Once Upon a Time... — The Child's Story

In a wide field there lived wild flowers, lovely to look at and of many colors — violets and daisies, cyclamens and anemones. But one of the cyclamen flowers differed, with her beautiful rosy color, from her sisters resplendent in their white. This rare color of hers made her proud of herself and haughty toward her sisters; her contempt for them was so great that she disdained even to address a word to them. She also despised the butterflies, soft and wondrous in their colors, and whenever one of them drew near to talk with her she rebuffed her harshly. From that time on, each of the butterflies took to teasing and playing with the other flowers, carrying their news from one to another, laughing and merry, without paying that haughty flower the least attention.

So the rosy cyclamen lived alone and apart, with no flower to talk to her and no butterfly to play with her.

One day a little sprout grew up near that beautiful plant resplendent in her rare color. This little sprout drew the eyes of all the flowers of the field and stirred their interest, and before long it grew and grew big and opened its petals — and behold, it was a cyclamen of rare beauty, white in color and speckled with red dots.

All the flowers marveled at her loveliness and cried out in admiration: "How beautiful this flower is!" Then they greeted her. She returned their greeting graciously, then looked around her and was surprised to see that all the cyclamen flowers were of a pure white unmixed with any other color. A moment later her gaze fell on her neighbor, that beautiful, haughty flower, and she said to her: "I see that we two differ in our colors from our sisters. Come, neighbor, let us be friends and play together." But the rosy flower turned her face away from her neighbor and did not answer her, for she was jealous of her beauty and envied her for it.

When the young flower saw that she got no answer from her neighbor, she turned her talk to the rest of the flowers of the field, took comfort in them, and exchanged friendship with them; and before long she grew familiar with the butterflies and they with her, and they began to flutter around her joyfully, while her haughty neighbor watched her with sharp, mean looks.

One day a group of boys passed through the field near these flowers and began picking the beautiful flowers among them. The flowers feared for their new speckled friend, so they wrapped themselves around her and covered her with their petals — and the butterflies with their wings — and thus they spread over her a curtain that hid her from the eyes of those boys. As for the haughty flower, who loved to show off her beauty and display her loveliness, no one troubled to hide her, and after a moment one of the boys caught sight of her and shouted: "Look! A cyclamen with a rosy color! It really is beautiful."

He ran to her and cut her; he carried her to his house and put her in a vase with other flowers; and after a little while she wilted and lost her beauty and was thrown outside the house.

And so the white flower dotted with red became the most beautiful flower in the field, and lived among her sisters a happy life.

Murad Maalouf
The French Evangelical College for Girls