A SPRING BOUQUET was once very proud of its beauty. So arrogant was it even, that it never took a bath, smelling badly as a result from all the dirt of the meadow that it had picked its flowers from.

One Spring day, it decided to try its luck. “A bouquet as beautiful as me should be the decoration of a wedding or a baptism ceremony”, the bouquet boasted and went to the nearest city. After scanning each and every shop front, it found one that was selling wedding favors and placed itself among them.

The next day, a soon-to-be groom bought it for his wedding. So excited was he even, that he paid for the bouquet without smelling it first, and went over to his bride to present it to her. As soon as she smelled it, she got angry. “The bouquet smells of filth”, his fiancée told him and threw it out of the window.

The bouquet got angry at its misfortune and thought of covering up its bad smell with perfumes. “Nobody will take notice”, it thought and went to the nearest perfume store where it bought the best smelling perfume it could find, spending a fortune. After spraying itself from tip to toe, it sat on a bench and patiently waited for someone to pass by and take notice of it.

A lover was first to pass by, who collected it in order to present it as a gift to his girlfriend on their date. As soon as she showed up however and filled her nostrils with the bouquet’s smell, she got angry to identify a woman’s perfume among the variety of fragrances the bouquet had sprayed itself with. As she was not wearing that specific perfume, she threw the bouquet away at a river close by and yelled at her friend.

This time, the bouquet got so soaked that all the expensive perfumes it was covered with, got washed away. Disappointed, it got out of the river and sat at the shadow of a tree.  “Nobody wants me due to my bad smell…”, the bouquet cried, this time soaking its flowers with tears. So much did it cry, even, that the teardrops cleaned its flower petals from all the dirt of the meadow that it had collected the flowers.

As soon as all the tears in its eyes dried up, a young boy appeared who collected it with enthusiasm, then went straight home to his grandmother to give it to her.

His grandmother then, after filling her nostrils with the bouquet’s newly found beautiful smell, placed it inside a vase and gave her grandson a big kiss so as to thank him, as no other gift is more fitting for welcoming Spring than a fragrant, colorful bouquet of flowers collected from the meadow.