The daughter-in-law did not like her mother-in-law and constantly slandered her to her husband. He turned a deaf ear to her slander, but she, without knowing peace, did everything to quarrel between her son and mother. Every time she prepared dinner, she tried to over-salt her mother-in-law's dish. The poor old woman meekly ate everything so as not to starve, and then, languishing with thirst, she woke up at night and drank water.
One day a wife said to her husband:
- No, I can’t be silent anymore! You don’t listen to me, you don’t believe me, you just have to complain to people. I can't stand it anymore!
- What happened? - asked the husband.
- What's happened? Your mother has become an incredible glutton. Whatever I hide, she takes it out at night and eats it.
The husband guessed about his wife’s tricks and knew that the poor mother got up every night to drink water. One evening he said to his wife:
– Make wheat tortillas with cheese for dinner, and add more cheese.
“Okay,” she answered and began to cook. She over-salted the flatbreads intended for her mother-in-law, as usual, and marked them so as not to mix them up. When everything was ready, she laid them out on the table and pushed them over to her mother-in-law.
But the husband, seizing the moment when his wife was removing the cauldron from the fire, deftly moved the over-salted cakes to the place where his wife was supposed to sit.
As soon as the daughter-in-law tried it, she guessed that she had somehow gotten the flatbreads that she had prepared for her mother-in-law, but nothing could be corrected - she had to eat them.
After dinner we went to bed. When the wife fell asleep, the husband slowly got up and poured all the water out of the jug.
At midnight the wife woke up, tormented by thirst. She got up and took the jug, but there was no water in it. She decided to be patient and lay down, but could not stand it, got dressed and went to the source, which was located not far from the house.
The husband guessed where she was going and followed. The night was dark. When his wife bent over to the water, he crept up and said: “Duty to your mother-in-law! Duty to my mother,” he began to plunge her head into the water.
- Waa-waa! - the frightened wife screamed, choking. - I'm missing! This is what punishes me: Duty to my mother-in-law. Forgive me, Debt, I will no longer offend my mother-in-law!
Then the husband let her go and ran away. The daughter-in-law, barely catching her breath and staggering, returned home. As soon as she opened the door, her husband, as if half asleep, raised his head and grumbled displeasedly:
-Where have you been? Why are you wandering around at night?
- Oh, don't tell me! I almost died!
And the wife told about everything that happened to her, not realizing that her husband had arranged it.
- I'm disgraced. “I was punished by my duty to my mother-in-law,” she finished trembling.
“Didn’t you just now find out that fate always punishes a daughter-in-law who doesn’t honor her mother-in-law!” - said the husband.
Since then, his wife has never offended her mother-in-law.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru