Sukhu ran to the pond and jumped into it. And it made her a beauty. She dived into it a second time, and she came up covered with silks and jewels. She was beside herself with joy and couldn't stop looking at herself in the water. Then she thought, "If I take one more dip, I'm sure I'll get much more than Dukhu did. The old woman doesn't want me to have more than she gave Dukhu. That's why she asked me not to take more than two dips. But I'm going to do it." And dip she did, a third time. But when she rose from the water, she was grief-stricken to see that her jewels and finery were gone, her nose had grown long as an elephant's trunk, and her body was covered with blisters and boils.
She ran to the Mother of the Moon, white with rage, shaking her head and fists at her. "Look what you've done to me!" she screamed.
The old woman looked at her from top to toe and said, "You didn't listen to me. You dipped in the pond more than twice, and this is what you get for not listening to me. You've yourself to thank for the mess you're in . . . But I've one more thing to offer you."
Then she showed her the three caskets, each one bigger than the next, and asked the young woman to choose one for herself. Sukhu had eyes only for the largest of them and chose it.
Meanwhile her mother was impatiently pacing to and fro in her yard, worrying about her girl not coming home. "When is she going to be back and when can I feast my eyes on all the jewels?" she cried. Suddenly she heard her daughter's voice from behind the bushes: "Mother!"
The mother ran out to greet her but nearly died of shock when she saw 1 what she saw. Her daughter's nose was as long as an elephant's trunk. Her body was covered with boils, not jewels. "What's happened to you? Sukhu, what's happened to you? Why? What did you do?" she cried in despair.
But Sukhu showed her the casket. "The old crone asked me to choose, and I chose the biggest of them!"
The mother thought, "The old woman must be playing tricks. She has some surprise waiting here. She's going to make up for the way she treated my Sukhu." Anxiously, with beating hearts, they opened the casket, and out came a long black snake, hissing angrily. It pounced on Sukhu and swallowed her whole, as a python swallows a goat.
Her mother went raving mad and died soon after. |
