The Mirror in the Market

A glassmaker came to the market at Vellin with a single mirror strapped to his cart. It was small — no larger than a soup plate — and wrapped in red cloth.

“One copper to look,” he called. “Two coppers to look twice.”

The first to come was the baker. He paid his copper, lifted the cloth, and saw himself as he was: flour on his apron, kindness around his eyes, and a thumb he had pressed, that very morning, against the scale. He paid a second copper, looked again, and walked home pale.

The miller came next. He saw a man who charged his neighbors full price and his cousins half. He did not pay for a second look.

The magistrate came last, in his good coat. He gazed into the mirror for a long time. When he handed it back, he said, quietly, “I will buy it.”

“It is not for sale,” said the glassmaker.

“Then I will buy your silence,” said the magistrate.

The glassmaker smiled. “Sir,” he said, “the mirror does not need my tongue. It has its own.”

That night the magistrate could not sleep. Neither could the miller. Neither, in the end, could the baker. By morning, the baker had gone to every customer he had cheated and refunded them in small, shamefaced stacks of coin. The miller adjusted his prices. The magistrate resigned his post and became, instead, a decent keeper of sheep.

The glassmaker packed up his cart and left Vellin before noon.

::: moral Honesty is not a weapon or a virtue to wear. It is only a mirror — and most of us already know what is in it. :::