The Hodja smiled, smoothing the silk of his sleeve. "Ahmed, I am not dressing for a wedding. I am simply keeping pace with the Earth. Today, the world has —it has put on its green robe—and it would be rude of me to remain in my dusty browns."

The villagers gasped. "Look! The green is spreading from the Hodja’s robe to the soil!"

Ahmed looked at the brown, barren fields and laughed. "The world is still gray and dead, Hodja! You’ve gone mad."

One chilly morning, just as the last traces of winter were clinging to the Anatolian soil, Nasreddin Hodja emerged from his house wearing a vibrant, emerald-green robe that no one had ever seen before. It was so bright it seemed to glow against the gray morning mist.

As he walked toward the village square, his neighbor, Ahmed, called out, "Hodja Effendi! Why are you dressed so grandly today? There is no wedding, and the air is still cold enough to freeze a donkey’s ears!"