Le favole di Lucia
The shell
Once
upon a time, there was a small seaside village. It was situated
in an inlet and was so small that it seemed to be contained
in one hand. In the morning, at sunrise, the village became
blue; at sunset, when the moon rose in the sky, it became pink.
In that village there was a small group of women; they were
in very good terms with one another. In winter, when they stopped
doing their housework, they sat around the fireside; in summer
they stood at the doors of their houses and while embroidering
or knitting away, they spoke ill of everyone and everything.
Nothing came off well. There was always one of them who found
fault with someone or said unkind and harsh words here and there.
One day a fairy passed by that group of women; she was invisible
and the women couldn’t see her, but the fairy heard what
they were saying. She got so deeply vexed that she decided to
shut the words which had been said somewhere. She looked down
and then thought of shutting them in the sea shells that would
certainly have been good shelters; the words put there Have
no more gone away.
But something incredible happened. The shells began to repeat
the unkind words which had been said before by the women. The
fairy thought it over, then she decided to prevent the shells
from speaking and left them dumb. Or something like this.
“And the words? Where shall I put them?” she said
to herself. The fairy took her time, then she decided upon what
to do and said: “The words must be entrusted to someone
and have a master. Since the shells have been silly, I’ll
confide some secrets only to the ones that are able to repeat
them to the ears of the human beings they will choose.
I’ll give back the words to the women, because no doubt
they are sometimes bad, but can also find words full of goodness
and sweetness. She did so; the words came back to the women
and the secrets remained in the shells because the women couldn’t
keep them at all.
In fact, if you sometimes lean a shell against your ear, you
will be able to listen very fine stories which are parts of
wonderful secrets.
But pay attention not to say this to the women!