The Fortune-Teller's Poisoned Suggestion
Hitopadesha Stories · 1 min read
A traveling fortune-teller, skilled in the art of vague statements that sound remarkably specific, visited a prosperous merchant and, through careful cold reading of his worried expressions and small reactions, suggested that someone very close to him — someone he trusted completely with money — was secretly planning to betray that trust before the year was out.
The merchant, unsettled, began turning the warning over in his mind and inevitably arrived at his business partner of twenty years, a man he had built his entire fortune alongside through decades of honest, transparent dealing. Small, previously unremarkable habits — a locked ledger, a private meeting, a longer-than-usual trip — now seemed loaded with sinister meaning in light of the fortune-teller's warning, and suspicion crept steadily into what had always been an easy, trusting friendship.
His wife, noticing his growing coldness toward a man who had done nothing to earn it, finally insisted he simply ask his partner directly rather than let secondhand suspicion fester unspoken. When he did, the "secret" locked ledger turned out to be preparations for a surprise gift on the merchant's upcoming anniversary, and the private meetings were negotiations for a new contract meant to benefit them both. Deeply embarrassed, the merchant apologized and never sought a fortune-teller's vague warnings again, having learned that suspicion planted by a stranger with nothing to lose grows far faster in silence than it ever could survive one honest conversation.
Moral of the story
Suspicion planted by a stranger with nothing to lose grows far faster in silence than it can survive one honest conversation.