The King who was betrayed
Sham S. Misri
Once there was a king who was betrayed by his wife.
And he cast off his kingdom like a snake casts its old skin. The king abandoned
everything, and turned his back upon the world. And he went away into the great
southern forest, for he said: Let me go where I shall never again see a human
face, or hear a human voice again. So day after day he went on into the unknown
depths of that terrible forest, till after a time he found himself alone with
his shadow among the giant trees. And then, all of a sudden, those trees came
abruptly to an end. The king looked around, and he looked, and lo! he stood on
the bank of a great river, whose water was studded as far as his eye could see
with a countless host of lotus flowers that coloured that region blue. And
every lotus had for its lover a great golden bee, that buzzed about it in order
that each lotus might think itself alone beloved. And the king marvelled at the
sight of that lonely lotus haunted, bee-booming river, and he lived there till
he died, alone. And if the Creator could frame those fair flowers in the midst
of that wilderness to live and die with never an eye to see, surely they were
better than if they had all been gathered to fade upon the hair of a million
queens.
There is no solitude, man can make friendship with
nature if he or she is betrayed.
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