A long time ago, before the world was created and humans set
foot on it for the first time, virtues and vices wandered bored,
not knowing what to do. One day, they were all gathered and bored
more than even when Ingenious had an idea: Why don't we play hide
and seek?
And all of them liked the idea, and immediately the mad Madness,
shouted: I want to count, I want to count and since no one else was
crazy to seek for Madness, Madness leaned on a tree and started to
count,1, 2, 3..
And as Madness counted, the vices and virtues went hiding.
Tenderness hung on the horn of the moon; Treason in a pile of
garbage; Fondness curled up between the clouds; Lie said he would
hide under a stone but he lied and hid at the bottom of the lake;
Passion went to the center of the earth; Avarice entered a sack
that he ended up breaking....
And Madness continued to count, 79, 80, 81, 82. All the vices and
virtues were already hidden by then, except for Love, whom as
undecided as he is, did not know where to hide. And this should not
surprise us because we all know how difficult it is to hide
Love.
And Madness was already at 95, 96, 97 and just at the moment when
she arrived at hundred, the Love jumped into a rosebush and there
he hid out.
Madness shouted "I'm coming! I'm coming!" and as she turned, the
first one she saw was Laziness, thrown to her feet because he
didn't have any energy to hide.
Then she saw Tenderness in the horn of the Moon, and Lie at the
bottom of the lake, and Passion in the center of the
earth...!
Discovering them one by one, finding all of them but one.
Madness was getting desperate, unable to find the last missing one,
until Envy, envious for having been discovered, whispered to
Madness: "You are lacking Love, and he is hiding in the
rosebush."
Madness took a wooden pitchfork, and stabbed at the rosebush, and
stabbed and stabbed, till a heartbreaking shout made her stop.
After the shout, Love came out covering his face with his hands,
and from between his fingers run two threads of blood, out of his
eyes.
Madness who was anxious to find Love had taken out Love's eyes with
the pitchfork.
"What have I done?, what have I done?" she shouted. "I have left
you blind! How can I repair it?"
Love answered,"You can't restore my eyes. But if you want to do
something for me, you could be my guide."
From that day on, Love is blind and is always accompanied by
Madness.
