The moth and the Sun.                                                      

     "You are my darling one, Your beauty is equal to greatness of Sun, Oh, my darling…"

     Once upon a warm summer night a grasshopper was singing that song. He was in love. His heart belonged another one, as green and long-legged, as he was, lady-grasshopper. Tomorrow he would tell her how much she means to him. Tomorrow. His heart beats in excitement and it was impossible to get asleep.

     "Your beauty is equal to greatness of Sun!"

     "Sun?! What is that you are talking about?" Asked a night moth. He was born couple nights ago, slept during the daytime and at night took off a walk (well, you know, of course, that the moths don't walk − they fly, but that's how it's usually said). That's why he has never seen the Sun.

     "How?! Don't you know what the Sun is?" The forest, dozing hitherto under the sweet chirr of grasshopper, was as surprised as, probably you, my little friend, are now.

    " I don't know. And you? You do? Tell me, eh?"

    Even if you are just couple nights old (for a moth to be so old, it's just like for you, kid, to be a junior schoolboy) you should already know well that when you ask, you should always say "please".

    "Sun − it is beautiful!" Leaves of an aspen have rustled in response.

     "Beautiful? Eh!" The moth has grinned." That's not the explanation. Anything else?"

     "Sun − it shines!" The tree simply has had no time to take offence at roughness of the moth. The reverential trembling of admiration has captured the whole crone.

    "Shines? But what about my friend glowworm, he shines, too? The glowworm is not the Sun, is he?" Asked the moth. "May be the Sun is that strange and always-trembling moth that the forester keeps in his houses under the glass bowl? And when the man comes out of the house, hundreds of silly midges and mosquitoes rush up to it. They make such a noise, just as you now do, that distract me from the blessed fluttering. Well, I have to admit, that me, myself flew up once to that sun. Terrible and useless the exprience that was. My poor wings had been crumpled. Just tell me, be this silly midges company as good as it may, why do you need to tremble, make me, the solid, reliable moth, confused?"

    The aspen tree answered nothing. It's good to make "expriments", but first of all you should learned to speak polite.

    "Sun − it is beautiful! It gives us warm," said the lady-frog from a nearby pond. She was very old and wet, always suffered from sleeplessness and cold.

    "Warm? Why do you need warm during the summer? It's warm enough for me and I don't spend all my precious time sitting in the pond. What do I need your Sun for?"

     "Sun − it's a star, you should know that, uhh, uhh," the owl said. The owls are very wise. They know everything.

    "Star? You mean, one of those small dots far away in the sky? There are thauzands of them there! Show me, which one?" The moth couldn't count well, but he knew that "thauzand" means a lot. He flew up off the branch of tree he was sitting, rushed into one direction, then into another one, left, up, right, down, from one star to another. At last, when he got exhausted and came back to his favorite branch.

     "Let's see. First you told me that sun shines. Then − it give warm. Now − star. It got me tired. There must be something and you don't it by yourself. I am tired and I want to sleep. Stop your talking. Tomorrow I would go to the nearby forest, I would ask there, not you."

     The moth laid hammered under the leaf of tree, covered himself with a wing and … started to snore.

    Good night. And, good morning. − There above the tops of trees first light of dawn showed up. That was the Sun.

 

     "You are my darling one, Your beauty is equal to greatness of Sun, Oh, my darling…"