This sad event occurred on the island of Talim. There once lived a girl named Josepa. She was very beautiful, and many young men sought her hand. The girl rejected everyone, but in the end she chose her groom. The lucky one was Jose, a simple peasant. He loved Josepa so much that he was ready to fulfill her every wish. But she, before giving him her final consent, decided to check what the young man was ready for her and how submissive he was to her.
“You know, Jose,” the girl said one day when he came to her, “I need you to do something for me.”
“Just tell me, Josepa, what you want,” the young man answered, “because I’m ready to do anything for you.”
- Thank you, Jose. Tomorrow I will go to visit a neighboring village. The road I take to get there is winding and muddy. Can't you straighten it out tonight and pave it with stones? Then tomorrow morning I could walk along it and not get dirty.
Jose silently looked into the girl’s beautiful face. He immediately guessed that it was not the road that Josepa needed - the girl wanted to find out the limits of his strength and test how obedient he was to her will. And he answered Josepa:
- I will fulfill your wish.
No man could have done the work that Jose had to do in such a short time. But when morning came and Josepa, dressed in her best dress, came out of the house, she saw that Jose had paved and straightened the road, as she had told him. Smiling, she walked slowly along this road. Josepa now decided that the young man was worthy of her hand.
But when the girl reached the end of the road, she stopped dead in her tracks. On the ground in front of her lay an exhausted Jose, holding on to the last stone that was supposed to lie under Josepe’s feet. He died straightening the path for her. Josepa cried bitterly: only now did she understand how much Jose loved her. But it was already too late.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru