Long ago, when the lands were still ruled by kings, a child was born in a poor farmer's shack. His parents knew they had little to give him, but they raised him as best they could. However, when the child was only eight years old, his parents died and he was left alone. Nobody wanted to welcome him. It was a hostile city and no one had a cent to spend. The boy's name, which no one cared about anymore, was Arshank, and he lived like a mouse. He slept under bushes eating people's garbage. When autumn arrived, he knew he had to find somewhere warm, and so he set out to find a city richer and more charitable than his own. Perhaps there, he thought, someone would provide for him. The road was long and tiring, and he couldn't go far on foot. But one day fortune smiled on him, and Arshank came across a small gray horse that had been loosed, or had escaped from its master, and was wandering along the path. Arshank spent the day with the horse, petting and soothing her until the two were completely comfortable with each other. As they curled up to sleep that night, Arshank found a word on the reins of the beast. “Loyalty,” he whispered. “Is that your name, girl?” The horse hissed at him and he smiled. The next afternoon, Arshank and Fidelity entered a city. He didn't seem richer than the previous one, and the two traveling companions wandered disconsolately through the streets. At night they slept along a wall, soothing each other with their warmth. As they left the next day, Arshank heard a smartly dressed man speaking to a crowd. The boy and the horse stopped to listen. The man was a priest and said: “In the West of our times, if we have been virtuous and sincere, we will find paradise. There, in the... middle of the paper... he opens his eyes to look. With her last breath she blew a puff of companionable air into his face. Arshank cried. But there wasn't even a tear in his eyes, because there was no more moisture in him. “Alas, my friend! That you should fall one step away from heaven! And I don't have the strength to go on without you!" And with these words he died. Arshank felt a part of him whose name he didn't know as relieved. He saw a figure made of light, of purity, which laid him bare. And above him he saw another similar entity lifting a figure he knew to be Fidelity. "Have we reached it?" he asked the being carrying him. "Have we reached heaven?" And it's a much sweeter paradise than you may have noticed. With this paradise, if you have a virtuous and courageous heart, you will be one step ahead no matter where you fall.”