Once upon a time there was a merchant.
From his wheeled stall, he sold the most beautiful masks – masks of humans, animals, and monsters, with long noses and angry eyes, adorned with little bells and inlaid pearls of every colour. Whenever an interested passerby came near, he would demonstrate the quality of his masks with great flair, lifting them one by one and holding them before his face.
One day, the brake that held the stall in place gave way, and the little cart suddenly sped down the hillside.
The merchant ran after it, crying out in alarm: “Stop my cart! My whole livelihood is in there!”
But none of the villagers dared to throw themselves in its path.
The cart gained even more speed, until at last it hurtled down the cliff and tumbled into the ravine.
The merchant climbed down and beheld the ruin. All his masks lay shattered, and all his gold coins had been scattered and lost along the way.
The only thing that remained to him was the bowl in which he had kept his apples. Yet the apples themselves were nowhere to be found.
He fell to his knees.
In despair, he burst into tears. He wept and wept, until his tears slowly filled the bowl in his hands. And in that bowl of tears, he saw his own face.
Then a single sunbeam broke through the clouds. Its light caught upon the surface of the tears and streamed into the depths of the ravine.
The merchant followed the beam with his gaze, and there, against the cliff wall, hung a ladder.
He let the tears flow from the bowl onto the ground, tucked the empty bowl into his coat, and took hold of the rungs.
With steady hands, he climbed until he had left the ravine behind him.
At the top of the cliff there grew a magnificent tree, laden with full, round apples—green, yellow, and red.
The merchant drew his bowl from his coat and filled it with fruit.
And the following day, he went to the market, and sold apples instead.
The End
