The parable of the traveller and the innkeeper

There was once a traveller who had left so many miles behind him that all he saw was strange to his eyes. He had begun his journey young, and almost exhausted his youth in travelling. Now he was nearly a man, but felt somehow still, in part, like a boy. He yearned to be young no more, but did not know how he might make that happen.

For many months the traveller passed through a hot, humid country, scattered with rocks and sweet-smelling succulents. On a day of particularly searing heat a great thirst came upon him, and he felt as though the skin on his bones might set aflame. As he rounded the corner of a mountainside which gave off its own chalky heat he saw, in the distance, a cottage with a run-down roof, surrounded by unruly fields. There was a horse tied up outside the building, and the sound of movement was carried over to him on the flat, heavy breeze. When he saw the horse drink water from a trough, the traveller could resist no longer, and stumbled down a rocky escarpment to the container of warm liquid. Falling to his knees at its side, he drank his fill.

Lifting his head after a time he saw a fat gentleman, with an apron over his clothes, looking at him with interest. The traveller knew a few words of the local language and stuttered a greeting. At first his new companion said nothing in response, and the traveller thought he might have misunderstood. Then suddenly he returned the compliment in a dialect of the common tongue, flattened and bent by the accent of the country. He welcomed the traveller to the region and also, as he explained, to his tavern. The taverner beckoned to the traveller to follow him into the cottage, and then walked through the door into the darkness beyond. The traveller swallowed in trepidation and his throat, now sated, felt tender as it clenched. Making up his mind he followed.

The taverner was already behind a wooden-topped bar, and reaching up to shelves for a little food. He asked the traveller if he wanted bread%u2014then corrected himself, and asked if he had money for bread. The traveller admitted that he did indeed have some funds, and jangled a few small coins onto the counter. This seemed to satisfy his host, and within moments there was food and drink in place of the coins. The traveller was hungry and ate rapidly, and all the while his host quizzed him about his journey, while the traveller in return asked questions about the area.

The traveller, leaving home at so tender an age, had never visited the taverns of his motherland and did not know quite what to expect. Its keeper, as he nonetheless had expected, sold wine, bread and cheese, and there were stools on which to sit and tables up to which the stools could be pulled. It was a custom of his own country that taverns would also let those passing through lodge for a time. After a minute's quiet he asked: did the taverner have any rooms to let? The taverner readily admitted he had three, above the public area in which they both currently stood. That made him an innkeeper, the traveller thought, as this innkeeper named a price. At this, the traveller's face fell. He admitted that he could not afford such an amount, and that the food before him had all but exhausted his funds.

"Well," the innkeeper said, rubbing the roll of stubbly fat under his chin and then round to the back of his neck. "This is a quiet time for me. The cattle herders have headed south, and almost everyone from the local villages has gone to the city for the parades and fiestas. They will not return for some weeks. And so nobody is buying my wine or my cheese, and I cannot afford to let you stay for nothing."

"I can work for my board," the traveller pleaded. "I can repair your roof and your chimney. My father was a carpenter, and I can work with stones a little. I can also help plough your fields, and make the tavern ready for when the villagers return."

The innkeeper had a simple soul. He also had lazy bones, and at the thought of so many tasks performed by the young traveller his face lit up with a smile. He agreed readily to this arrangement, and began cleaning some of the bowls behind the bar with a dirty cloth.

"You are a godsend, my boy," the innkeeper said. "If you perform all these tasks you will certainly earn your keep and more. Though I have very little money to give you to help you on your travels, I will show you something far greater than money. I will show you the way to the most blessed stone cross, high on the nearby hill. It will be the making of you, my boy. It will make you a man."

The traveller's attention was drawn by this statement, and he asked the innkeeper: what was this stone cross of which the innkeeper spoke? The innkeeper explained that the stone was indeed holy, shaped out of the rock by the grace of God himself. He said that in that region for as long as anyone could remember there was told the story of a saint, the name now lost to time, who had walked up the hill as a penance, laden with all his belongings. Baking in the heat of a sabbath's midday the saint had prostrated himself before the stone. There he had found himself in miraculous communion with the Lord Almighty, who had told him a great and powerful secret. The innkeeper explained that he himself was now too old and too fat to make such a penance, and would probably expire before he reached the top. But the young traveller! If he were to make such a penance, reciting a prayer at each turn in the path, and reaching the summit just as the sun touched the peak of the hill opposite, then he too would learn something subtle and wise about the innermost heart of man.

The traveller could barely wait for the next sabbath in five days' time. Those days passed either slowly or quickly, the traveller couldn't tell, as he had to work hard for his keep and thus had little time in which to be distracted. The number of tasks that the innkeeper could find for him multiplied every day, now that the fat man could rely on an almost inexhaustible youth to perform them. He soon made good the roof and the chimney, and then found himself sweeping the tavern and its steps, and cleaning out the rooms. Although he was kept busy, each day he would step outside several times, only for a moment, to breathe in the clean air and gaze up at the hill; at midday, and before and after.

Soon it was the evening before the sabbath, and the innkeeper and the traveller were sat inside the darkening room of the tavern. No fire was lit, for the heat of the day was still lifting off the bricks and drifting through the tavern. The innkeeper said to the traveller: "Tomorrow is the sabbath. We do not work on that day and so in my heart I cannot ask you to work for me. Perhaps you should complete your penance instead, eh?" And he pointed towards the mountain, and winked at the traveller.

The next day the traveller set out when the sun was almost over the peak opposite. The journey was long and arduous, as with his pack on his back and a stick in one hand he made his way in the waxing sunshine up the dry path. At each turn he would have to make himself remember to pray, and once, dizzy and thirsty, he almost forgot why he was even there. By the time he reached the peak his brain was misty with the heat, but in front of him he saw a stone in the shape of the cross. No sign of flintknife or sawtooth could be seen on its surface, yet it was unmistakably cruciform, balanced somehow on the end of its longest bar. He knelt painfully in front of the cross for some minutes, but felt nothing and eventually, disappointed, headed back down the hill towards the tavern. On the way down his legs ached far more than on the journey up, and he was tempted to throw his pack down the steep slope, and pick it up at the bottom.

He found the innkeeper waiting for him outside the tavern, and he asked what the traveller had seen. "I saw the cross," he admitted, "but nothing more. I did not feel God near me. The penance did not work."

"When did you set out?" asked the innkeeper. "Where was the sun?"

The traveller pointed, as the innkeeper had done nearly a week before. "Nearly over the peak of that hill there."

At this, the innkeeper shook his head. "You must have set out too late. The sun must be at the top of that peak, when you are at the top of the other. That is how the saint arrived at the cross. But there is always next sabbath, if you want to try again."

The traveller agreed that he should remain in the tavern for another week. Six days now, they were spent by the traveller in yet more tasks set for him by the innkeeper. There seemed no end to the work that was available to be done around the tavern, as though it had been neglected for months or even years. Before the six days were out the traveller had cleaned every bowl, glass and plate in the tavern, and had moved wine barrels to and fro so often that he dreamt of their round, fat shape, and sometimes in his sleep thought of himself carrying the innkeeper up and down the cellar steps. Yet even with such a weight of work, the traveller made sure that each day at least once he looked up at the mountain, at the top of which he was certain he discerned the cross.

Sabbath's eve arrived a second time, and the innkeeper and the traveller were resting after the toil of the day. Sweet smells of blossom were blown through the tavern's open door, disturbing the stifling heat. The innkeeper said to the traveller: "Tomorrow is the sabbath once again. Perhaps this time, if you are more careful in your penance, you will find the grace of God waiting for you at the top of the mountain. Now, though, you should rest!" And he slapped his hands on the table, and headed off to bed.

Remembering how long the journey took him before, the traveller set out somewhat earlier. As he clambered up the rocky slope, with his pack slung over one shoulder and a stick to help him on his way, he turned his head often to judge the position of the sun, and slow down when necessary. On one bend in the path he sat down altogether; after a few minutes, belatedly, he mumbled a prayer. As he lifted himself over the final brow in the path he found himself before the stone cross. He marvelled at its smoothness: clinted and griked in its shape, but polished beyond the point of weatherwearing as if once held by a divine hand. But tiredness as much as holiness made him drop in front of it, and he lay there for some time, before rising despondently and turning back towards the tavern. Loose stones and gravel scattered before him, making him stumble a little, and all he wanted to do was to throw himself, first into the horse's trough, and then into his bed.

The innkeeper was leaning on a hoe in the garden in front of the tavern, and he prompted the traveller with a simple: "So?" The traveller had to confess that, once again, he had failed to find God at the holy stone cross.

"Did you say a prayer at every bend?" asked the innkeeper. "Didn't I see you rest a while out by the ridge?"

The traveller had to confess, to the innkeeper's disappointment: "I did rest, but I said a prayer before I set off again."

At this, the innkeeper shook his head. "You did not say your prayers properly. You must not rest first, but pray first. See to God before you see to yourself. But there is always next sabbath, if you wish to stay here until then."

The traveller agreed that he would continue with board and work at the tavern until the next sabbath. Once more he spent the days preceding it in working for the innkeeper. Once more the innkeeper found him task after task, which the innkeeper found easier after the fourth day when an old, toothless farmer turned up at the tavern. First the traveller was given the task of feeding now two horses, and then he chopped wood from the few trees that dotted the shadier slopes of nearby hills. He helped in cooking simple food for the farmer, who explained that the rest of the villagers were on their way, as he had set out early owing to his advanced years. Frequently the innkeeper and the farmer would drink late into the night, while the traveller (exhausted from his day's work) went to bed. But every day, however tired he became, the traveller cast a glance up to the hill with its cross atop.

Sabbath's eve arrived a third time, and the traveller was resting, while the innkeeper poured wine for the farmer. Outside the horses whinnied at scents carried on the wind, interrupting the quiet of the evening. The innkeeper nudged the farmer and then said to the traveller. "Tomorrow is the Lord's day again. Perhaps this time, if you take more care over your prayers, you will learn a great truth from the top of the mountain. Now, though, you should get some sleep." And he poured wine for himself, and the traveller considered himself dismissed.

Remembering his past fatigues, the traveller drank deeply from the trough of water before he set out, and packed all his belongings so that he might most easily heft them up the mountainside. As he picked his way over the path that he now knew very well, he tried to remember all the contingencies on his penance. He said his prayers promptly at each turn in the path, and judged well the time it would take him to reach the top of the mountain. As he approached the cross for the third time, he chanced to look over his shoulder at the valley below. He could see the tavern and the horses in the distance, and the innkeeper and the farmer were stood in the vegetable patch next to the building.

Though it was a long way from the valley to the summit, the traveller's youthful eyes were keen, and he could tell that both figures were looking at the mountain; indeed, they both had their heads raised and could have been looking straight at him. As the traveller continued to watch the two older men, the farmer turned to his companion and slapped him on the arm. He said something, and pointed up at where the traveller was standing. At the end of the farmer's speech, both men seemed to rock and sway.

At seeing this, the traveller learned a great truth about his fellow man. As he began to appreciate this truth, he knew in his heart that he was no longer the young boy that had left his homeland. He shouldered his pack into a more comfortable position, took one last glance at the innkeeper and the farmer; he turned away from the cross and the summit, and away from the tavern and the valley; older, wiser, sadder, the traveller began his long walk home.