One day a man walked past a certain house and saw an old woman in a rocking chair, next to her an old man was rocking in a chair, reading a newspaper, and between them a dog was lying on the porch and whining as if in pain. Passing by, a man wondered to himself why the dog was whining.
The next day he walked past this house again. He saw an elderly couple in rocking chairs and a dog lying between them and making the same plaintive sound. The puzzled man promised himself that if the dog whined tomorrow, he would ask the elderly couple about it. On the third day, to his misfortune, he saw the same scene: the old woman was rocking in a chair, the old man was reading a newspaper, and the dog was whining pitifully in its place. He couldn't stand it anymore.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he turned to the old woman, “what happened to your dog?”
- With her? - she asked again. — She lies on a nail.
Confused by her answer, the man asked:
“If she’s lying on a nail and she’s in pain, why doesn’t she just get up?”
The old woman smiled and said in a friendly, gentle voice:
“So, my dear, it hurts her enough to whine, but not enough to move.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru