The Man Condemned to Death
Once upon a time, at the edge of an old forest where cool waters flowed, there lived an ambitious merchant. For the sake of gaining more wealth, this man never hesitated to break the laws and to deceive innocent villagers. But the dark webs he had woven with greed one day tangled around his own feet, and he was caught by the guards of the palace. The court of justice set up by the judges decided that this deceitful man should be punished by swinging on the gallows. A great crowd had gathered in the town square and was waiting with curiosity for that ominous moment when the sentence would be carried out. While the executioner was preparing the greased noose, the man condemned to death cried out in tears that he wished to take refuge in the justice of the ruler.
The wise ruler, seated on his enchanting throne, heard the desperate cry of the man and decided to grant him one last right to speak. The condemned man bowed his head and said: "O my exalted ruler, the only thing that brought me to this gallows is my own never-ending ambition." The ruler frowned and asked: "Are you feigning remorse now in order to escape the punishment for the injustices you have committed?" The man drew a deep sigh and went on speaking, pointing at a blackened crow that was calling on a nearby branch. "That gold which I gathered for years by trickery brought me no peace; on the contrary, it dragged me into this bottomless loneliness," he whispered. "And now even that unlucky bird caws above my head as if it were mocking the bitter state into which I have fallen," he said, and wept.
As the crowd began to whisper, the man told with tearful eyes how ambition and arrogance blind the human mind. The people around him sank into a deep silence before this heartfelt and instructive confession. The ruler carefully weighed the sincere remorse in the man's eyes and the deep wisdom he had gained on the threshold of death. He lifted the death sentence at once and gave the man the sentence of helping the poor for the rest of his life. The man, taken out from under the gallows, fell to the ground in tears and gave thanks that his life had been spared. From that day on he lived as an honest craftsman and told everyone about the virtue of uprightness. A human being cannot reach true peace without understanding the price of the wrongs he has done and without admitting his fault. He who sows the wind reaps the storm.