The Magic Thread

Too of­ten, peo­ple want what they want (or what they think they want, which is usu­ally “happiness” in one form or an­other) right now. The irony of their im­pa­tience is that only by learn­ing to wait, and by a will­ing­ness to ac­cept the bad with the good, do we usu­ally at­tain those things that are truly worth­while. “He that can have pa­tience, can have what he will,” Benjamin Franklin told us, and this French tale bears him out.

Once there was a widow who had a son called Peter. He was a strong, able boy, but he did not en­joy go­ing to school and he was for­ever day­dream­ing.

“Peter, what are you dream­ing about this time?” his teacher would say to him.

“I’m think­ing about what I’ll be when I grow up,” Peter replied.

“Be pa­tient. There’s plenty of time for that. Being grown up is­n’t all fun, you know,” his teacher said.

But Peter found it hard to en­joy what­ever he was do­ing at the mo­ment, and was al­ways han­ker­ing af­ter the next thing. In win­ter he longed for it to be sum­mer again, and in sum­mer he looked for­ward to the skat­ing, sledg­ing, and warm fires of win­ter. At school he would long for the day to be over so that he could go home, and on Sunday nights he would sigh, “If only the hol­i­days would come.” What he en­joyed most was play­ing with his friend Liese. She was as good a com­pan­ion as any boy, and no mat­ter how im­pa­tient Peter was, she never took of­fense. “When I grow up, I shall marry Liese,” Peter said to him­self.

Often he wan­dered through the for­est, dream­ing of the fu­ture. Sometimes he lay down on the soft for­est floor in the warm sun, his hands be­hind his head, star­ing up at the sky through the dis­tant tree­tops. One hot af­ter­noon as he be­gan to grow sleepy, he heard some­one call­ing his name. He opened his eyes and sat up. Standing be­fore him was an old woman. In her hand she held a sil­ver ball, from which dan­gled a silken golden thread.

“See what I have got here, Peter,” she said, of­fer­ing the ball to him.

“What is it?” he asked cu­ri­ously, touch­ing the fine golden thread.

“This is your life thread,” the old woman replied. “Do not touch it and time will pass nor­mally. But if you wish time to pass more quickly, you have only to pull the thread a lit­tle way and an hour will pass like a sec­ond. But I warn you, once the thread has been pulled out, it can­not be pushed back in again. It will dis­ap­pear like a puff of smoke. The ball is for you. But if you ac­cept my gift you must tell no one, or on that very day you shall die. Now, say, do you want it?”

Peter seized the gift from her joy­fully. It was just what he wanted. He ex­am­ined the sil­ver ball. It was light and solid, made of a sin­gle piece. The only flaw in it was the tiny hole from which the bright thread hung. He put the ball in his pocket and ran home. There, mak­ing sure that his mother was out, he ex­am­ined it again. The thread seemed to be creep­ing very slowly out of the ball, so slowly that it was scarcely no­tice­able to the naked eye. He longed to give it a quick tug, but dared not do so. Not yet.

The fol­low­ing day at school, Peter sat day­dream­ing about what he would do with his magic thread. The teacher scolded him for not con­cen­trat­ing on his work. If only, he thought, it was time to go home. Then he felt the sil­ver ball in his pocket. If he pulled out a tiny bit of thread, the day would be over. Very care­fully he took hold of it and tugged. Suddenly the teacher was telling every­one to pack up their books and to leave the class­room in an or­derly fash­ion. Peter was over­joyed. He ran all the way home. How easy life would be now! All his trou­bles were over. From that day forth he be­gan to pull the thread, just a lit­tle, every day.

One day, how­ever, it oc­curred to him that it was stu­pid to pull the thread just a lit­tle each day. If he gave it a harder tug, school would be over al­to­gether. Then he could start learn­ing a trade and marry Liese. So that night he gave the thread a hard tug, and in the morn­ing he awoke to find him­self ap­pren­ticed to a car­pen­ter in town. He loved his new life, clam­ber­ing about on roofs and scaf­fold­ing, lift­ing and ham­mer­ing great beams into place that still smelled of the for­est. But some­times, when pay­day seemed too far off, he gave the thread a lit­tle tug and sud­denly the week was draw­ing to a close and it was Friday night and he had money in his pocket.

Liese had also come to town and was liv­ing with her aunt, who taught her house­keep­ing. Peter be­gan to grow im­pa­tient for the day when they would be mar­ried. It was hard to live so near and yet so far from her. He asked her when they could be mar­ried.

“In an­other year,” she said. “Then I will have learned how to be a ca­pa­ble wife.”

Peter fin­gered the sil­ver ball in his pocket.

“Well, the time will pass quickly enough,” he said, know­ingly.

That night Peter could not sleep. He tossed and turned rest­lessly. He took the magic ball from un­der his pil­low. For a mo­ment he hes­i­tated; then his im­pa­tience got the bet­ter of him, and he tugged at the golden thread. In the morn­ing he awoke to find that the year was over and that Liese had at last agreed to marry him. Now Peter felt truly happy.

But be­fore their wed­ding could take place, Peter re­ceived an of­fi­cial-look­ing let­ter. He opened it in trep­i­da­tion and read that he was ex­pected to re­port at the army bar­racks the fol­low­ing week for two years’ mil­i­tary ser­vice. He showed the let­ter to Liese in de­spair.

“Well,” she said, “there is noth­ing for it, we shall just have to wait. But the time will pass quickly, you’ll see. There are so many things to do in prepa­ra­tion for our life to­gether.”

Peter smiled bravely, know­ing that two years would seem a life­time to him.

Once Peter had set­tled into life at the bar­racks, how­ever, he be­gan to feel that it was­n’t so bad af­ter all. He quite en­joyed be­ing with all the other young men, and their du­ties were not very ar­du­ous at first. He re­mem­bered the old wom­an’s warn­ing to use the thread wisely and for a while re­frained from pulling it. But in time he grew rest­less again. Army life bored him with its rou­tine du­ties and harsh dis­ci­pline. He be­gan pulling the thread to make the week go faster so that it would be Sunday again, or to speed up the time un­til he was due for leave. And so the two years passed al­most as if they had been a dream.

Back home, Peter de­ter­mined not to pull the thread again un­til it was ab­solutely nec­es­sary. After all, this was the best time of his life, as every­one told him. He did not want it to be over too quickly. He did, how­ever, give the thread one or two very small tugs, just to speed along the day of his mar­riage. He longed to tell Liese his se­cret, but he knew that if he did he would die.

On the day of his wed­ding, every­one, in­clud­ing Peter, was happy. He could hardly wait to show Liese the house he had built for her. At the wed­ding feast he glanced over at his mother. He no­ticed for the first time how gray her hair had grown re­cently. She seemed to be ag­ing so quickly. Peter felt a pang of guilt that he had pulled the thread so of­ten. Henceforward he would be much more spar­ing with it and only use it when it was strictly nec­es­sary.

A few months later Liese an­nounced that she was go­ing to have a child. Peter was over­joyed and could hardly wait. When the child was born, he felt that he could never want for any­thing again. But when­ever the child was ill or cried through the sleep­less night, he gave the thread a lit­tle tug, just so that the baby might be well and happy again.

Times were hard. Business was bad and a gov­ern­ment had come to power that squeezed the peo­ple dry with taxes and would tol­er­ate no op­po­si­tion. Anyone who be­came known as a trou­ble­maker was thrown into prison with­out trial and ru­mor was enough to con­demn a man. Peter had al­ways been known as one who spoke his mind, and very soon he was ar­rested and cast into jail. Luckily he had his magic ball with him and he tugged very hard at the thread. The prison walls dis­solved be­fore him and his en­e­mies were scat­tered in the huge ex­plo­sion that burst forth like thun­der. It was the war that had been threat­en­ing, but it was over as quickly as a sum­mer storm, leav­ing be­hind it an ex­hausted peace. Peter found him­self back home with his fam­ily. But now he was a mid­dle-aged man.

For a time things went well and Peter lived in rel­a­tive con­tent­ment. One day he looked at his magic ball and saw to his sur­prise that the thread had turned from gold to sil­ver. He looked in the mir­ror. His hair was start­ing to turn gray and his face was lined where be­fore there had not been a wrin­kle to be seen. He sud­denly felt afraid and de­ter­mined to use the thread even more care­fully than be­fore. Liese bore him more chil­dren and he seemed happy as the head of his grow­ing house­hold. His stately man­ner of­ten made peo­ple think of him as some sort of benev­o­lent ruler. He had an air of au­thor­ity as if he held the fate of oth­ers in his hands. He kept his magic ball in a well-hid­den place, safe from the cu­ri­ous eyes of his chil­dren, know­ing that if any­one were to dis­cover it, it would be fa­tal.

As the num­ber of his chil­dren grew, so his house be­came more over­crowded. He would have to ex­tend it, but for that he needed money. He had other wor­ries too. His mother was look­ing older and more tired every day. It was of no use to pull the magic thread be­cause that would only has­ten her ap­proach­ing death. All too soon she died, and as Peter stood at her grave­side, he won­dered how it was that life passed so quickly, even with­out pulling the magic thread.

One night as he lay in bed, kept awake by his wor­ries, he thought how much eas­ier life would be if all his chil­dren were grown up and launched upon their ca­reers in life. He gave the thread a mighty tug, and the fol­low­ing day he awoke to find that his chil­dren had all left home for jobs in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try, and that he and his wife were alone. His hair was al­most white now and of­ten his back and limbs ached as he climbed the lad­der or lifted a heavy beam into place. Liese too was get­ting old and she was of­ten ill. He could­n’t bear to see her suf­fer, so that more and more he re­sorted to pulling at the magic thread. But as soon as one trou­ble was solved, an­other seemed to grow in its place. Perhaps life would be eas­ier if he re­tired, Peter thought. Then he would no longer have to clam­ber about on drafty, half-com­pleted build­ings and he could look af­ter Liese when she was ill. The trou­ble was that he did­n’t have enough money to live on. He picked up his magic ball and looked at it. To his dis­may he saw that the thread was no longer sil­ver but gray and lus­ter­less. He de­cided to go for a walk in the for­est to think things over.

It was a long time since he had been in that part of the for­est. The small saplings had all grown into tall fir trees, and it was hard to find the path he had once known. Eventually he came to a bench in a clear­ing. He sat down to rest and fell into a light doze. He was woken by some­one call­ing his name, “Peter! Peter!”

He looked up and saw the old woman he had met so many years ago when she had given him the magic sil­ver ball with its golden thread. She looked just as she had on that day, not a day older. She smiled at him.

“So, Peter, have you had a good life?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Peter said. “Your magic ball is a won­der­ful thing. I have never had to suf­fer or wait for any­thing in my life. And yet it has all passed so quickly. I feel that I have had no time to take in what has hap­pened to me, nei­ther the good things nor the bad. Now there is so lit­tle time left. I dare not pull the thread again for it will only bring me to my death. I do not think your gift has brought me luck.”

“How un­grate­ful you are!” the old woman said. “In what way would you have wished things to be dif­fer­ent?”

“Perhaps if you had given me a dif­fer­ent ball, one where I could have pushed the thread back in as well as pulling it out. Then I could have re­lived the things that went badly.”

The old woman laughed. “You ask a great deal! Do you think that God al­lows us to live our lives twice over? But I can grant you one fi­nal wish, you fool­ish, de­mand­ing man.”

“What is that?” Peter asked.

“Choose,” the old woman said. Peter thought hard.

At length he said, “I should like to live my life again as if for the first time, but with­out your magic ball. Then I will ex­pe­ri­ence the bad things as well as the good with­out cut­ting them short, and at least my life will not pass as swiftly and mean­ing­lessly as a day­dream.”

“So be it,” said the old woman. “Give me back my ball.”

She stretched out her hand and Peter placed the sil­ver ball in it. Then he sat back and closed his eyes with ex­haus­tion.

When he awoke he was in his own bed. His youth­ful mother was bend­ing over him, shak­ing him gen­tly.

“Wake up, Peter. You will be late for school. You were sleep­ing like the dead!”

He looked up at her in sur­prise and re­lief.

“I’ve had a ter­ri­ble dream, Mother. I dreamed that I was old and sick and that my life had passed like the blink­ing of an eye with noth­ing to show for it. Not even any mem­o­ries.”

His mother laughed and shook her head.

“That will never hap­pen,” she said. “Memories are the one thing we all have, even when we are old. Now hurry and get dressed. Liese is wait­ing for you and you will be late for school.”

As Peter walked to school with Liese, he no­ticed what a bright sum­mer morn­ing it was, the kind of morn­ing when it felt good to be alive. Soon he would see his friends and class­mates, and even the prospect of lessons did­n’t seem so bad. In fact he could hardly wait.

Written by Anonymous

Excerpted from The Book of Virtues.