Happiness can be a little hard to come by at the moment. One of our work placement students, Zyginta Juskute, has translated this tale for us, showing us where happiness can be found.
“Take care, little one!” said the landlady to a tiny Spider, after saving him from the vacuum cleaner’s throat. “And bring me happiness!”
"What a good woman," thought the Spider, shrugging in the corner. His tiny body and eight legs were still shaking from the hurricane that had just passed by! “I have to repay the landlady. After all, everyone says that we, spiders, bring happiness! But where can I find it?”
The Spider began to climb up the wall, clinging to his soft grey spider web. He reached the windowsill and sat there to think. He saw the orchid next to him and froze in amazement! The orchid’s blossoms had just unfolded. They were so beautiful!
“Do you bring happiness?” The Spider asked the orchid.
“Me?” she was surprised by the question. She thought for a while and continued talking: “Well, probably not quite, although you can say so. But really, I am just a flower.”
"Oh, sorry for bothering you then," The tiny Spider sighed and started climbing down the windowsill.
Then, a sunbeam started shining through the window.
“Oh, how bright and warm you are!” exclaimed the Spider. “You really bring happiness!”
"No," the sunbeam laughed. “I'm just a ray of sunshine. But people always smile when they see me”.
The little Spider warmed up and walked away. He saw an old and dusty book laying on the shelf.
“Are you full of happiness?” he asked her. The Spider couldn’t read, but he thought that all books had happy endings.
"I don't know," the book sighed. “The one who wrote me often said that he wasn’t happy…”
The little Spider became very upset because his search for happiness was hitting one dead end after another. So he went to the kitchen and hid in one of the shelves.
A mailman knocked on the door. The landlady opened the door and the mailman gave her a letter. She carefully read it and maybe to herself, or maybe to the tiny Spider, said:
“What a happy day! I got such great news, the sun is shining, and my orchid has bloomed. Thank you, Spider!”
“You’re thanking me?” The Spider didn't understand. “People are strange… I didn't bring anything to her and I couldn’t even figure out what happiness was... I need to think about this…”
He webbed himself a tiny hammock, got comfortable in it and thought about this strange situation. But he was very tired after today’s adventure, so he quickly fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Translated from Moon Tales by Ona Jautakiene
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