The Original Fables of La Fontaine | Page 9

that as often as not they would cry, "Miraculous!" In short, although the woman's ignorance was quite twenty-three carat she passed for a veritable oracle.
Notwithstanding the fact that this oracle only lived in a garret, she found so many ready to pay her well for her shams that she soon grew rich enough to improve the position of her husband, to rent an office, and buy a house.
The garret being left empty was shortly tenanted by another woman to whom all the town--women, girls, valets, fine gentlemen--everybody in fact swarmed, as before, to consult their destiny. The former tenant had built up such a reputation that the garret was still a sibyl's den, in spite of the fact that quite a different creature dwelt in it. "I tell fortunes? Surely you're joking! Why, gentlemen, I cannot read, and as for writing, I never learnt more than to make my mark." But these disclaimers were useless. People insisted on having their fortunes told, and she had to do it. In consequence, she put by plenty of money, being able to earn, in spite of herself, quite as much as two lawyers could. The poverty of her home was a help rather than a hindrance. Four broken chairs and a broom-handle savoured of a witch's frolic.
If this woman had told the truth in a room well-furnished she would have been scorned. The fashion for a garret had set in, and garret it must be.
In her new chambers the first fortune-teller waited in vain; for it was the outward sign alone that brought customers, and the sign was poverty.
I have seen in a palace a robe worn awry win much distinction and success, such crowds of followers and adherents did it draw. You may well ask me why!
[Illustration: The garret was still a sybil's den.]

XV
THE COBBLER AND THE FINANCIER
(BOOK VIII.--No. 2)
There was once a cobbler who was so light hearted that he sang from morning to night. It was wonderful to watch him at his work, and more wonderful still to hear his runs and trills. He was in fact happier than the Seven Sages.
This merry soul had a neighbour who was exactly the reverse. He sang little and slept less; for he was a financier, and made of money, as they say. Whenever it happened that after a sleepless night he would doze off in the early morning, the cobbler, who was always up betimes, would wake him up again with his joyful songs. "Ha!" thought the man of wealth, "what a misfortune it is that one cannot buy sleep in the open market as one buys food and drink!" Then an idea came to him. He invited the cobbler to his house, where he asked him some questions.
"Tell me, Master Gregory, what do you suppose your earnings amount to in a year?"
"In a year," laughed the cobbler, "that's more than I know. I never keep accounts that way, nor even keep one day from another. So long as I can make both ends meet, that's good enough for me!"
"Really!" replied the financier. "But what can you earn in one day?"
"Oh, sometimes more and sometimes less. The mischief of it is that there are so many fête days and high-days and fast-days crowded into the year, on which, as the priest tells us, it is wicked to work at all; and worse still he keeps on finding some new saint or other to give weight to his sermons. If it were not for that, cobbling would be a fine paying game."
At this the wealthy man laughed. "Look here, my friend, to-day I'll lift you to the seats of the mighty! Here is a hundred pounds. Guard them and use them with care."
When the cobbler held the bag of money in his hand he imagined that it must be as much as would be coined in a hundred years.
Returning home he buried the cash in his cellar. Alas! he buried his joy with it, for there were no more songs. From the moment he came into possession of this wealth, the love of which is the root of all evil, his voice left him, and not only his voice, but his sleep also. And in place of these came anxiety, suspicion, and alarms; guests which abode with him constantly. All day he kept his eye on the cellar door. Did a cat make a noise in the night, then for a certainty that cat was after his money.
At last, in despair, the wretched cobbler ran to the financier whom he now no longer kept awake. "Oh, give me back my joy in life, my songs, my sleep; and take your hundred pounds again."

XVI
THE POWER OF FABLE
(BOOK VIII.--No. 4)
In the old, vain, and fickle city of Athens, an orator,[2] seeing how the light-hearted citizens