the coast of Wales, which was just “over the pond,” he said. And his wife remained at home with her little girl, and the fact was that she soon cared more for the poor frog with the gentle eyes and deep sighs than the lovely girl who scratched and bit her.
The raw, damp autumn fogs that gnaw leaves, which they called
The storks were in Egypt, where the sun was shining warmly like a lovely summer day here. The tamarind and acacia trees were flowering everywhere. The crescent moon of Mohammed shone brightly from the domes of the temples, and there were many pairs of storks resting on the slender towers after their long trip. Big flocks of them had nests next to each other on the enormous columns and broken arches of temples and forgotten ruins. The date palm lifted its umbrella roof high up, as if it wanted to be a parasol. The greyish white pyramids stood like shady outlines against the clear sky towards the desert, where the ostrich knew it could use its legs, and the lion sat with big wise eyes and watched the marble sphinx that lay half buried in the sand. The waters of the Nile had receded, and the entire riverbed was crawling with frogs, and for the stork family this was the most beautiful view in the whole country. The young ones thought that it was an optical illusion, so incredible did they find everything.
“This is what it’s like here, and it’s always like this here in our warm land!” said stork mother, and the little ones’ stomachs tingled.
“Is there more to see?” they asked, “are we going to travel further into the country?”
“There’s nothing more to see!” said stork mother. “On the fertile side there’s only trackless forest where the trees grow into each other and are entangled with prickly vines. Only the elephants with their thick legs can find their way through there. The snakes there are too big for us, and the lizards are too lively. And if you go into the desert, you’ll get sand in your eyes at best, and at the worst you’ll get into a sand storm. No, it’s best here! There are frogs and grasshoppers! I’m staying here, and so are you!”
And they stayed. The old storks sat in their nests on the slender minarets and rested, but still were busy grooming their feathers and rubbing their red stockings with their beaks. Then they lifted their necks, greeted each other solemnly, and raised their heads with the high foreheads and their fine, smooth feathers. Their brown eyes shone so wisely. The little female storks walked solemnly through the succulent reeds, glanced at the other young storks, made acquaintances, and with every third step, swallowed a frog, or walked around with a little snake dangling from their bills. They thought it looked becoming, and the snakes were tasty. The young male storks quarreled with each other, flapped their wings at each other, pecked with their beaks, even drawing blood, and then one got engaged and another got engaged, the young females and the young males. This was what they lived for, after all. They built nests, and then came new quarreling, since in the hot countries everyone is so hot tempered. But it was all fun and brought great joy to the old storks. One’s own children can do no wrong! The sun shone every day, and every day there was plenty of food. There was nothing to do but enjoy oneself. But inside the rich palace of the Egyptian landlord, as they called him, there was no enjoyment.
The rich, powerful master lay on a couch, all of his limbs stiff. He was stretched out like a mummy in the middle of the big hall with the colorfully painted walls. It looked like he was lying in a tulip. Relatives and servants stood around him. He wasn’t dead, but it couldn’t really be said that he was living either. The water lily flower from the northern land, the one that had to be sought and picked by the one who loved him best, the one that could bring deliverance, would never be brought. His beautiful young daughter, who had flown away over sea and shore in the shape of a swan, far towards the north, would never come back. “She is dead and gone,” the two returning swan maidens had reported. They had constructed a whole story between the two of them, and it went like this:
“All three of us flew high up in the air. A hunter saw us and shot his arrow. It hit our young friend, and slowly she sank like a dying swan down into a forest lake, singing her last farewell. We buried her there on the bank under a fragrant weeping birch. But we have taken revenge. We tied smoldering tinder under the wing of a swallow that nested under the eave of the hunter’s reed roof. It flared up. The house went up in flames, and he was burned to death. The flames lit up the lake all the way to the weeping birch, where she now lies, earth in earth. She’ll never come back to Egypt.”
They both cried, and when stork father heard the story, he chattered his beak so it rattled: “Lies and fabrication!” he cried. “I would like to stab them in the heart with my beak!”
“And break it off,” said stork mother. “Then you’d look really attractive! Think about yourself and your family first. You should keep out of everything else.”
“But I’ll sit up on the edge of the open dome tomorrow when all the wise and learned men gather to talk about the sick man. Maybe then they’ll come a little closer to the truth.”
And the wise and learned men gathered and talked a lot, talked widely about things that the stork couldn’t get anything out of—and nothing came out of it for the sick man either, or for his daughter in the bog. But we may as well listen a little bit, since there’s so much to listen to anyway.
Indeed, the right thing is to hear and know what happened before this, so we can follow the story better. We should at least know as much about it as stork father does:
“Love brings forth life! The highest love brings forth the highest life! His life’s salvation can only be won through love!” is what was said, and it was exceptionally wise and well said, the learned ones assured each other.
“That’s a lovely thought,” stork father said right away.
“I don’t quite understand it,” said stork mother, “but that’s not my fault. It’s the idea’s fault. But it doesn’t make any difference because I have other things to think about.”
And then the learned men had talked about love in one way and another, and the difference between the love between lovers and that between parents and children; between the light and growing things, how the sun kisses the mud and that causes sprouts to shoot forth—it was so long-winded and technically explained that it became impossible for stork father to follow along, much less repeat it. He became quite pensive about it, partly closed his eyes, and stood on one leg for a whole day afterwards. Scholarship was very difficult for him to bear.
But stork father had understood one thing. He had heard both the common people and the most distinguished speak from their hearts. It was a great misfortune for thousands of people, and for the whole country too, that that man had taken ill and wouldn’t recover. It would be a joy and blessing if he could regain his health. “But where does the flower grow that can bring him back to health?” They had all asked that, searched in long articles, in the twinkling stars, in wind and weather, searched all the roundabout methods that could be found, and finally the learned and wise, as already mentioned, found the answer: “Love brings forth life, the life of the father,” and in this they were saying more than they realized themselves. Then they repeated this and wrote it up as a prescription : “Love brings forth life,” but how the whole thing was going to be worked out, they didn’t know. Finally they agreed that the help must come through the princess—she who loved her father with all her heart and soul. They also
