The female cardinal became jealous of the male one. 'Why can't I be bright red? When I fly by I want people to say, "There goes a cardinal, the flashiest bird west of the Indies." Why can't I be the norm of the species?' The male cardinal turned his head away. He found her discontent extraordinarily wearying; but with proper forbearance he said to her what he had always said, 'My dear, it is not given to all of us to shine. The cock shall sing and the hen shall listen. That's how it is, and that's how it should be.' This was a lie and she knew it, though she had heard it so often that by now it had acquired a virtual reality. She was, as it happened, by far the better singer. She cleared her throat and decided to ignore him. She began to sing. She sang and sang. People stopped to listen. 'Wow! Look at that cardinal!' they exclaimed to each other, Can she sing!' Others admired her subtle colouring. This pleased her. She recovered her good humour, and the male heaved a sigh of relief. But after a while her success began to make him uneasy. 'What's your secret?' he asked one day. 'Repetition works,' the cardinal told him.
