The Peasant Invited to the Feast
Long ago, far from all noise, in the lap of emerald green forests, there was a most charming village. In this village lived a sincere villager named Hasan, who had won everyone's love with his humility and his honesty. In the magnificent mansion on the other side of the valley, however, there reigned an arrogant noble who loved show very much. One day this noble man invited Hasan to a magnificent evening at his mansion, in order to amuse himself with the ignorance of the villagers. Hasan accepted this invitation with a pure joy, put on his cleanest clothes and took the road to the mansion. When the gilded doors opened, a long and splendid table appeared, set beneath dazzling chandeliers. On the table there were all sorts of silver forks, golden spoons and exotic dishes that he had never seen before.
The host, the noble man, looked at Hasan with a mocking smile and showed him the place of honour at the table. When the soups were served, the noble man began to watch Hasan with the greatest attention, thinking that he would not know which spoon to use. Without hesitating at all, Hasan began to eat the soup before him by dipping bread into it and he cleaned his plate completely. While the polite guests at the table whispered with astonishment, the host asked: "Did you not like our dinner service, my friend?" With a sincere smile Hasan gave this answer: "The man whose belly is hungry does not look for the tool but for the taste, sir." Then he swallowed in a single bite the meat that was served in an adorned but tiny portion and pushed his plate aside. The noble man tried to needle him by saying: "It seems that not much of the rules of good manners has fallen to you."
Hasan straightened up and looked with calm at the owner of the mansion and at the arrogant guests. "In our village the table is opened with reflection, one is filled with sincerity and one rises with gratitude", he said. "Your silver spoons do not fill the belly, and your adorned words are not enough to feed the soul." Before these wise words, the deep silence in the hall made the face of the arrogant noble redden with shame. On that night when nobody could say even a single word, Hasan rose proudly from the table and returned to his home. The splendour of showy tables always remains without value beside a sincere heart and a simple truth. A person is received according to his clothes and is seen off according to his conversation.