The Traveler's Secret
ONCE THERE WAS a man named Augustus who owned a wine business and who lived with his wife Nina and their beloved little daughter. For two years the little girl had been the joy of her parents. But one sad day, when his wife Nina was cooking some broth for the child and her daughter was playing in the sunshine in the garden, a stranger broke into their yard, seized the child, and ran away.
You can only imagine the despair of her parents! They tried everything to get her back again, but all was in vain. They had nothing left to do but to comfort each other in their suffering.
After five years of crying and lamenting, they still had not found a single trace of their daughter.
One evening, as Augustus was coming home, there appeared before him a little boy about seven years old beside the road, who cried out, "Please, sir, I'm so hungry!"
Augustus said to the boy, "Well, little fellow, come home with me. We'll have some supper together."
"Well, little fellow, come home with me. We'll have some supper together."
Then he took the boy's hand. "What's your name, son?"
"Oresto," said the boy.
"Where is your mother?"
"My mother died just two days ago," said the boy. "They buried her."
Augustus squeezed the boy's hand.
"And where is your father?"
"I never knew him," said the child. "I was two years old when he went away from mother and me to 'seek his fortune in the world,' as he said in his note. Since then we never heard from him."
"I'm so sorry," said Augustus. The idea occurred to him of adopting the little fellow, to be a joy and comfort to them in their sorrow. But, of course, he had to talk to his wife Nina about it first.
Augustus was delighted to see how well his wife took to the little boy.
And so Augustus and Nina adopted the child. As he grew up, Oresto showed so much gratitude and love for his foster parents that the couple was ever grateful they had taken him into their lives. When he was growing up he was always anxious to please, and in school he learned so well that soon he could read and write very well.
And so Augustus and Nina adopted the child.
When Oresto was old enough, Augustus took him into the wine business, where the young man made himself very useful in delivering goods from house to house.
But this sort of business did not please Oresto very much, because he wanted the kind of business that would enable him to increase his parents' wealth and secure their old age.
So Augustus gave his foster son some money when he was eighteen years old. With this, Oresto bought a load of hay and sold it at a good profit.
Then Oresto bought and sold more hay, and with those profits he bought still more hay. In a short time with all earned money, he was able to buy a horse and wagon. His business was going very well indeed.
Good fortune seemed to smile on the little house. Yet tears were still often shed at the memory of the lost daughter, whom her parents had not been able to forget in spite of Oresto's presence. Now and then, Nina's look became gloomy. When Oresto came home he often found his mother (as he thought of her) in great distress.
Yet tears were still often shed at the memory of the lost daughter.
He wanted so much to comfort her. The young man would have given half his life if he could have found out what fate the poor little girl had met.
Meanwhile, Oresto had built himself a larger house on a hill with a lawn around it, and he asked his foster parents to move over and live in it with him. Augustus gave up his wine business. Every day he stayed at home and enjoyed working in the garden beside his good wife, and almost all the time they talked about their fine young son.
One Sunday, as they were all three at dinner, they heard a knock at the door. Oresto went to the door, and came back to tell Augustus and Nina that a traveler was outside and was asking for a place to stay and rest for a little while. The three of them welcomed him in. The traveler was an old man with gray hair and wore a big straw hat that hid his whole face.
"Thank you," said the traveler. He placed his large walking staff in the corner and looked round him. "I've been on the road since yesterday without food or rest," he said. "I will be so thankful to you if you can give me a little of both."
"Sit down, please," said Nina. Oresto brought a plate and placed it before the guest. "As you can see," she said, "we're all alone here, so we're glad to talk to travelers who can tell us what's going on in the world."
The traveler answered quietly, "I'm afraid I cannot tell you very much, dear lady, for I have been sick more than a year. It's only a few days since I came out of the cave where I live."
All were silent. They did not talk about this anymore during the rest of the meal. It seemed as if they all intentionally spoke of ordinary things, because they did not wish to pry.
Later, when they were all sitting around the hearth, Nina looked into the fire as she was accustomed to doing, and cried out suddenly, "Oh! Whatever has become of my poor little girl!"
The traveler then asked with interest if they had had a daughter. Nina told him of that terrible occurrence. The traveler listened to her with growing attention. Now and then he wiped drops of sweat from his forehead, to the great surprise of Augustus and Oresto. To them, it seemed as if the room were rather cold rather than warm..
Now and then he wiped drops of sweat from his forehead.
Frequently the traveler interrupted Nina to question her about certain details.
When Nina had finished her story, the old man seemed as pale as stone. He stared steadily at Oresto, then he collapsed and fainted.
"Poor fellow!" said Nina. "He spoke truly when he said that he was still very sick. I'll make up a bed so that he can lie down."
Oresto carried the stranger in his arms to the bed and laid him carefully upon it. The old man's eyes opened, and he gazed around him, whispering: "Cecilia." Then he went to sleep. Apparently he slept well the whole night, for at daybreak he was up and departed.
Oresto, who was also up at dawn to sell his hay in town, climbed up on his wagonload of hay to drive his horse into town. But shortly along the road in town, great was his surprise to see the old traveler standing before him in the middle of the road. The old man called to him and asked him to stop.
"What do you wish, my good man?" said Oresto, drawing up the horse and climbing down from the wagon.
"I have something very important to talk to you about, that I could not say in the presence of your parents."
"Then I don't care to know anything about it," said Oresto. "I have no secrets from my mother and father."
"I beg you," said the traveler, "to make an exception for me, an old man, and perhaps very near death. I have a secret that weighs heavily on my heart, and that I must share with you."
"I have a secret that weighs heavily on my heart, and that I must share with you."
"Has it anything to do with me?"
"Yes. And sooner or later, you must hear where you came from."
Oresto stared at the old man. "Tell me then."
"Not here," said the old man. "Hitch your horse to the tree and come into the entrance of my cave. There nobody else can hear us, and you can also keep an eye on your horse and wagon."
The cave was only a few steps away. Oresto tied the horse and went with the stranger to the entrance of the cave. Inside the cave was dark. Finally the stranger spoke.
"Do you love Augustus and Nina very much?" he said.
"How can you ask? I cannot repay them my whole life long as I would like to, for all the kindnesses they have shown me."
"Oh yes, you can. For you will get back their daughter whom they have mourned for so many years."
"Where is she?" cried Oresto. "Do you know?"
"Yes, I do," said the old man, "and I will tell you, but only on condition that you pardon her kidnapper and do not try to take revenge on him."
"I will tell you, but only on condition that you pardon her kidnapper."
"Tell me the miserable wretch who stole the little girl away from her parents."
"It was I."
Oresto gave a great cry. Enraged, he lifted his hand as if to strike the old man, but catching sight of his gray hair and remembering his promise, he lay down his hand.
At the same instant part of the back wall vanished. In the opening a fairy appeared in a blaze of light. The fairy pointed at the old man, and looked to Oresto. She announced, "Oresto, that man is your father."
The fairy vanished and the wall closed. It was as dark as before.
Oresto felt as if someone had struck him on the head with a hammer. That was his own father? The one who said he had stolen his foster parents' little girl? He had to feel himself over several times to make sure his head was still on his shoulders.
And yet, suddenly also there came over him an endless love for this old man, missing for so many years, who at that moment seemed like a living picture of misery.
Oresto fell down on his knees and said, "Oh father, forgive me, I understand nothing of all this."
"Oh father, forgive me, I understand nothing of all this."
The traveler grasped his shoulders, pressed him to his heart, and said, "It is I who must ask you for forgiveness. I beg you to have compassion on my wrong deeds, that I am only now trying to set right."
"I only dimly remember you," said Oresto, "but my mother always taught me to respect you."
"Ah, your mother!" said the old man. "How I loved her."
"Then why did you desert her?"
"Listen to me carefully. Take in what I say, my son, and I hope you will understand. A man cannot successfully strive against the laws of nature." Oresto looked puzzled.
This is the story the old man told:
"When I was a child, I was terribly afraid of death. The thought that sometime everyone must meet the same fate and go out of this life into the mystery of the grave, it terrified me. I would have sold my soul to the devil if he had promised me everlasting life on earth.
"When I met your mother, I fell madly in love with her. But this cowardly fear prevented me from asking her to marry me. I worried that if I would die before her, she might marry again. In my poor mind this doubt grew until it caused me fearful anxiety.
"Finally, I learned that at the foot of a neighboring mountain lived a wizard who could tell the future. I went to the wizard. He promised me that he would guarantee me a life of two hundred years if I would make an agreement with him. I was delighted of course, and hastily accepted all his conditions.
The wizard said, 'You shall marry Anita (that was the name of your mother), but the first child the two of you have shall belong to me. I live in a crystal palace at the bottom of the sea. You can get to it only through a cave at the mountain where you found me. Bring the child to me through that cave. The cave will lead to my underwater crystal palace. Here is a map.' With these words the wizard handed me a little scroll of parchment. And on the parchment the way was drawn so clearly that one could not go astray.
"As I didn't know at that time what a father's love really is, I thought the agreement of little importance.
"As I didn't know at that time what a father's love really is, I thought the agreement of little importance."
"I cheerfully signed the contract the wizard handed me. My only thought was to marry Anita as quickly as I could and live a long life with her. But before the wizard let me go he said, 'Beware: If you do not fulfill this agreement, you will die at once, and so will your wife and child.'
"Some weeks later I married your mother, and she was the dearest wife in the world. But soon my suffering began. When you were born, your mother noticed that I was not overjoyed as she had hoped. I could not, and would not, tell her about the agreement with the wizard.
“It made me miserable to think that the poor little baby, for which I would have gladly given everything, must pay for the long years I had bargained for myself. My love for you, son, was boundless. When you grew bigger, I almost forgot the horrible contract. It seemed as if I was the luckiest man in the world. My trifling earnings were hardly enough to keep us alive, but I didn't care about that. My riches were seen in your eyes, your wonderful eyes, which you used to look at me when you began to call me Father.
"So a few years went quickly by. One night the terrible wizard appeared. He reminded me of the agreement. He threatened me, your mother and you with death if I did not bring him the child immediately.
“The next morning, I woke up and you were both sick with fever. I understood the warning. Almost crazy with fear, I wrote a few words to my dear wife Anita, saying that I was going away to look for better luck, and that sooner or later I would come back.
"I ran into the fields, arrived right here at this neighborhood, and caught sight of a little girl playing in a garden. Instantly, I decided to steal the girl, give her to the wizard instead of you, and then to go home again to my wife. And so, I'm afraid that that is what I did. I found the wizard using the parchment map that took us from the mountain cave to his underwater crystal palace.
"Instantly, I decided to steal the girl."
"When the wizard saw me coming with the little girl, he said, "If you had delayed just one more hour, that would have been the end of you all."
"The little girl began to cry. I tried to quiet her, and for some reason called her Cecilia. That seemed to make her quiet again. So that's what I named her and call her to this day.
"The wizard asked me, 'What did your wife say when you took away the little child?' I was afraid what else to say and so I said, 'She cursed me, and swore that she would never see me again.'
"Ah, I thought she would say that," said the wizard. "Now I can show you a favor.'
"A chill went over me at these words. I stammered, 'Thank you, sir. But I do not wish any other reward than the two hundred years of life that you promised.'
"Yes, that is understood - you are to live two hundred years. But of course, only if you do not make an attempt to steal Cecilia from me, because that would be breaking our agreement, now wouldn't it? But I will do more for you. Since you cannot return to your wife, you shall stay here with your daughter and bring her up.'
"I wanted to make some reply, but the wizard said, 'That is my desire, and it will be so. Bring up the child for me, and on her 18th birthday I will return for her. If you let her escape from here, or if you try to escape yourself, you will die. But it will be impossible for you to escape anyway, for at this moment my palace has separated itself from the bottom of the sea. We are now drifting about among the seaweed and coral.' I was convinced that must be true, because I felt the house rocking as if I were on ship.
"If you let her escape from here, or if you try to escape yourself, you will die."
"I won't try to describe to you the anxiety, remorse and the sting of conscience which tortured me the whole time I was imprisoned there. I had left my wife and child, I had taken another mother's little girl, and the two of us were trapped.
“I had only one comfort. That was little Cecilia, who grew to love me as much as if I were really her father, and she was as truly as dear a daughter as any father could want. Nothing was lacking to make life comfortable there. I was given all the books I wanted with which to teach her. I never told her about the wizard's intention of how he could come for her when she became 18 years old. I just tried to make our time together are pleasant as possible.
"After a voyage of ten years under the sea, my obedience won the confidence of the wizard. He attached the crystal palace back to the bottom of the sea. And so we were connected again with the mainland.
“I was permitted to go out three days a year so I could visit my friends. He intended to please me with this, and he was right. I put on these traveler's clothes so I would not be recognized. As my hair had already become gray before its time, no one even recognized me anyway. For six years now I have been coming once a year out from the crystal palace.
“The first time I ventured out, I learned of my poor wife Anita's death, but no one could tell me what had become of you, my son.
"I looked for you on each of my trips to the mainland. Finally, I decided to try and find Cecilia's parents. I was in despair of ever finding you, was conscience-stricken and bowed with grief, and I wanted to at least give them back their daughter. Fate was kind to me at last, as you know, when your foster parents invited me in.
"Now my son, I have no other desire except to help you to show yourself grateful to these unhappy people who took care of you and brought you up and have suffered so much because of what I did years ago. I want to take you to their daughter, so you can return her to them at last."
"I want to take you to their daughter, so you can return her to them at last."
Oresto listened to his father with the greatest attention.
"But then, what would happen to you, father?"
"How can I know? But I know that Cecilia is nearly eighteen, and she must be returned to her parents before the wizard comes back for her."
Oresto embraced the old man, and received from him these hints for rescuing Cecilia:
"Come at noon time," said his father when they were about to separate. "At that time the wizard will be asleep and I can help you. Now I have to hurry and return to the crystal palace, for if my absence extends over the time allowed, Cecilia and I will both be severely punished."
"Good-bye, father," said Oresto. "Tomorrow at noon I will be at the entrance to crystal palace. Leave the door open for me."
The old man went away. Instead of going to town, Oresto turned around and in a short time was home again.
The next morning, Oresto said to his parents, "I had a dream last night about your daughter Cecilia. Who knows? Perhaps I might find her."
"Cecilia?" cried both his parents, looking at each other, puzzled. "Her name was Teresa."
Oresto regretted the slip of the tongue. "Oh, of course," he said quickly.
Nina and Augustus looked at one another with concern. But they did not want to dampen the spirits of their son, and so they sent him on his way.
The entrance to the mountain cave was hidden from the eyes of all people, but Oresto found it easily enough with the directions given to him by his father. He tied his horse to a column of coral and walked inside.
After a while the cave led to an immensely long crystal room, which extended right to the sea. Through its clear walls, he looked out upon the whole moving animal life under the surface of the sea, like an underground aquarium. In the green water Oresto gazed up with astonishment at silvery and golden fishes with glittering scales scurrying about. He finally arrived to a golden gate, which he easily opened.
A crystal door led him into a vestibule, around which he could see the doors of many richly furnished rooms. The smell of the sea was very strong here, almost too strong. At that moment the gray head of his father appeared through one of the doors. Oresto smiled. The old man took the boy by the hand and led him out onto a balcony.
At that moment the gray head of his father appeared through one of the doors.
He asked the lad to sit and wait for him a moment. He soon returned with a young girl. At the sight of her, Oresto was lost in amazement. Her oval face and sky-blue eyes had an warmth of her foster mother, snd the kindness of her foster father. Yet there was expression of sorrow under it all.
The girl held out her hand to Oresto in a friendly way. She said, "I know we're going to love each other like brother and sister, since we exchanged our parents when we were children. Take me back to my mother and father. And we will all live near one another in happiness."
The three of them set out, but Oresto kept constantly looking at the girl. There was something about her that continued to draw him toward her. The old man smiled as he noticed this, nurturing a secret wish. The last trace of sadness disappeared from his face and he seemed almost young again.
The old man smiled as he noticed this, nurturing a secret wish.
"Listen, my children," he said when they reached the edge of the mountain cave. "I will say good-bye to you now, perhaps forever."
"What?" cried both the young people, astonished. "Aren't you going to come with us?"
"I'm afraid not," said the old man. "I want to spare you the sight of my death."
"What is that you say?" cried Cecilia. "I will not leave here if that means you will face any kind of danger. I will not leave this house without you, father."
The old man regretted that he had said so much. He answered, "Well then, if you wish, I will go with you."
They walked on and came out on dry land, but they had hardly started their journey when a terrible explosion deafened from within the mountain. Something had gone terribly wrong.
The old man turned pale and clung to Cecilia. She said, "What is the matter? Are you ill?"
"No, no," replied the old man in a weak voice.
Oresto lifted him and Cecilia into the saddle and led the horse by the bridle along the road home. In just minutes, the old man had become weaker and weaker. He begged them to stop, and Oresto carried the old man to the ground. The weak old man asked Oresto to set him down under a leafy tree.
In just minutes, the old man had become weaker and weaker.
"Come closer," said the old man. They did, and he continued in a soft voice, "The wizards' revenge had to reach me as soon as I broke my agreement. But of course, sooner or later we must all die."
"You'll get better," said Oresto. "Just rest."
"Ah!" said the old man. "I made so many terrible mistakes in my life! I bargained away my future child for a few years of added life. I stole little Cecilia away from her parents. I abandoned my own son. The extra years of life mean nothing to me for the pain I caused to others. At least now, at the end of my life, I started to set things right. I don’t mind death! Though I'll never know if Cecilia's parents would ever forgive me."
"Ah!" said the old man. "I made so many terrible mistakes in my life!"
Oresto and Cecilia looked at each other uncomfortably for a moment. At last Cecilia said, "You must rest now."
"Take it easy, father," said Oresto.
The old man closed his eyes and died. In death, his face showed the peace that he had not known in life. Suddenly there was a flash a light, for a moment blinding Oresto and Cecilia. A fairy appeared - Oresto realized it was the very same fairy from the cave earlier. The fairy lifted up the old man's body, there was another flash of light, and they were both gone.
Oresto and Cecilia looked around in wonder. Slowly and sadly, they continued on the road to Oresto's home. However the moment they arrived, all trace of sadness vanished. You can imagine how thrilled beyond belief Augustus and Nina were to find out that Cecilia was their long-lost daughter, now standing there before them!
Oh, how they hugged and kissed and carried on for hours! At last, when all of them had settled with tea and cookies, Oresto and Cecilia told their full story. Now it was time for Augustus and Nina to be astonished all over again.
Oh, how they hugged and kissed and carried on for hours!
"He wondered if you could ever forgive him," said Cecilia finally. Nina and Augustus looked at each other.
"It seems you have forgiven him, my child," said Nina.
Nina said, "Yes."
The mother and father looked at each other. Nina said, "Then we do, too."
The old man’s secret wish on his dying day was fulfilled in less than a year, when the wedding took place of Oresto and Cecilia. And the married couple, along with Augustus and Nina, lived happily together for many years to come.
