​The Healed Patient

Many years ago, a rich man who never worked lived in a village. All day he just looked out of the window. He ate a lot of meat, bread and cakes. He was very fat and he was often ill.

His neighbor was a poor farmer. He worked all day in the yard and in the field. He ate little. He was always healthy. The rich man was angry about it. He wrote to a famous doctor.

The doctor wrote back: "You have a serious illness. Come to me! But you have to walk the long way to me. You are also allowed to eat very little on your way. Then I can help you. "

The next day, the rich man got up early and started walking. Soon he was sweating and groaning. At lunch, he ate only a bowl of soup. He was waling until the evening.

On the first day he was still walking as slowly as a snail. On the fifth day he already liked walking. On the eighteenth day he got to the city of the doctor. He was not so fat anymore and he did not feel so sick anymore.

The doctor examined the rich man. He laughed and said, "If you walk home now, you are perfectly healthy. And if you work in the garden every day, you stay healthy. "The rich man smiled and said," You are a very smart doctor. I understood you."

Comic tale by Friedrich Hebbel