Both Mun and the young lady were stunned into silence by
this ruse. Mun immediately asked about his mother’s condition.
“Jan, how is my mother?”
Jan pretended to be so exhausted he could hardly speak.
“I think she’s probably dead by now. I’m about to die myself
now from hunger and exhaustion.”
With that he grabbed Mun’s arm, dragging him from the
stage before a crowd of thousands of shocked onlookers, and ran
with him as fast as possible. By the time they reached the village
outskirts, Mun was desperate to find out more about his mother.
“What was my mother doing on the top of the house to
make her fall?”
“I don’t really know what caused her to fall. Seeing her lying
there on the ground, I rushed to help. But she sent me right off
to look for you, so I came straight away. I didn’t have a chance to
get the full story.”
“As far as you could tell, was my mother going to die?”
“We’re on our way now to find that out for ourselves.”
When they had walked sufficiently far from the village that
Jan reckoned Mun wouldn’t dare go back alone at such a late
hour^17 his whole demeanor abruptly changed as he frankly told
Mun that nothing had happened to his mother.
“I put on that act because I couldn’t bear to see your old lady
mop the floor with you. I was afraid she’d skin your hide and sell it
in the market. That would have been humiliating for me, and for
our whole village. She was about to emasculate you there just for
the fun of it. So I tricked you both into believing this story, at the
same time convincing the crowd that you had to flee the scene
because of a real emergency – not because you’d lost the will to
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
#1