The Happy Prince

The Happy Prince

Note: Oscar Wilde intended this story to be read to children

H

igh above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

     He was very much admired indeed. 'He is as beautiful as a weathercock,' remarked one of the Town Councilors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic taste; 'only not quite so useful,' he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.

     'Why can't you be like the Happy Prince?' asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. 'The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.'

     'I am glad there is someone in the world who is quite happy', muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.

     'He looks just like an angel,' said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks, and their clean white pinafores.

     'How do you know?' said the Mathematical Master, 'you have never seen one.'

     'Ah! But we have, in our dreams,' answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.

     One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.

     'Shall I love you said the Swallow', who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.

     'It is a ridiculous attachment,' twittered the other Swallows, 'she has no money, and far too many relations;' and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.

     After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. 'She has no conversation,' he said, 'and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.' And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtsies. I admit that she is domestic,' he continued, 'but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also.'

     'Will you come away with me?' he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.

     'You have been trifling with me,' he cried, 'I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!' and he flew away.

     All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. 'Where shall I put up?' he said 'I hope the town has made preparations.'

     Then he saw the statue on the tall column. 'I will put up there,' he cried; 'it is a fine position with plenty of fresh air.' So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.

     'I have a golden bedroom,' he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing, a large drop of water fell on him. 'What a curious thing!' he cried, 'there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.'

     Then another drop fell.

     'What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?' he said; 'I must look for a good chimney-pot,' and he determined to fly away.

     But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw - Ah! What did he see?

     The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.

     'Who are you?' he said.

     'I am the Happy Prince.'

     'Why are you weeping then?' asked the Swallow; 'you have quite drenched me.'

     'When I was alive and had a human heart,' answered the statue, 'I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.'

     'What, is he not solid gold?' said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.

     'Far away,' continued the statue in a low musical voice,’ far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.'

     'I am waited for in Egypt,' said the Swallow. 'My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.'

     'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so sad.

     'I don't think I like boys,' answered the Swallow. 'Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller's sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.'

     But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. 'It is very cold here,' he said 'but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.'

     'Thank you, little Swallow,' said the Prince.

     So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince's sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.

     He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 'How wonderful the stars are,' he said to her, ‘and how wonderful is the power of love!' 'I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,' she answered; 'I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.'

     He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. 'How cool I feel,' said the boy, 'I must be getting better;' and he sank into a delicious slumber.

     Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. 'It is curious,' he remarked, 'but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.'

     'That is because you have done a good action,' said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.

     When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath.

     'What a remarkable phenomenon,' said the Professor of Orthithology as he was passing over the bridge.  'A swallow in winter!' And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.

     'To-night I go to Egypt,' said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, 'What a distinguished stranger!' so he enjoyed himself very much.

     When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. 'Have you any commissions for Egypt?' he cried; 'I am just starting.'

     'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'will you not stay with me one night longer?'

     'I am waited for in Egypt,' answered the Swallow. To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the water's edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.'

     'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.'

     'I will wait with you one night longer,' said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. 'Shall I take him another ruby?'

     'Alas! I have no ruby now,' said the Prince; 'my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweler, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play.'

     'Dear Prince,' said the Swallow, 'I cannot do that;' and he began to weep.

     'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'do as I command you.'

     So the Swallow plucked out the Prince's eye, and flew away to the student's garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird's wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.

     'I am beginning to be appreciated,' he cried; 'this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play,' and he looked quite happy.

     The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. 'Heave a-hoy!' they shouted as each chest came up. 'I am going to Egypt!' cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.

     'I am come to bid you good-bye,' he cried.

     'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'will you not stay with me one night longer?'

     'It is winter,' answered the Swallow, and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbek, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.

     'In the square below,' said the Happy Prince, 'there stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her.

     'I will stay with you one night longer,' said the Swallow, 'but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then.'

     'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'do as I command you.'

     So he plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. 'What a lovely bit of glass,' cried the little girl; and she ran home, laughing.

     Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. 'You are blind now,' he said, 'so I will stay with you always.'

     'No, little Swallow,' said the poor Prince, 'you must go away to Egypt.'

     'I will stay with you always,' said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince's feet.

     All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.

     'Dear little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.'

     So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another's arms to try and keep themselves warm. 'How hungry we are' they said. 'You must not lie here,' shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.

     Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.

     'I am covered with fine gold,' said the Prince, 'you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy.'

     Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. 'We have bread nod' they cried.

     Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.

     The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker's door when the baker was not looking, and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.

     But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince's shoulder once more. 'Good-bye, dear Prince!' he murmured, 'will you let me kiss your hand?'

     'I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.'

     'It is not to Egypt that I am going,' said the Swallow. I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?'

     And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.

     At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.

     Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councilors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue: 'Dear me! How shabby the Happy Prince looks!' he said.

     'How shabby indeed!' cried the Town Councilors, who always agreed with the Mayor, and they went up to look at it.

     'The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,' said the Mayor; 'in fact, he is little better than a beggar!'

     'Little better than a beggar,' said the Town Councilors.

     'And there is actually a dead bird at his feet,' continued the Mayor. 'We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here.' And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.

     So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. 'As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful,' said the Art Professor at the University.

     Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. 'We must have another statue, of course,' he said, 'and it shall be a statue of myself.'

     'Of myself,' said each of the Town Councilors, and they quarreled. When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.

     'What a strange thing!' said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. 'This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.' So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.

     'Bring me the two most precious things in the city,' said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

     'You have rightly chosen,' said God, 'for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.'

The Breadwinner

 The Breadwinner

by Leslie Halward.

The parents of a boy of fourteen were waiting for him to come home with his first week’s wages.

The mother had laid the table and was cutting some slices of bread and butter for tea. She was a little woman with a thin face and a spare body, dressed in a blue blouse and skirt, the front of the skirt covered with a starched white apron. She looked tired and frequently sighed heavily.

The father, sprawling inelegantly in an old armchair by the fireside, legs outstretched, was little too. He had watery blue eyes and a heavy brown moustache, which he sucked occasionally.

These people were plainly poor, for the room, though clean, was meanly furnished, and the thick pieces of bread and butter were the only food on the table.

As she prepared the meal, the woman from time to time looked contemptuously at her husband. He ignored her, raising his eyebrows, humming, or tapping his teeth now and then with his finger-nails, making a pretence of being profoundly bored.

“You’ll keep your hands off the money,” said the woman, obviously repeating something that she had already said several times before. “I know what’ll happen to it if you get hold of it. He’ll give it to me. It’ll pay the rent and buy us a bit of food, and not go into the till at the nearest public-house.”

“You shut your mouth,” said the man, quietly.

“I’ll not shut my mouth!” cried the woman, in a quick burst of anger. “Why should I shut my mouth? You’ve been boss here for long enough. I put up with it when you were bringing money into the house, but I’ll not put up with it now. You’re nobody here. Understand? Nobody. I’m boss and he’ll hand the money to me!”

“We’ll see about that,” said the man, leisurely poking the fire.

Nothing more was said for about five minutes.

Then the boy came in. He did not look older than ten or eleven years. He looked absurd in long trousers. The whites of his eyes against his black face gave him a startled expression.

His father got to his feet.

“Where’s the money?” he demanded.

The boy looked from one to the other. He was afraid of his father. He licked his pale lips.

“Come on now,” said the man. “Where’s the money?”

“Don’t give it to him,” said the woman. “Don’t give it to him, Billy. Give it to me.”

The father advanced on the boy, his teeth showing in a snarl under his big moustache.

“Where’s the money?” he almost whispered.

The boy looked him straight in the eyes.

“I lost it,” he said.

“You – what?” cried his father.

“I lost it,” the boy repeated.

The man began to shout and wave his hands about.

“Lost it! Lost it! What are you talking about? How could you lose it?”

“It was in a packet,” said the boy, “ a little envelope. I lost it.”

“Where did you lose it?”

“I don’t know. I must have dropped it in the street.”

“Did you go back and look for it?”

The boy nodded. “I couldn’t find it,” he said.

The man made a noise in his throat, half grunt, half moan – the sort of noise that an animal would make.

“So you lost it, did you?” he said. He stepped back a couple of paces and took off his belt – a wide, thick belt with a heavy brass buckle. “Come here,” he said.

The boy, biting his lower lip so as to keep back the tears, advanced and the man raised his arm. The woman, motionless until that moment, leaped forward and seized it. Her husband, finding strength in his blind rage, pushed her aside easily. He brought the belt down on the boy’s back. He beat him unmercifully about the body and legs. The boy sank to the floor, but did not cry out.

When the man had spent himself,\he put on the belt and pulled the boy to his feet.

“Now you’ll get off to bed,” he said.

“The lad wants some food,” said the woman.

“He’ll go to bed. Go and wash yourself.”

Without a word the boy went into the scullery and washed his hands and face. When he had done this he went straight upstairs.

The man sat down at the table, ate some bread and butter and drank two cups of tea. The woman ate nothing. She sat opposite him, never taking her eyes from his face, looking with hatred at him. Just as before, he took no notice of her, ignored her, behaved as if she were not there at all.

When he had finished the meal he went out.

Immediately he had shut the door the woman jumped to her feet and ran upstairs to the boy’s room.

He was sobbing bitterly, his face buried in the pillow. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her arms about him, pressed him close to her breast, ran her fingers through his disordered hair, whispered endearments, consoling him. He let her do this, finding comfort in her caresses, relief in his own tears.

After a while his weeping ceased. He raised his head and smiled at her, his wet eyes bright. Then he put his hand under the pillow and withdrew a small dirty envelope.

“Here’s the money,” he whispered.

She took the envelope and opened it and pulled out a long strip of paper with some figures on it – a ten shilling note and a sixpence.

(926 words)

From “The Breadwinner”, Forty Short Stories by Leslie Halward, Edward Arnold. 1965

Note: “a ten shilling note” and a “sixpence”, these were dropped when Britain adopted” decimal currency. They were equivalent to 50p and 21/2p

The Fisherman's Wife and the Merchant's Wife

The Fisherman's Wife and the Merchant's Wife

Once upon a time, long ago, there lived a very poor couple. The husband was a hard-working fisherman. Each evening he would set in the river his traps made of bamboo and reeds and then, the next morning, he would collect the fish caught in them. His wife was a very pretty woman but careless and untidy. Their small hut on the river bank was never clean and as she was too lazy to mend their clothes both of them walked around in tatters.

Every morning the couple would go out together to collect the fish caught during the night. The husband would put them in a big basket his wife carried on her back while he gathered in the traps. The basket had a hole in it which the lazy woman never bothered to repair so that as she followed her husband along the river's edge many fish fell out. This meant that although the couple always had enough fish to eat they never had more than a few to sell at the market and so could not earn much money to buy vegetables, rice and clothes.

Another couple lived on the riverside. The husband was a trader who bought and sold cloth and household goods up and down the river. One day the fisherman and his wife passed the merchant's boat, which was tied up at a jetty, and the merchant's wife saw that about half the fisherman's catch fell out of the basket on his wife's back. She felt sorry for the poor fisherman who worked so hard and whose fish were lost because of his wife's carelessness. With only a little effort both of them could be much better off, she thought, so she said to the woman, ‘Why don't you take some reeds and grass and mend the basket? It wouldn't take you long.’          

When her husband heard her speak like this he was very angry. ‘Why do you interfere?’ he said. ‘What they do is none of your business.’ Then he saw that although the fisherman's wife was very untidy she was very, very pretty. ‘If you care so much for that poor man,’ he told his wife, ‘you can go and live with him and I'll take his wife to live with me.’ And the more he looked at the fisherman's wife the prettier she seemed. ‘Shall we exchange wives, fisherman?’ he asked. The poor fisherman didn't know what to say. ‘It doesn't seem right. I have so little. How could I keep a woman who is used to having everything she wants?’ ‘She's so concerned about you she must like you,’ replied the merchant. ‘I am happy to exchange her for your wife.’ And so the fisherman agreed and the merchant's wife went to live with him and the fisherman's wife became the mistress of the trading boat.    

Straight away the merchant's wife mended the fish basket and the next day, for the first time in his life, the fisherman had a big surplus of fish to sell at the market. Every day from then on the couple had plenty of fish to sell and soon they were able to leave the hut by the river and live in a good house.

The woman looked to the future too. She didn’t want her husband to remain a fisherman all his life. She hoped he would find an easier job that brought in more money. Because his previous wife hadn’t fed him well, he wasn’t very fit, so she prepared good food for him and encouraged him to do exercises every morning and go for a run before breakfast to build up his body. At the same time she showed him how to be thrifty. ‘When you run, don’t waste your time,’ she told him. ‘If you see and small pieces of wood lying around pick them up and bring them back to me so that we don’t have to buy wood to cook with.’

Soon the fisherman became strong and could run far into the forest each morning. One day he brought back a piece of sandalwood among the other sticks. Because she had lived so long with the merchant the woman knew this perfumed wood was very valuable and much in demand for making ornaments, fans and boxes. She sent her husband back into the forest to look for sandalwood trees and very soon they stopped earning their living from fishing. Instead, the husband cut down sandalwood that his wife sold to merchants. She was so careful in the house and managed the selling so pleasantly and cleverly that the business expanded and they could hire people to work for them. They became very rich. And because they worked well together they were also very happy.

In the meantime, the pretty, lazy woman, who had gone to live with the merchant cared for nothing but herself. She didn’t clean the boat or help with the business. She didn’t cook or make clothes, she just bought whatever she wanted and ate and slept her life away. When she had a baby she didn’t even bother to wash its nappies but simply threw the dirty ones away and cut new ones from the supply of cloth her husband had on the boat. She was so careless and helped so little that the business went badly and the husband had to sell his boat. Because he was the only one who worked and his new wife didn’t look after the money he earned, they became poorer and ended up as beggars.

One day, as they were begging along the street, they stopped at the home of the ex-fisherman and his wife. The wife recognised her former husband who was now dressed in rags. ‘Why are you so poor?’ she asked. ‘My second wife was no help to me,’ he replied, ashamed, ‘and so I lost my business.’ The woman could not neglect the man who used to be her husband and gave him a good sum of money before sending him and his family on their way. Then the careful, clever wife and her hard-working husband lived happily ever after.

This story was first told to me by my grandmother when I was six or seven years old. Afterwards I heard it many times from my mother and I in turn told it to my younger sisters. I never got tired of hearing it or telling it although it was never told just for amusement. It was meant to teach girls how to behave, to show them what their responsibilities in life would be and how they should carry them out.

The moral of the story is very clear – women must be thrifty and tidy and know how to look after what their husbands earn. The story tells us that women are important, for no matter how hard husbands work, if their wives don’t know how to help them they will never succeed. Husbands earn the money but wives must manage it.

In my own family these values were put into practice over two generations. My grandfather was a goldsmith for the royal palace. He died very young, when my father was just ten. My grandmother kept his business going and even managed to send my father to a French school. That was a great achievement for such an education was expensive. Grandmother worked right up to the time her sons could earn their own livings. She built the house we lived in, in a business district a mile from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. It was a wooden house on stilts with the living quarters upstairs and a little shop underneath. She used to carry on a goldsmith’s business from there during her working years but when I was a child it was a pawnshop run by my father’s older sister, another enterprising woman.

My family was very big. Apart from my grandmother and parents, there were ten children – I was the second eldest. My father was a teacher and the only one working to support the thirteen of us so we didn’t have much money to spare. We had to be thrifty, to share and to look after everything in the house, because anything broken could not be easily replaced.

Once, when I was playing chasey with my little sister, I was running and jumping wildly and split thee seam of my long skirt. It was then that my grandmother sat me down and told me for the first time the story of the two wives. ‘You were a very careless little girl,’ she said. ‘You must watch our or you will end up like the lazy wife of the fisherman.’ I heard the story many times after that. If I didn’t hold a plate properly and it seemed I might drop it, my mother or grandmother would never scold me. They’d just say very gently that I was careless, then sit me down and remind me of the story. And I in turn would tell it to my little sister if she left her play dough scattered over the floor or did something else lazy or untidy.

I still remember this story very often. If I make clothes for myself and finish them off carelessly or buy things that aren’t really necessary I think, ‘If mother or grandmother were here, they’d remind me that I’ve been extravagant.’ I can stop myself buying things by remembering the story. I say to myself, ‘You’re spending too much, just like that fisherman’s first wife. If you spend all you earn, where will you go when you need money?’ Back home when you are short of money you have relatives to go to to help you out but here we have no one. There is just the bank and you can only get from here what you’ve put in. you have to be independent in Australia. So you see, the story of the merchant’s wife and the fisherman’s wife still reaches me so much. I thank my grandmother and my mother for telling it to me.