Le favole di Lucia
The Barracuda
Once
upon a time, in the deep sea, there was a wire statue of the
Virgin Mary that had been lost after the wreck of a ship in
which she was being carried.
She (the Virgin Mary) still remembered Her fall in the abysses of the sea. All had happened very slowly, and the clear and bright world She has seen on the surface had become indefinite and soft in the water. Less clear of course, but also less frenzied.
On arriving at the bottom of the sea the statue had settled between Once upon a time there was a barracuda. He had sharp teeth and some blades all over his body. But he was a kind-hearted and good-natured fish, so he had had all his teeth filed by the dentist and his blades blunted, so that they had become nice, harmless curls, made only of lame.
In fact, not to frighten the other fish, the barracuda decorated his curls with lame and when he met the other fish, he appeared as handsome as a dandy.
Usually the barracuda arrived when the sea waters were warmer and it was a pleasure for him to leave the fierce barracudas of the usual seas and reach that stretch of sea which only in summer became very hot, as he liked.
One day the other fish (that by then considered him as one of them, quite harmless and fashionable) asked him:<< Please, tell us why you have had your teeth .made so well that they look like a string of pearls rather than a metallic saw and have had you sharp fins trimmed, so that they look like angel feathers. Wasn’t it better for you to go on being bad?>>
<<No, said the barracuda, It was more difficult. It would have been finer and easier if the other barracudas had come with me and I hadn’t been alone. But, that being so, I always stood alone, you were afraid of me and I was sad, because I was abandoned to myself. Bad people are happy if they keep together with other bad people.
On the contrary, if one is alone he can’t always be bad. Sooner or later he surrenders and proves that he had a good heart ad tender feelings. Do you understand?>>
When he stopped speaking, the group of fish that stood in front of him wiped tears of tenderness for the fish that was for all the dandy of those waters.
She (the Virgin Mary) still remembered Her fall in the abysses of the sea. All had happened very slowly, and the clear and bright world She has seen on the surface had become indefinite and soft in the water. Less clear of course, but also less frenzied.
On arriving at the bottom of the sea the statue had settled between Once upon a time there was a barracuda. He had sharp teeth and some blades all over his body. But he was a kind-hearted and good-natured fish, so he had had all his teeth filed by the dentist and his blades blunted, so that they had become nice, harmless curls, made only of lame.
In fact, not to frighten the other fish, the barracuda decorated his curls with lame and when he met the other fish, he appeared as handsome as a dandy.
Usually the barracuda arrived when the sea waters were warmer and it was a pleasure for him to leave the fierce barracudas of the usual seas and reach that stretch of sea which only in summer became very hot, as he liked.
One day the other fish (that by then considered him as one of them, quite harmless and fashionable) asked him:<< Please, tell us why you have had your teeth .made so well that they look like a string of pearls rather than a metallic saw and have had you sharp fins trimmed, so that they look like angel feathers. Wasn’t it better for you to go on being bad?>>
<<No, said the barracuda, It was more difficult. It would have been finer and easier if the other barracudas had come with me and I hadn’t been alone. But, that being so, I always stood alone, you were afraid of me and I was sad, because I was abandoned to myself. Bad people are happy if they keep together with other bad people.
On the contrary, if one is alone he can’t always be bad. Sooner or later he surrenders and proves that he had a good heart ad tender feelings. Do you understand?>>
When he stopped speaking, the group of fish that stood in front of him wiped tears of tenderness for the fish that was for all the dandy of those waters.