The Old Woman and the Physician

An old woman, her eyesight failing badly, hired a physician known for his skill and agreed to pay him a generous fee, but only upon complete recovery of her vision — if he failed to cure her, she would owe him nothing at all. The physician agreed and began visiting her regularly to apply his treatments.

Each time he visited, however, the old woman quietly had one small item of furniture removed from her house beforehand, and each time he left, unable to see clearly enough yet to notice the room looked slightly emptier than before. She reasoned that once her eyesight was fully restored, she would simply claim it hadn't worked at all, and refuse to pay him for treatment she had secretly known was succeeding the entire time, having watched her own furniture disappearing bit by bit.

Eventually, her vision fully restored, the physician came to collect his fee — and found the house almost completely bare. When she claimed, straight-faced, that her eyes were no better than before, he simply pointed out that he could see perfectly well that her house, once full of furniture, was now nearly empty, proving beyond doubt that her vision had, in fact, been working just fine for weeks. Caught by her own greed, she was forced to pay the full fee after all — a fitting lesson that a lie built on deceiving someone else's judgment often ends up exposing your own.