One poor Indian woman baked two flatbreads every morning. One for family members, and a second, additional one, for a random passerby. The woman always put the second cake on the windowsill, and anyone passing by could take it.
Every day, when the woman placed the cake on the windowsill, she offered a prayer for her son, who had left home to seek a better life. For many months the mother knew nothing about her boy and always prayed for his safe return.
Soon she noticed that a hunchback came every day and took the second cake. But instead of words of gratitude, he only muttered: “The evil that you do remains with you, and the good is returned to you!” and continued on his way.
This continued day after day. Not receiving the expected words of gratitude, the woman felt deceived. "Every day this hunchback says the same thing! But what does he mean?"
And one day, being particularly irritated, she decided to end it.
“I’ll get rid of this nasty hunchback!” she said to herself and added poison to the second cake.
But when she was about to put it on the windowsill, the woman’s hands began to tremble. "What am I doing?" - she thought. And she immediately threw the poisonous cake into the fire, prepared another and put it on the windowsill.
The hunchback, as usual, took the cake, muttering the same words: “The evil that you do remains with you, and the good is returned to you!” and continued on his way, unaware of the emotions raging inside the woman.
That same evening someone knocked on the door. When the woman opened it, she saw her son standing in the doorway. He looked terrible: hungry, thin, weak, in torn clothes.
"Mom, it's a miracle that I'm here! I was only a mile from home, but I was so hungry that I fainted. I probably would have died, but just then some old hunchback walked by and was so kind to me that he gave me a whole cake. And he said, this is his only food for the whole day, but he sees that I need it more than he does."
When the mother heard these words, her face turned pale and she leaned against the door so as not to fall. She remembered the poisoned morning cake. After all, if she had not burned her in the fire, her own son would have died!
That’s when the woman understood the meaning of the words: “The evil that you do remains with you, and the good is returned to you!”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru