A pure truth makes life peaceful ; a good lie makes it pleasant . This news came with the spring , and the small town was doubly renewed . The buds of the trees cracked quickly , and the first flowers appeared in the tidy gardens . Small butterflies flew over the large fences and fluttered over the sunny homes .
Quiet Smarayda , on hearing that , smiled as youthfully and beautifully as she had not smiled for a long time . She stood in front of the mirror like never before . Then she cleaned the roots of the large roses on whose stems had already gone the juices of life .
As she went to church , she heard whisper behind her back , and she felt the envious looks of the women on all sides , and this passed like a refreshing power in her body , making Smarayda raise her eyes one step higher .
On the way back she walked along the main street . In front of the cafes and pubs sat the men . She felt their eyes full of desire , and then she weaved and dragged them like invisible reins up to the far corner . When she turned into a small lane , she went home quickly and excited like a young girl .
On the first day of the Lent , at the time when the hardest tree blooms – that is , the dogwood – Pavel the Blessed went around the town to do his job as a caterpillar remover and tree cultivator☺ .
During work , perched on the small ladder , pulling the string of the scissors , he thought about the hair and he himself didn ’ t know whether to believe or not in the existence of this miracle . He hadn ’ t seen Smarayda , but his friends said that they had seen her and really she seemed as having something in her that was not found in other women .
They were treasure seekers , gamblers and hunters and easily believed in Smarayda ’ s gold hair , because they thought that such a wonder is possible . The Blessed began thinking .
One day he told his friends that he was going to visit Smarayda to clean her trees from caterpillars . Since then he had no longer appeared in the café , and those who had seen him enter Smarayda ’ s house with a ladder and scissors wondered . They believed that Smarayda did have a golden hair .
On Palm Sunday , before taking communion , Smarayda looked down humbly but without remorse and told the old father in the small church that she had sinned with the Blessed , and after the holidays she was going to marry him .