In today's discussion with my mentor we talked about how I hiked up to the monastery. I was telling him about the peasant that was looking at me from his field, and he seemed to know him. Master Drellken then told me another of his stories, which I try to recount here.
One day, the horse of the peasant ran away. It was his only horse. So the villagers pitied him, telling him "That is so bad", and "You have really bad luck". He just answered "We'll see."
A couple days later, the horse returned, and there were two wild horses following it. The peasant now had three horses in stead of one, and the villagers went "Lucky you! That turned out all right". Again, the peasant said "We'll see.".
The peasant's only son tried to tame the wild horses, but he was thrown off and broke his leg and couldn't help any more in the field. You can imagine the villagers' reaction: "That's awful!", "I'm so sorry". But the peasant replied: "We'll see."
Soon after, the Caldari Navy recruiters came for the young men of the village, I think it was at the onset of the Triglavian war, but they passed over the peasant's son on account of his broken leg. Some villagers whose sons had signed up and who worried, told him "You got lucky!". The peasant thought a while, and said: "We'll see."
That's the end of the story. As usual I don't quite know what to make of it. Is this referring to the fact that the State would go on to lose so many systems to the Triglavians? Or is it a tale about the wisdom of the peasant who sees beyond good and bad things? I asked what the peasant meant by his "we'll see"s, and my mentor answered,
"Ah, nothing probably. When the peasant was young he had a stroke, and was left with brain damage, a kind of aphasia. He can only speak this one sentence, 'we'll see', even though in his mind he thinks he's said something quite different. Doctors can't cure it. His wife learned to interpret the intonation of his 'we'll see's to figure out what he wants."
Stunned I said, "So... he's not wise, really?"
To my further surprise my mentor answered: "Oh no, even before his stroke I thought he is one of the wisest persons I have met."
I raised my eyebrow at that. "Ah, such bad luck then that he had this stoke."
My mentor grinned and said "We'll see."
