Le savetier et le financier: une fable d'Esope

Abstract

Here is the French version of "The Rich Man and the Shoemaker: A Fable by La Fontaine" and "Der reiche Mann und der Schuster: Eine Fabel des Aesop" published in the same year by the same publisher. It is curious that the same story is described here and in German as a fable of Aesop, whereas in English it was a fable of La Fontaine. And "Bernadette" here and in German is "Bernadette Watts" in English. Of course I thought that we already had this book but I took it just to be sure. Lucky us! Let me repeat some comments from the German edition. I am delighted to see that Bernadette Watts is continuing to illustrate fables. She had done so for at least three Aesopic fables earlier: "The Wind and the Sun," "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse," and "The Lion and the Mouse." I noted then that the telling here is not true to La Fontaine's fine fable. Not only are fine little details left out, like the shoemaker's reference to the feast days on which he may not work, but bigger things are changed too. For example, the merchant here at first asks the shoemaker to stop singing. There is no such request anywhere in La Fontaine. In La Fontaine's version, the singing stops of its own accord as the shoemaker fixates in worry on his new treasure. In this version, the merchant has to try three times to give the shoemaker some gold. The latter, when he finally accepts it, digs into the frozen ground behind his home. I enjoy Watts' art. She sets the shoemaker into a very warm family-business setting here.