The Widow's Two Promises

Betaal began once more, telling of a widow left with two young children and modest means, courted by two very different men. The first, a charming and ambitious trader, promised that if she waited for him while he pursued a risky but potentially very lucrative venture in a distant land, he would return within a few years to marry her into genuine wealth and comfort, far beyond anything she currently had.

The second, a steady and unremarkable craftsman with no grand ambitions at all, offered no promises of future fortune, only an honest proposal to marry her immediately, work reliably at his modest trade, and provide consistent, if humble, support for her and her children starting that very week, with nothing more dramatic ever likely to follow.

The widow, weighing genuine potential against proven, immediate reliability, chose the craftsman, and her children ate well and safely from that week forward. Years later, the trader did return, having genuinely succeeded beyond even his own promises, wealthy and ready to marry — only to find her already settled, content, and unwilling to trade a proven, steady life for a potential one, however impressive it had turned out to be. "Tell me, Vikram," Betaal demanded, "did the widow choose wisely, given how the trader's fortune actually turned out?" Vikramaditya answered: "Yes — because she could not have known his fortune would succeed when she chose, and a wise choice is judged by what was actually knowable at the time it was made, not by how the unknowable gamble happened to turn out afterward. Proven reliability was the right choice against an unproven promise, regardless of how that particular promise later resolved." His answer given, the vow of silence broke once more, and Betaal vanished, laughing, back toward his tree.