FAIRY TALE ABOUT A STOOL

Once upon a time in a dense forest lived a beautiful ash-tree. It was very slender and high. This ash-tree was the main treasure of the forest. But one day a woodcutter came and felled it… and our ash gave birth to a nice table, three bookcases and a marvellous stool. It was polished and decorated by a wonderful carving.

All the family of the ash’s children settled in a big house. It was a wonderful old house that belonged to a noble family and was given to them by a tsar. There were a lot of gold decorations, beautiful flowers and a gallery of portraits. There were fifty rooms and our ash’s family lived in one of them, called Library. In it there were millions of books with red and blue covers made of leather and rich collection of different maps. There was also a fire-place where lived a funny creature – fire – which was singing and mumbling all day long, changing its colors from yellow to red. But the most significant person was the owner of the library and the house. He was tall, with black eyes and black hair. He used to reading books at night very often till the dawn.

Once a girl came to this library. She had long curling blonde hair and shiny blue eyes. She was very young and naive – at least so it seemed to our stool. The stool was very clever and could understand a lot of things. The owner and the girl were having tea in the library. The fire was mumbling and singing as usual and the girl was asking so many questions! But the man didn’t answer her – he was only smiling and might be thinking of other cases. Our stool felt that something happened – something was divined between those two sitting near the fire. But he was only a stool and couldn’t understand all the intricacies of human life…

War broke out. It was rather a strange war – between citizens of the same country. And the home of the ash’s family was demolished. His owner was sent into prison and after he left the country. All the books and maps were burned with bookcases and a table. And our stool was saved by a miracle and found himself in a dump.

He felt very lonely and missed his family and friends – fire, books and maps - very much. But very soon a man picked him up. He was very strong but poorly dressed and had only a small house. So the stool found his new home in a kitchen, small but lovely, reigned a corpulent woman. She was cooking all day long. So all day long the stool could smell different kinds of food. The woman had seven naughty children who were running and playing and shouting from morning till night. They never went to school and because of that and also because of the lack of attention were a little bit rude. Very soon they began to use a stool in their games pretending that it was a horse. The stool suffered very much. One day they thought that they could cut the stool leg so that their father would fall during the supper. Their plan was successful – father fell and the stool was broken and sent to a dump again.

He was now living in a dump. Autumn came with its rains and cold winds and the stool was crying because of loneliness and helplessness.

Once a man was passing by. He had long dark hair and looked like an artist. He took the stool to his lonely windy hut where the poor stool had been lying for years. But on a sunny morning the man took the stool and cut the rest of his legs and began to paint its chair-bottom. He took blue paint and it became the sky-blue, green – the green color of young grass, yellow – the golden-yellow, red – the red color of poppies. It was a miracle… He was painting all day and all night long, his eyes were shining as the fire, which had been living in a fireplace always singing and mumbling, – he painted the Saint Virgin with the Baby in her hands.

After years of work the painting or it’s better to say the icon was finished. Only a small crack on the wood spoiled it a little. And the man thought a little and then painted tears on the face of the Mother. Tears that hid the crack. Tears that were as shiny as pearl.

After the death of the painter this icon or painting became the world treasure like long long time ago an ash-tree had been the treasure of the forest. It was demonstrated in the museums all over the world – in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, London, Oslo, Copenhagen, Madrid, Lisbon, New York, Washington and… Paris. And one day a woman came in a big light museum hall in Paris. She wasn’t young but she had very beautiful shiny blue eyes. When she looked at the icon she burst into tears. And her tears as shiny as pearl were like tears painted on the face of the Mother. And an elderly man with black eyes and grey hair, which in his youth were black as wing of a raven, brought near to her. The man embraced the crying woman… The owner of a noble house and the naive girl with shiny blue eyes… The mumbling fire… The stool… The feeling… feeling, a divine feeling, which had appeared in a home library now was shining as sun in the huge museum hall.