat not been the right tone to talk to someone who could lighten his fate as well as aggravate it. He had believed that the amount of what a man could bear already was on his shoulders, but now a terrible imagination diffused inside him. What, if he had annoyed the magician that much, that this one would harm him even more? That he would not only have to go back unsuccessfully but also severely punished and his family would have another reason to feel ashamed of him.

The intensive look of his opponent let him freeze. A cold pressure seemed even to lie down on his breath. Right now he believed himself feeling the effect of a mighty spell. He had heard that the dignified would posses the power to turn someone to stone just by a look. Certainly this was the beginning of it.

There he heard the magician sedately speaking as if from far: "Well I think you had to get rid of that once. That is it with burdens; one must set down them then and now. Let me think, whether I could be of help."

Puzzled and endlessly eased Mazul began to hope again. He remained totally silent, although he asked himself impatiently, what could be still to reflect. He had not expressed a certain image of his new look. Agreeable and inconspicuous it should be, just as the one of every other inhabitant of his village. And while he envisioned his changed life colorful, night appeared completely and erased every glimpse of light in the cave. But his sanguine dream warmed him and showed him future in dazzling brightness. So he couldn't say how much time passed.

"My son, I have come to a conclusion." he heard the familiar voice from the dark and it too now seemed friendly and full of warmth. - It was not easy, things like this never are, but I think, you may be helped. We will go to bed now and expect the next day with elatedness."

Again Mazul was near to despair. He had imagined himself near the goal. Now that! Did the old man play with him? Perhaps he was no magician at all? But before he could follow these dark thoughts, he suddenly felt overwhelmed by a tiredness, which could not be caused by the labor of his way alone. Involuntarily he lay on an ordinary pellet and slept.

Deep and dreamless this sleep was, giving back his body much of his strength. When he finally woke up by feeling the warm morning sun on his face, he could indeed expect everything that would follow with elatedness. But he was to be disappointed once more ...

"I am going to give you one day of oblivion." the magician said without waiting for a further request. And as Mazul wanted to revolt once more he added: "Even if I wanted, I could not give you a different face. I can't change what is virtually. I only can take away what is not, or create the illusion of that what is not. In both cases, my son, my gift has to be accepted. - Go now, your place is among your folk. When you are there, you may accept or defeat the magic. It is left only to you."

Mazul understood nothing of it. But the constant alteration between hope and despair had demoralized him. He would not ask again, not request again, no longer fight. Well! He would go back to the fold. Where else could he go!

Without greeting or just a single look at the magician he left the cave and followed the way which brought him here. So the very warm, kind and reliant view from his host was lost on him.

What a way home?! Deprived of his last hope, Mazul stepped forward, without paying any attention to the landscape, not even on the immediate vicinity. Inside him he felt only shards. Like a wounded animal he would have liked to hide in the wilderness. Withstanding there neither death nor life. But his steps drew him into the direction of his village magically. Although he did not at all want to arrive there facing his disgrace and his futile effort. In his inattentiveness he didn't recognize, how the trees extended their roots to afford hold when he was about to slip. How the brook left his bed to fill his mug while resting. How the tiger silently took a back seat, even though he was starving. How actually the way itself helped him to avoid all arduousness by taking a different course from the one a few days ago when he had been full of hope ...


Abruptly his village appeared in front of him one afternoon. Mazul stopped irresolutely. In his ears already the whispering of his neighbors arose: "The ugly is back." "No surprise, he is back like he went." "Poor parents! How will they feel now? Better he would have perished en route." Considering such presentiments his heart nearly busted and he dared not to make but one step forward. He didn't know how long he had sat there with the head low, when a shadow fell down to the grass in front of him. When he looked up, it was his father. He looked down at him like he always has been doing. For particularly he looked past with gathered eyebrows and grimy forehead.

"Well, you gadded about quite enough." he declared and his voice sounded like thunder for Mazul. "I picked up wood. Help me carrying it home." That finally was the greeting and Mazul couldn't respond anything, but only do, what his father had charged.

Walking through the village was pure agony. Rapidly his return had been rumored and now everyone who could only stand in front of the low wooden huts to observe the two men, who passed by one after another, apparently without taking notice of there surroundings. The elder ahead with gathered eyebrows and grimy forehead. The younger behind, carrying a large bundle of wood on his back, head down, so his face could not be seen. But of course, if it had been fine-looking now, would he go on to hide it?

Shreds of whisper and impertinent shouts hit Mazul and completed his defeat. When finally he stood in front of the hut, in which he lived with his parents as the last of a number of kids, he lay down the wood and only wished the magician would have killed him for his impropriety or he would have died from the dangers of his way. Both would have been much slighter fate than living here again.

He saw his mother standing in the door, saw the shame in her eyes and knew, she would overwhelm him with reproaches, would she only find the words therefore. What did he do again to her! It was her persuasion from the beginning that the best for him would be to stay inside to avoid disgrace for himself and her. Now this! Why hadn't he thought about covering his face before leading his steps to the village? And why didn't her husband think about it? But a look at this one told her very fast, that in the very moment it would be better to shut up. He certainly would have no comprehension and the people around would be all the same to him. She would give him no opportunity to disparage her even more in the eyes of her neighbors, so she casted down her own and disappeared into the hut silently and afflicted, where she did her work just if nothing had happened.

The father, too, lost not a single word, but began to tear out the weeds in the little garden with vigorous movements. Mazul threw the wood near the chopping block, passed his mother into his own little closet, threw himself on the bed there and lay motionless, without thoughts and tears for a long time. More than ever he felt paralyzed by the behavior of the people around him. There was nothing to do for him. He was and remained dependent and helpless.

When finally night spread its wings over the land, he felt whether this dead silence would proceed from himself. The silence he suddenly knew was dead. And life inside him recognized his secret yearning and arose abruptly and claimed its rights. If he only could, for a short time at least, forget all those unpleasant and tormenting ...



II.

He awoke by the twittering of the birds and because of an inquisitive sun beam through a rife in the wooden wall tickling his left eye. Slowly he opened it in order to shut it at once again dazzled by light. After he had moved his head a bit, he tried once more and found himself in a dusky room, which was so small, that there was no place for more then bed and chair. He extended, stretched and looked around curiously. When he discovered the low door, he got up immediately and opened it. There was a second nearly as dusky room in front of him enlightened only by the source of the open door just on the opposite side. The part of the room lying in the dark he could only divine. Directly in front of him he saw a simple table with three bulky chairs aside, a wooden bowl on it, patinated black by frequent use as well as the spoon on its side.

He would have startled, if not he had heard the steps just at his entrance.

"Sit down and have breakfast." the woman appearing from the dark said soundless. She walked bowed down, like carrying hardly the little pot, from which she now filled his bowl with milled gruel without looking at him.

He thanked her in a friendly way and asked himself secretly, which misery could give her face and bearing that depressed impression. Apparently she didn't listen to his words, because she went away at once and brought back the pot into the rinsing bowl near the fireplace he was able to recognize now. The fire must have extinguished long ago, for no warmth proceeded from it now.

While eating with healthy appetite and enjoying the warmth of a sunny day, which must be outside, he thought about how he could start a conversation with the woman who cared that much about his physical well-being. Perhaps he would be able to show his gratitude in some way.

The woman seemed to have similar thoughts. Just when he laid down his spoon he heard her saying in a hard tone: "Wood has to be chopped. Best for you to start at once."

She really must suffer from hard bitterness. Her words showed it obviously. Who else would be as impolite as not to turn around to the one who was spoken to. He didn't know how to show his obligingness in a different way, so he only answered warm and willing: "It'd be a pleasure - and thank you very much indeed for the breakfast!"

He saw her twitching and then violently scrubbing the pot, which certainly must have been sober long since.

His empathy for the unlucky woman accompanied his steps outside, where light and friendliness of a cloudless day received him. He looked out for the wood. First his view roved involuntarily over the way which passing other low huts meandered up the hill into the forest. He heard birds singing, some girls laughing, a mother scolding her son and remembered that labour was awaiting him. The wood-pile was easy to be found, not more then five steps beside him. In spirits he started to chop the branches and bigger pieces.

He enjoyed the necessary strong movements and so he didn't pay any attention to his surroundings. But then his view slided over the way by itself. After a while he saw a young man passing by, which looked at him shortly and then hasty again on the full bucket he carried. Mazul asked himself whether he was noticed indeed. He shook his head and concentrated on his labour.

Soon afterwards he heard urgent steps from the direction the young man had disappeared to. And really the one came back. This time with empty hands, but joined by one of approximately the same age, which carried an empty bucket. Both looked at him and because he had risen from the wood-pile their views met. The both passing looked away immediately and before he could recover from his astonishment as far as to recognize his own lack of politeness in not greeting them they were already beyond call.

He nearly waited now for someone appearing again and resolved to call the next and if to wish him a good day only. His patience wasn't to be distressed. Short after his decision he again recognized the man; but now they took a third one to whom they seemed to talk to insistently.

He greeted them clear and aloud to be heard for real and obtained that they suddenly stopped and stared at him. The behavior indeed seemed very strange to him. Therefore he felt relieved, that the last one now brought himself to come closer, although the other wanted to stop him.

"Quite brave today, are you?"

As he didn't know what to do with this question - because he couldn't see anything courageous in chopping wood - he replied politely: "Well, it's very agreeable to stand in the sun and being occupied with something."

The other one amused stroke his own thigh and winked conspiratively: "Ah, than we are going to see you here drudging more often in future?"

Something in the tone irritated him, but on this morning he had experienced that much exceptional that he didn't agree to it.

"I do not know wherein the pleasure might be for you, but if you take this way to the spring then and now, we undoubtedly will see each other sometimes."

"And you will do us the honour to join us at the harvest dance, won't you, Mazul?"

"I should be delighted." he responded friendly because he took it for an invitation.

"Did you hear?" the courageous turned to his companions aloud. "Mazul is going to dance with us on the end of the harvest."

"I believe, I can't dance at all," he smiled openly. "But maybe you would be so kind as to teach me."

It almost seemed the young men standing cautiously apart would step away even further. But the nearest one stared at him with open mouth. His mood seemed to change abruptly.

"Certainly." he said with deep seriousness. "If you come, Mazul, I'll personally teach you dancing."

He turned without a further word back to his companions and almost drew them with him.

Now it was up to Mazul to stare after them. When they had disappeared around the next corner, a sudden question cropped up inside him. Why did the man call him by this name? Mazul. Was this his name? And why didn't he know?

But it must be so, because just then the woman from inside the hut called him using it. Her voice was shrill and angry, not at all that lifeless as in the morning.

While following her call he asked himself more questions: Who was he? And: Where did he come from? And: What did he do here actually? But something inside him hindered him to follow those thoughts or even to search for answers. He was fine and everything seemed to be as pleasant as it only could be.

"What did Keres want? Why don't you come in when people are on the way?"

The woman really was all upset.

"But why should I come in while someone passing by?" he asked calmly and added to appease her: "We just had a little chat and finally he invited me to the dance."

"Good gods!" she cried tortured. "Why can't they just leave you? Why can't they just leave us altogether? - But it is your own doing! Why do you meddle with talking to them? Just Keres!"

This speech now was the most unintelligible of what he had experienced during this day and there had happened strange things enough indeed. But he saw again the sorrow expressed in her bearing and he told himself deep grief might have entangled her and he would handle her with indulgence.

"Calm down." he said softly. "This Keres was nothing but friendly. It only were insignificances we changed. At last he invited me to the harvest festival and imagine, he even promised to teach me dancing. There is nothing to be worried."

Unfortunately his words had not the effecht he had hoped for. With a scream she staggered and then completely broken sunk to a chair. He came near to uphold her, but that seemed to refresh her forces.

"No," she cried, "stay where you are. You are all crazy! Unnecessarily you've gone mad above all. If only father would have returned home. He would bring you to your senses again."

And she was just about bursting out hysterically into tears, when a voice from the door said gruffly: "I am here, woman. And you might be the first which I'd have to bring to her senses again."

Mazul turned to the entering man. He was that tall that he had to bow under the door-frame, had a rough figure, mighty hands, a face rugged by age where the bright eyes under busty eyebrows were particularly conspicuous. But Mazul was glad he had come. At last it instantly stopped the woman crying, although she found back to her angry tone by saying: "Dancing ... he wants ... your son! On the festival!" and than despaired again: "He has gone mad!"

"Do you?" the father said coming near to Mazul and inspecting him exactly. "Celebrating you want. On the place under the cedars."

"Yes, father." Mazul replied. "After the harvest. Keres told me about it."

"Well, than it's settled. And now we will eat, mother."

His tone allowed no contradiction. The woman seemed to shrink even more, but didn't dare to look at him again, but laid the table.

The meal was taken in depressed mood which finally catched Mazul, too, although he still couldn't imagine what about the mother was so excited and the father that grimy and taciturn. Again he was glad when the last one lay the spoon aside and said:

"You'll accompany me to the field. It's high time to harvest the millet and if you can go dancing, you may also help me there."

"Gladly, father."

Mazul stood up willingly and followed him to the door. There the mother leaped from her chair and while standing on the doorstep he heard her saying his name. Again without looking at him, she hold out a piece of cloth.

"What shall he do with it, mother?" the father asked annoyed and anticipated his own question therewith.

"But ..." she stuttered clumsily. "His face ... he can't at all ... he never did ... What shall the people say!"

Again a single look made her silent. Mazul felt sorry for her. He didn't understand, what he should do with the cloth, but he was sure, she meant well.

"Don't worry, mother." he said again like before. "I do not need the cloth. See you in the evening."

Speechless she looked at him now and her hand still clasping the cloth fell down. He approached, shortly embraced her and hurried then after his father who didn't want to stay any longer and now strode away.

They calmly worked together on the field without break, until the sun was about to sink behind the mountains in the west. The father obviously wasn't communicative altogether, but his silence didn't seem to turn against Mazul as it had seemed to turn against the mother, because sometimes he looked up and shortly nodded to Mazul. Mazul didn't care about the silence. Also on the neighbouring fields people were occupied with harvesting and sometimes a song or a jesting caught his ear. He looked forward to the evening, which would bring the festival he could join.

On their return Mazul saw a figure balancing down under a mighty hassock from a field above theirs. It was hardly to be recognized but then he saw, that it must be a woman.

"Go ahead." he said to his father. "I am going to help her."

The father looked at him proofing, than nodded and Mazul hurried up the hill.

"That's too much for you." he addressed the figure, of which he now too saw only skirt and shoes. "Please, let me help you. I will carry the sheaves for you."

"Thank you. Thank you very much indeed." she answered a little breathless with an agreeable voice. "That is very kind of you. I really like to accept it."

It took some time until she had herself freed from the burden and could see now who was standing in front of her. Startled she took air when her view met his face.

"You thought I would be someone else? I am sorry. I am Mazul and what's your name?"

"Namira." she whispered and looked aside convulsively to the mountains in the East. The flaming redness, which covered her facial features showed him that she must be very embarrased. Perhaps she had expected some relative and was not used to be addressed by men which didn't belong to her immediate vicinity.

"How so, Namira," he asked while lifting up the burden, "that you all alone have to plague yourself with it?"

"The father ... he is ill ... and we do want to eat." Now, while walking on his side, it seemed to become easier for her to talk to him. "We don't have any relatives who could help us. Everyone is occupied with its own fields. I have already been cutting the millet for a few days and today I will bring home the first of it. Luckily it had dried fast."

He asked a bit about her family and she unhesitating and fluently provided the information. He enjoyed the friendly talk with her and nearly regretted that they reached the hut she was living in so fast.

"Tell me, whenever you need help, please." Mazul offered her after setting down the bundle. "We too have our field, but anyways there will be time to help you and your people."

"You are very kind indeed." Namira replied. "Thank you again, Mazul. You diminish an anxiety." She brought herself to look at him and even to shake hands with him.

When Mazul came home, he heard the parents whispering agitated behind the hut. He ate his dinner, washed and went to bed tired to death. It had been an eventful day - a good day.



III.

Mazul awoke on the next morning because of an inquisitive sun beam through a rife in the wooden wall tickling his left eye. The very sun beam which has been reveilling him through many years. As long as he could think he had been awaken the same way - yesterday, too.

This awareness powered him from bed in arduous alarm. Ashamed he smited his hands over his face, while recognizing in the light of his past, what had befallen on the day before. What had he done? How could he had himself exposed to all that? And not only himself but his parents, too, which ever urged him to hide as far as possible, just to avoid being mortified for them and himself! And now it had happened. How could he have lost sight of that?

But in all clearness, the departed events presented itself to him, he couldn't escape, that the reactions of not all he met had been just as he would have expected them.

His mother, yes, she always had behaved like his attendance would be a personal affront. The young men, too, had joined together as usual to taunt him. And to the girl - Namira - his face had caused dismay or even abhorrence. For that she had shied away from him not because he was no relative. But by parting she had reached out her hand as it was usual in the village, even though he had seen her conquering herself.

Then Keres had been there. Him Mazul had declared as his worst personal enemy from childhood on. Never he had been safe from his hurting affronts and so he had always tried to avoid him, if only mostly unsuccessful. But yesterday Keres had changed. Mazul had sensed that his invitation had been honest, without the smallest ulterior motive to play a dirty trick on him.

And the behaviour of his father now astonished him greatly. When had it ever happened, that he hat protected him against the conniptions of the mother? Never before he had taken Mazul's party. No he had scarcely ever taken notice of him, and now it nearly seemed if there was a secret accordance between them after working together silent for some hours.

Again Mazul let the last day pass by and after a while hope and curiosity brought himself to overcome his shame and he opened the door to the bigger room. The usual play of his mother received him. She was maybe even more grieved than ever before. But today he remembered his own words from the day before and he repeated them courageously albeit with beating heart. The father expected him already and they went to the field again and again he beared his head highly, although he almost had to force himself.

During the following day the assimilation of the many new experiences often exhausted his brain and senses more than the arduous way to the magician had done. Undiminished he felt his injuries, but he now took effort to see them in a clear light and that helped him little by little to gain an inner calmness, which finally allowed him, to regard himself as not entirely unhappy. Besides that he began, he rarely knew how, to take interest in the concernings of others. Namira remaind not the only one who, after some reluctance, could be grateful for his help.

One day on his way into the forest to collect wood, he stopped at a pond and looked - what he had never done before, because he wouldn't have dared - into the water. There he viewed himself for the first time, like others must have been viewing him. He unmovable stood there for a long time and let the face, a bit blurred, but nevertheless in evidence, which looked at him from the depth sink into himself.

"True," he recognized. "It is not beautiful, but it is my face."

When he sat on the steps of the hut with his father alone in the evening he informed him about his decision to build a hut for himself and live there in future.

"It is not common to leave one's parents before settling." responded the father.

"Maybe," Mazul meant and choose his words deliberately. "But perhaps it would be better for you and mother to have your home finally for yourself. For me it is time to find my own place."

"Where do you want to build your hut?" asked his father.

"At the end of the village, near the mountains. Besides the hut Keres had built for Namira and himself."

"Keres and Namira. - With both you are befriended most now."

"They taught me to dance, father. On the festival under the cedars. They cared, that there was no gap between the rows of the dancers, if someone declined to take in his place."

For minutes it remaind silent between the two men. Mazul had brought forward a decision no request, but he would have been relieved nevertheless, if his father could be agreed.

"You may build your hut, my son. I will help you."

They began in next spring and finished before summer arrived. The father had complied with Mazuls wishes, only here and there he had added an advancement of his experience base. Only once he had protested, namely when Mazul had wanted two additional openings to the door in the wall.

"It will rain in." he had meant shaking his head. "And in winter it will be entirely impossible to keep the room warm."

"We can add shutters so that the openings could be closed when needed, father. But apart from that one must be able to look outside."

"Wherefore you want to look outside. A hut is meant to protect from sun, wind, rain and snow. Why would you expose yourself to danger?"

"But isn't it better to see how it is really outside, in order to protect oneself if necessary instead of barricade against danger which even might not exist, and so loose the beauty and friendliness as well?"

The father had shaken his head once more but than begun to spare out the place for the openings.

When Mazul moved to his hut he felt like after a long rocky march through the mountains. Yes, just as last year, when he had reached the cave of the magician. Und now finally he recognized how much he owed the old wise man of the mountains.

He had not received a new face. Nothing was given to him, nothing, except for a day of oblivion. And this day exactly, when he had not been in the grip of his past, taught him to open his eyes for life and join in how it came up to him. This realisation had not beded him on fragant roses as he had wished secretly, but had allowed him to find his place under the wise cedars.

Filled with gratitude he wanted to head again for the mountains. He already had fixed the date to start, when the magician appeared to his dreams.

Mazul was scared about the power which inhered in this. But then he recognized the fine smile, which he always had felt disturbing, and the magician said:

"You do honor me to much, Mazul. It is your strong whish which let you see me. I myself cannot do anything to it. I am glad you found your place, but you do not owe me any gratitude, for I did nothing. I told you then: I only can take away what is not, or create the illusion of that what is not. And that is what every man can do. And I told you to: Your place is among your people. Remain there confidently and try to fullfill your role."

The vision extinguished and Mazul could not ask it about the sense of those sentence, which he didn't understand still. It never came back again, but Mazul was not certain whether he would wish that.

So he went on trying to surrender openly and sympathetically whatever expected him. It was not always easy and often his whole energy was needed. But when he felt himself weak he found support in the consciousness of what he had already experienced. He lived to see how his power was allowed to revitalize through a sudden friendly word. How somebody with a bitchiness on his lips unexpectedly changed his mind and let him unoffended. Or how a long expected evil could be abandoned surprisingly.

By and by men from the village, which felt in trouble themselves and remembered his lucky change, found their way towards him. But he couldn't do anything else than to advise them to open wide their eyes in a moment of oblivion. And some were really helped with that.



IV.

Many years had passed, when Mazul, now bowed a little, found himself on the bank of that pond, he had looked into a long time ago to view his face. Remembering those times with a smile he leaned forward and recognized now - he could remember, if it had been yesterday - the face of the magician.



Correct my English, please!
Babu
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All rights belong to its author. It was published on e-Stories.org by demand of Barbara I..
Published on e-Stories.org on 28.03.2006.

 
 

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