FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE
Moscow

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
BY BERNARD ISAACS

DESIGNED BY L. GRITCHIN

CONTENTS

PREFACE

My childhood and youth were spent in the East. I best remember Ferghana, as I travelled all over that part of the country. It was a long time ago, but even now, at fifty, I still think of Ferghana as one of the loveliest spots on earth.

The newspaper Pravda Vostoka (Truth of the East) was my literary cradle, for it was in its columns that my first articles and stories appeared in print.

My first book Lenin in Eastern Folk Art—a volume of Central-Asian post-revolutionary folklore—was published in Moscow in 1930. Skipping the intervening books and screen scripts that I wrote, I shall pass directly to Khoja Nasreddin.

I heard many amusing stories about him in Uzbekistan and subsequently Academician Krimsky's research on Khoja Nasreddin fell into my hands. The character of this most popular wag and wit of the East at once acquired depth and substance in my mind, and it struck me that he might have been an Uzbek, he might have been born in Bokhara. And so my first book describing the adventures of Khoja Nasreddin came into being. It was published in 1940 under the title of Disturber of the Peace (or Khoja Nasreddin in Bokhara).

This book is familiar to Soviet readers and to readers abroad.

The war and the difficult years that followed it prevented me from following up the story of my hero, and the second book of his adventures under the title of The Enchanted Prince was not finished until 1954.  {7} 

Opinion among my readers on the merits of the two books is divided. The young readers give the palm to the first book, the not-so-young prefer the second. As I belong to the latter age-group, my own preference goes to the second book. I am often asked whether I intend to continue the Khoja Nasreddin narrative. My answer to this is contained in the closing lines of the present volume.

Leonid SOLOVYOV

March 1957

THE SAGES of yore have bequeathed to the world a rich legacy of books, in order that the torch of their learning may light up for us, who live today, the devious and dangerous paths of our lives. These books tell us about everything: about wars and earthquakes, about wonders and prophecies; every page is adorned with the names of sheikhs, and caliphs, and invincible warriors and other illustrious personages; but there is one man of whom these books say nothing, although he was famed throughout the world. That man is Khoja Nasreddin.

This omission on the part of the ancients is not surprising. It often happened in those remote times that one or another sage planted in his book the seeds of fortune and honours, but reaped instead—alas!—innumerable woes. Hence the sages were extremely discreet in word and thought, as is evidenced in the case of that most virtuous man Mohammed Rasul ibn-Mansur; on taking up his abode in Damascus, he proceeded to write a book entitled A Treasure-House of the Righteous, and had come to the biography of that much-sinning Vizier  {9}  Abu Iskhak, when he suddenly discovered that the governor of Damascus was a direct descendant of the said vizier on the maternal side. “Praise be to Allah for that timely intelligencer exclaimed the sage, and counting off a dozen blank pages, he wrote upon each of them the word “Discretion,” and proceeded forthwith to the history of another vizier whose powerful offshoots dwelt at a safer distance from Damascus. As a result of this circumspection the said sage was able to reside in peace in Damascus for many a long year, and contrived to die a natural death without being constrained to cross the Bridge of the Afterworld, carrying his head before him in his hands like a lantern.

The books are silent about Khoja Nasreddin. The heavy stone of forbiddance lay upon his name in those days. For such was the command of the powerful—the caliphs, the sultans, and the shahs, who hoped, by deriving him of posthumous fame, to take their revenge upon him at least in the ages to come. Need we ask whether they succeeded in their purpose? The same old story repeats itself in all times. As Selman Saveji says, “the deserving shall be famed even though all the whirlwinds were leagued against him!”

For there is a book over which the caliphs have no power—the memory of the people. It was in that great book that Khoja Nasreddin achieved for himself an immortal name

In the town of Khojent, on the banks of the Syr-Darya, there is a large common upon which no one settles or raises orchards, because at this point the river makes a sharp bend and undermines the bank, of which it washes away from three to four cubits every year. The river has already washed away half the plot and come close up to the mighty elm which grows there all by  {10}  itself, its gnarled bared roots running down the clayey steep into the water. Exposed to the sun and abundantly provided with moisture, the elm spreads its branches wide, its luxuriant green foliage obscuring all the other trees, which stand in a wretched huddle by the dusty roadside a little way off. Parched with thirst and languishing from the heat, they feebly rustle their starved puny leaves, and like many a paltry person, cast envious eyes upon their proud and happy rival. “Never mind,” they think, “the river will wash away some more of the bank upon which it stands, and, losing its support, it will topple over and be carried away by the stream to rot ingloriously on some sand-bank. But we shall stand here as of old, rendering thanks to fate for having planted us far from the river; our foliage may be sparse and unlovely to behold, and ineffectual in offering cool shade to the wayfarer; our leaves may be caked with the hot dust of the road, and our roots choked down by the hard dry earth, but we are content and wish for no better lot, for all striving is fraught with hazard, of which this proud elm is an example.”

They are mistaken. The elm will not topple into the river and be carried away by the stream. The water will wash away naught save the sickly little growth around it, and will not conquer its mighty roots, which have struck deep to the very bottom of the river. The elm will stand firm upon the bank, and the very river that is washing it, will deposit fertile silt around it, and the elm will but strengthen the bank, it will thrive, and spread its massive crown ever wider, while those others by the roadside will have yielded up their wretched lives to the fire in the hearths. And even when its bark will have peeled off, when its core will have dried, and its juices stopped running within the trunk, it will not be cut down and sawn up for firewood, but will be enclosed in a pretty fence and shown to the passing traveller  {11}  with the words: “This elm was planted and raised by Khoja Nasreddin!”

And the traveller will further learn that Razzok (which means Bread-Giver), a suburb of Khojent, inhabited by bread-cake bakers, has another name among the people—the suburb of Khoja Nasreddin, because it was here that legend claims his house to have stood in times of yore. The people of Khojent will tell the traveller that up in the mountains on the way to Asht, there is Khoja Nasreddin's lake; that on the shores of that lake stands the little village of Chorak; in that village there is Nasreddin's chaikhana, and that under the eaves of that chaikhana live Nasreddin's sparrows—descendants of a famous sparrow, of whom more anon. There is a cave there, too, with the quaint name of “Abode of the Righteous Thief,” there is also Nasreddin's aryk, Nasreddin's foot-bridge—in short, everything there breathes of his memory, as if he had ridden forth from here on his ass only yesterday.

Clad in the robe of zeal and armed with the staff of patience, we visited all these places. We passed the night under many roofs, warmed ourselves at many fires, talked about Khoja Nasreddin with many people; fortune favoured our search, and today we turn over yet another page of his life, saying with the most wise Ibn-Tufail, “May this story be a lesson to those that have a heart, or to those who will hear and see.”

CHAPTER ONE

UPON quitting Bokhara, Khoja Nasreddin with his wife Guljan repaired first to Istanbul and thence to the Arabs. He disturbed the peace successively in Bagdad, Medina, Beirut, and Basra, caused pandemonium in Damascus, then dropped in at Cairo, where he held for a time the office of chief judge of the city. Whom he judged and how he judged, we know not, but what we do know is that he was thereafter sought for and hunted all over Egypt for a space of two years. But he was far away at the time, travelling in other lands and upon other roads.

Eternal wanderer, he never stopped long at any place; sunrise found him saddling his asses—the white one for Guljan, the grey one for himself—and continuing on his way again, pressing on and on, and choosing a new halting-place every night. In the morning the frost chilled him and the blizzard attacked him at the snowy pass, at noon the motionless heat in the rocky mountain gorges parched his lips, and in the evening he breathed the fragrant coolness of the valley and drank from the aryk the turbid water whose birth from the ice  {15}  and snows he had witnessed that day up in the mountains.

Were he free to do as he liked he would never have ceased in his wanderings and would have continued on his way until he had encompassed the earth with the narrow tracks of his ass's hoofs. But a man who has a wife must also have offspring, and Khoja Nasreddin did not neglect his duty; on the fourth year of wedlock he was blessed with a fourth son by Guljan. Khoja Nasreddin rejoiced, Guljan rejoiced, the brothers of the newborn expressed boisterous delight and clapped their hands, and the white ass brayed triumphantly, proclaiming to all bipeds, feathered and unfeathered, to all quadrupeds, and all creatures that swim and crawl, the coming into the world of a young master. The grey ass alone rejoiced not. He twitched his ears and gazed gloomily at the ground, blind to all the glories of spring scattered so prodigally around him.

A month later saw them on their way again—Guljan upon her white ass, Khoja Nasreddin upon his grey one. In front of him, right on the ass's withers, sat his eldest son; behind him on the ass's rump sat his second son, diverting himself with the ass's tail, which, having caught and pulled over towards him, he was picking-clean of the burrs that stuck to the tuft; the third son was riding in the right saddle-bag, and the fourth had been put to bed in the left saddle-bag.

“Guljan, my ass looks dejected of late,” said Khoja Nasreddin, “I trust he is not ill, may Merciful Allah preserve us from such a misfortune!”

“Buy a good whip at the next bazaar; that will cheer him up quickly,” advised Guljan.

Hearkening to these words, the ass merely sighed and murmured inwardly against his master.

A year passed over them. Spring returned, the south wind opened the apricot blossoms, the gardens were  {16}  flooded with the pink-and-white spindrift of flowers and filled with chirps, chirrups, twitters and warbles, and the aryks overflowed their banks, rumbling at night with a full deep sound as of trumpets. One day, during a halt, the grey ass, while nibbling the fresh spring grass, chanced to look at Guljan and marked that she had grown round of body again. His worst suspicions confirmed, the ass with a bray of despair broke his tether and made a dash through the bushes.

Only then did the reason for the long-eared one's brooding misery dawn upon Khoja Nasreddin.

“Fairest Guljan,” said he, “it will only be just if you take the two last boys to you upon the white ass.”

From then on it was the white ass who brooded, whereas the grey one, on the contrary, now held his ears erect, twirled and wagged his tail, and stepped out briskly along the road.

But two more years passed over them, and both asses fell to brooding.

“Haply we should buy a third?” Guljan suggested.

“O my matchless rose, if this continues we shall soon have a whole caravan trailing behind us!” answered Khoja Nasreddin. “Alas, I fear that my years of roving are over, and that years of contemplation and meditation have set in for me.”

“Praise be to Allah!” exclaimed Guljan. “At last you have come to understand how unseemly it is for a man of your age and with such a family to gad about like a homeless vagabond. We shall hie to Bokhara to live with my father.”

“Stay,” Khoja Nasreddin checked her. “You forget that the same illustrious Emir still reigns in Bokhara, and he has hardly forgotten his court astrologer Hussein Huslia. Let us rather take up our abode hereabouts in Kokand or in Khojent.”  {17} 

From the hill-side upon which he had pitched his tent for the night could be descried two roads: one a trade high road to Kokand, the other a narrow country road to Khojent. Along the Kokand high road, amid a heavy cloud of dust, moved a slow, dark, droning procession of camel caravans, two-wheeled carts, horsemen, and pedestrians; the Khojent road was quiet and deserted, and the lofty sky above it was tinged with the pink, flush of sunset.

“We shall hie to Kokand,” said Khoja Nasreddin.

“No, I had rather we hied to Khojent,” retorted Guljan. “I am weary of the great cities and noisy bazaars, and I yearn for rest and quiet.”

All too late he recognized his mistake. Wishing to go to Kokand and knowing his wife's disposition, he should have proposed Khojent to her in the first instance, “What, such a lonely spot!” she would have exclaimed, and the next morning would have found them travelling the high road. However, it was too late to rectify the error, and dangerous to argue, for truly says the ancient saying, “He who argues with his wife only succeeds in shortening his life.”

So Khoja Nasreddin sighed and said:

“I have been in Khojent once, and I still remember the taste of those famous grapes of theirs. Very well, let it be as you desire.”

And so they settled in Khojent, in the suburb of the bread-cake bakers Razzok, on the very bank of the Syr-Darya. Escaping into the valley from the narrow gorges, the great river, benefactress of innumerable generations, here checked the headlong course of her yellow seething waters and flowed past Khojent with slow majesty, bestowing life upon plants, animals and human beings, and lulling Khoja Nasreddin's children to sleep with the soft purl of her wavelets lapping the clayey bank.  {18} 

In the days of which we speak not a trace remained of Khojent's erstwhile glory and wealth. It was now a drowsy little town inhabited by small shopkeepers, gardeners, and a multitude of turbaned old dodderers—retired mullahs, mudarrises, ulemas, and cadis. Old men prayed in the mosques, old men sat about in the chaikhanas and tottered about the streets, lanes and squares, filling the town with their wheezy coughing and the dreary shuffling of their slipshod feet. Such a gathering of old men in a single town was astonishing. It seemed as if they had all conspired together to consign their ashes to none but the yellow earth of Khojent, and had flocked together for that purpose from all over the Moslem world.

Engirded on all sides by brimming aryks, protected from the cold winds by the mountains, Khojent, with its gardens and vineyards, was a veritable paradise for those who were weary of life's storms, and that is why the Khojentians ceased not to praise Allah for the great joy of living in such a heaven-blessed place.

There was only one person in the whole town who was of a different mind—a man by the name of Uzakbai, a former bazaar overseer from Samarkand. But then Uzakbai was a queer ill-humoured man, who always wore large dark spectacles that covered half his face, never made friends, never entered into conversation with anyone, never paid visits or entertained guests. This unsociable disposition of his led his neighbours to believe that he bore within him a dark soul burdened by evil deeds. The urchins scampered away at his approach, shouting, “Owl! Spectacled owl!” But he never uttered a word. He merely shook his head and smiled mirthlessly at the nickname.

Yes, the man living under the guise of Uzakbai was none other than Khoja Nasreddin. He knew that in this small town where everyone lived in full view of the  {19}  others a single slip of the tongue, a single wrong step on his part would bring down a simoom upon his family. So he was obliged to cover his face with dark spectacles, to live under an assumed name, to shun his neighbours, and, in doing so, come to feel Khojent to be a dismal prison and himself the most unfortunate and wretched of men.

He complained bitterly against Allah for having implanted in his soul two contrary and warring elements: an ineradicable passion for vagabondage and a warm affection for his family. Torn between these opposing forces, he was a veritable martyr, all the more since he had locked his sufferings away deep down within his heart. Indeed, whom could he complain to, whom could he confide in? In Guljan, his faithful and dearly beloved helpmeet? But, as it happened, she personified one of those sundering forces; the other was symbolized by the ass, who stood dazing peacefully and growing fat over his manger. And although the ass possessed not the power of human speech, he was the only creature the poor sufferer could unburden his heart to at night.

And the next day was like the one that had gone before. Khoja Nasreddin would once more put on his spectacles, which made the sun itself look dim and dull, and go to the bazaar to do the shopping. On his return, he would occupy himself with various household duties in the little yard, in the garden or in the wood shed.

The evenings, however, were his own. The family supped without the master, who would usually be found at that time ensconced in one of the outlying chaikhanas on the banks of the Syr-Darya. It was the most squalid of all Khojent's chaikhanas, frequented only by beggars, thieves, vagabonds and other of the town's riff-raff. But Khoja Nasreddin felt safe there.

The fire-pots with sheep fat reeked thick fumes. The  {20}  pock-marked keeper of the chaikhana, a receiver of stolen goods with a broken nose and shamelessly turned out nostrils, fussed around over the boiling cooking-pots. Presently the guests began to arrive. Hunchbacked, maimed, blind, palsied, paralysed, covered with scabs and festering sores, hobbling on sticks and crutches, filling the air with the noisome odour of their unbelievable rags, at the origin of which not even the supreme chieftain of the Gypsy tribes of Luli could have hazarded a guess, wearing skull-caps which had enough grease on them to be fried, the guests came crawling into the chaikhana from all sides, discussing the day's affairs and their trivial successes and failures with shouts and curses. Looking at that beggarly rabble swarming in the dim light of the smoking lamps, Khoja Nasreddin thought sorrowfully: ‘This is all that is left to me of the wide and beautiful world!”

And it lay before him, that world, wide, spacious, open from end to end. The sunset had faded, dusk was gathering, and a cool freshness drew from the* hushed river—the world was surrendering to night's embrace, and the brightening clear-shining stars stood away from the black canopy of the sky and spun shimmering crystal threads over the earth—the “strings of the angels,” as Hafiz would have said.

Khoja Nasreddin was in no hurry to go home. Half the guests already lay snoring on the dirty floor in a sprawling heap, the keeper was extinguishing the fires under the cooking-pots and the cocks were beginning their sleepy melodious roll-call all over the town, but he still sat there thinking, trying to find such a way out as would reconcile the two mutually hostile forces within him and deliver him from the unendurable bonds of his Khojent captivity.

He knew not at the time that those bonds had already been severed: decision had ripened in his heart  {21}  and was but awaiting the moment when it would be exalted to Reason, thereafter to be translated into deeds; like an overhanging avalanche, it wanted but a slight jolt to set it into motion.

CHAPTER TWO

At last fate ordained a wonderful encounter, which precipitated events.

On his way to the chaikhana in the evenings, Khoja Nasreddin always passed a deaf and dumb mendicant, who sat under a reed awning at the entrance to the old ruined Mosque of Guhar-Shad. In appearance he was just an ordinary mendicant in no way distinguished from the numerous members of his brotherhood who scurried about the bazaar, roamed the streets, swarmed round the mosques, tombs and such other holy places as tended to soften the hearts of the faithful and, what is more important, loosen their purse-strings. What was strange about this mendicant was that he had chosen a mosque that had long been closed and was no longer attended by anyone, and which was therefore little suited for the prosperous plying of his trade. The mendicant acknowledged the half-tanga, which Khoja Nasreddin daily gave him, with a silent nod and a timid glance of his kindly old eyes, which seemed to have recaptured from the distant past a childlike limpidity; then he would roll up his threadbare mat and retire into the mosque, amid the ruins of which he apparently lived, sharing his solitude with the bats and the owls.

One day this deaf and dumb mendicant suddenly spoke. It happened on a bleak late afternoon at the close of winter; clouds had overcast the sunset, a drizzling rain was falling slantwise, and an inclement wind whistled among the bare branches of the trees, rippling  {22}  the turbid water in the puddles and fluttering and turning up the awning of reeds over the head of the old mendicant. Khoja Nasreddin had stopped before him, and put his hand into his pocket for the usual coin, but before he could draw it out the mendicant put forth his emaciated arm and uttered in an earnest voice, “Grieve not, Khoja Nasreddin, ere long you will cast off your dark spectacles.”­­­

Khoja Nasreddin stood stricken with amazement, his eyes popping and his mouth agape, one hand thrust into his pocket. Knowing all the artifices of mendicancy, he was not surprised to hear this deaf-mute speak, but how did the old man know his name?

The mendicant read his thoughts.

“Fear me not, Khoja Nasreddin!” said he, a faint gleam flickering in the depths of his dim eyes. “In the hope of receiving your aid I have sought speech with you for many a long year, but never till now have I succeeded, albeit I have seen you oft aforetime. I saw you in Bokhara, when I sat with my cup by the cistern of Labi-Hauz, I saw you in Samarkand. . . .”

“Stay!” Khoja Nasreddin interrupted him, his astonishment growing with every word the mendicant uttered. “How, in what manner did you learn of my being here? You have filled my heart with disquiet.”

“Cast fear from your heart! None in all this region save myself knows of your sojourn here. I was told thereof by a brother of our secret fraternity of the Silent and the Sapient, otherwise called the Starry Wanderers. While passing through the bazaar at the onset of winter he chanced to behold you at a moment when a heedless porter knocked off your dark spectacles with his pack.”

“I remember!” answered Khoja Nasreddin. “But that brother of yours must possess great keenness of sight to have been able to recognize me in so brief an instant. Are you sure he combines not the secret fraternity of  {23}  the Silent and Sapient with some other secret fraternity of the Overhearing and the Overlooking?”

“Sin-not!” the mendicant sternly checked him. “He was a pious brother whose memory is sacred to me, for he has already passed from this perishable world into another and higher state.”

“Forgive me, venerable sage,” said Khoja Nasreddin, feeling inwardly drawn towards the dervish and inclined to trust him. “Now tell me, why did you speak to me today and not before?”

“According to our rules I must be deaf and mute for the duration of three hundred and sixty-three days in the year,” answered the old man. “You are the first person to whom I have spoken after a year's silence. Today is the first of those two days when I am suffered to remove the seal from my lips. As for previous encounters, they took place either before or after these days and I was perforce silent, albeit my heart yearned towards you and my soul was drowned in tears.”

“Speak, what is your sorrow, what aid would you solicit from me!” exclaimed Khoja Nasreddin, moved by the old man's words. “Haply you are in need of money, venerable one? I chance to have a hundred and fifty tangas hidden away in a secret place unbeknown to my wife.”

“I am a dervish, and seek no benefit in this world other than spiritual,” the old man answered with dignity. “Nay, ’tis not money I ask of you. However, this is no place to speak of such things here upon the road in the cold wind. Come with me.”

They passed into the ruined mosque.

The old man ushered his visitor into a small cell which had, miraculously, survived the earthquake, and lit a lamp with the aid of flint and steel. Khoja Nasreddin perceived a straw litter in a corner—the old man's bed—an earthen pitcher for water, and a broken  {24}  pot covered up with a dark stale bread-cake which mice had nibbled round the edges. There was nothing else in the cell; indeed, the old man, who had probed all the profundities and wisdom of dervish learning, needed nothing else.

Taking the bread-cake, the old man carefully broke off the nibbled edges into his palm, and strewed the crumbs on a little rag spread in a corner before a mouse-hole. Then he divided the cake in two and offered one half to his guest, saying, “Let us sup before we talk.”

The wind howled without and penetrated through the chinks, bending and agitating the thin flame of the lamp; the shadows flickered upon the walls and ceiling, now obscuring, now revealing the old man's gaunt hook-nosed face.

There, in that poor cell, to the dismal accompaniment of the howling wind, the incessant patter of the rain, and the squeaking and scurrying of the mice among the straw, they began their conversation. The old man groped about in a corner, got out from under the straw a bundle, untied it, and emptied a heap of small silver coins on to the stone floor.

“Here is the money you have dropped into my cup. I have saved it all, even to your coin of yesterday. Take it and join it to those hundred and fifty tangas of which your wife knows not.”

“Never have I yet taken back my alms!” protested Khoja Nasreddin. “Keep this money, venerable one, and bestow it when occasion offers upon some poor man burdened with a large family. And now tell me, what aid do you seek from me?”

The old man, without answering, became sunk in thought, which, judging by the sighs that attended it, was of a distressful nature. A long time passed; the wick, becoming covered with snuff, crackled and shot forth sparks, and the flame burned low.  {25} 

Khoja Nasreddin carefully snuffed the wick with his stick, and the flame brightened and lit up the old man's countenance.

He looked up.

“Answer me first, Khoja Nasreddin, have you already found your faith?”

“My faith?” Khoja Nasreddin echoed, surprised. “I know it since a child. Islam is my faith, although, I must confess, I often sin against it.”

“That is the common faith,” answered the old man. “To every living man is revealed another special faith, a private faith of his own. I ask you about your own private faith.”

Khoja Nasreddin was obliged to confess that he had no private faith of his own.

“I thought me so,” the old man said. “Yet therein lies the key to all the riddles that perplex us. Know your faith, and darkness shall become light for you, confusion—clarity, unmeaningness—harmony. Your life, O Khoja Nasreddin, has always been full of activity, but hitherto that had merely applied to its outward aspect, whereas the spirit, unperturbed by quest, had been content with ordinary common sense, and freely revelled in its feeling of affinity with the world. Now that activity has turned inwards, embracing also the spirit, which has, as it were, acquired its own ass, astride whom it is wandering from the Bokhara of Cause to the Istanbul of Effect, the Bagdad of Doubt, and the Damascus of Negation. Seek your faith, Khoja Nasreddin, and if you find it not yourself, I shall prompt you.”

“O venerable sage, you have peered into the innermost depths of my soul! You know all my cherished thoughts!”

“That is so,” said the old man. “Know that I accompany you in thought in all your wanderings, and share in all your doings, Wheresoever you may be and  {26}  whatsoever you may do, every deed of yours, even every word uttered by you reaches me and engraves itself upon my mind, thereafter to be recast into beneficent reflection. In me you behold, as it were, your own self that has already passed into the ultimate phase of earthly existence, when the storms and passions have given way to serenity and wisdom.”

“Great Allah! It is a truly wonderful case—to meet oneself upon the road in the shape of an old man and the guise of a mendicant!”

There was a slight ringing in Khoja Nasreddin's head, for the old man's strange speeches had perplexed and bewildered him.

However, that was but the beginning. He was to hear many more astonishing things.

“Worthy sir, but what is the affair for which you have sought me out?”

The dervish lowered his grey head.

“The hour is near, very near, when, bereft of speech and of breath, I shall lay me down upon the burial litter,” he answered with profound sorrow in his voice. “Foreknowledge of that hour fills me with trepidation, and in tears I supplicate you: help me!”

“How? Raise you from the burial litter?”

“Nay, save my spiritual being from relapsing into its pristine lower condition, from out of which I had struggled ages and ages ago. How many reincarnations my spirit has undergone during that infinity of time, how many toilsome efforts it has made on the path leading to perfection, and now, owing to my criminal negligence, it is destined to begin the whole circle all over again, from the first and most imperfect stage.”

“Merciful Allah!” exclaimed Khoja Nasreddin, shaking his head. “I understand nothing, nothing whatever! Tell me in plain simple words—what do you desire of me?”  {27} 

“The anchor of my salvation is in your hands!” repeated the old man. “I see that you will not understand me until I have revealed to you certain secrets known to us, the Silent and the Sapient.”

“Very well,” Khoja Nasreddin acceded, seeing that there was no other way of getting an intelligible answer out of the old man. “Very well, I am ready to receive your secrets.”

“Then let us begin in the name of Truth!” the mendicant said in a solemn voice. “But first change your place, for my mice are afraid to come out of their holes to have their supper.”

Khoja Nasreddin changed his place, and the mice came out of their holes and supped. Thereupon the old man prayerfully smoothed out his beard between his two hands and spake thus:

“May the higher wisdom bless our conversation and bestow upon you the gift of understanding, and upon me the gift of lucidity and profundity.”

He shut his eyes and remained silent for several minutes, his countenance preserving a rapt and solemn expression, as if he were listening to some secret inner voice; then his face cleared, and he lifted a finger, commanding his guest's attention.

The old sage's secret concerning the reincarnations of the soul had long been known to Khoja Nasreddin from his talks with Indian dervishes, but he held his peace for the sake of courtesy. Imperceptibly, his thoughts strayed to his family and to the coming spring, and the old man's discourse became a far-away monotonous voice, like the steady hum of a spinning-wheel, and the words themselves were obliterated. A week hence a southerly wind would blow, mused Khoja Nasreddin, the roads would thaw, the ice at the mountain  {28}  passes would settle. And a week thereafter the caravans would set forth upon their distant journeys, and the nomads would take foot with their herds.

The spinning-wheel droned on and on, and a minute later a light snore, punctuated by a soft whistling through the nose, arose in the cell.

Khoja Nasreddin slept. His lips were parted, his skull-cap had slipped down over his left eye, his head drooped, and his shoulders sagged. Fortunately, he sat in the shadow, and the old man did not perceive his unmannerly slumber. But the great secrets, from which the veil had meanwhile been lifted, remained concealed to him and, consequently, to us.

He slept, and his dreams were remote from all secrets of the future state. He dreamt of roads, the roads that haunted all his waking hours, of the noisy bazaars so dear to his heart, of the camel caravans in the desert, of the mountain passes where the travellers, holding on to the common rope, climb through the dense wet clouds. He saw the blue blaze of the southern seas, the smooth crystal-clear surging waves sweeping heavily beneath the tall prow of the ship, the clang of the rudder chain slithering against the ship's side, the wind-filled bellying sails of the Turkish feluccas. . . .

The skull-cap slid from Khoja Nasreddin's head and fell into his lap. He awoke with a start.

The dervish proceeded with his oration:

“It may be asked: Where then does our soul find its new embodiment upon quitting the Earth, and where did it abide before its appearance upon Earth? To this I shall answer: What of the astral bodies, the stars, scattered throughout the universe! We arrive upon Earth from a star and depart to a star; we are starry wanderers, O Khoja Nasreddin! And that is why the starry dome lures our gaze and fills us with exalted emotion, for that which we perceive above us is our own  {29}  eternal and boundless homeland, from which we have received our immortality.”

Khoja Nasreddin decided that the time had come to ask the old dervish a question in order to cover up his shameful somnolence.

“O venerable sage, I have often had occasion to see falling stars. But how is one to interpret this phenomenon? It is well if the star that breaks away and falls is the one upon which I have already dwelt in some earlier reincarnation—but what if the fallen star happens to be the one to which I am destined to migrate? Where then will my soul search for it at the termination of its earthly existence, and what will it do with itself if it finds it not in the universe?”

The old man was somewhat taken aback, and he stared for a long time at Khoja Nasreddin with a perplexed eye.

“And I was just about to praise you for the diligence with which you were trying to comprehend my words without interrupting the thread of my thought by foolish and irrelevant questions,” he said with displeasure. “But it is too late already, the midnight cocks have crowed and the watch has sounded the drums calling the inhabitants to extinguish the fires in their hearths. Go home in peace, think upon the secrets I have disclosed to you, and return tomorrow evening so that we can continue this conversation.”

Khoja Nasreddin rose, bowed in silence to the mendicant, and left the cell. The night outside greeted him with a cold wind and pitch darkness, impenetrable as the ignorance in which many of the indolent in spirit and mind are steeped. The rain had ceased, however, and the clouds had thinned; through a rift in the west, a solitary star peeped out timidly and tearfully. Through wet eyelashes it looked down wonderingly upon the cold black earth, and there was so much loving gentleness  {30}  in its radiant glance that Khoja Nasreddin felt deeply moved, and wished, if astral wanderings were indeed to be his destined lot, that his soul would make its home there. “O beautiful little blue star, be kind to me when my hour strikes!” he mentally apostrophized it, his immortal soul soaring to heavenly heights, while at that very same moment its mortal envelope slipped upon a rickety foot-bridge consisting of two thin poles, and with a loud splash, fell into a deep aryk filled with icy water. Khoja Nasreddin struggled out of the mire, drenched to the skin, and by the time he reached home he was blue and shivering. “Shaitan knows where you wander about in this darkness!” Guljan scolded, as she hung up his wet clothes before the fire; he was silent, inwardly cursing that saintly old man and his astral speeches, for the sake of which he had been obliged at night to embark in such a lamentable terrestrial excursion. . . .

Nevertheless, the next evening found him sitting in the same cell, listening to the mendicant's second discourse.

This time he learned that each incarnation was governed by a special law which the soul had to conform to if it was to achieve a more perfect embodiment and be enriched by new qualities necessary for its transition to the future and higher state.

“As for earthly embodiment,” said the old man, “its law is the law of active good. Know, that the future happy ages of the earth belong to the active—I shall call them the Striving and Creating dervishes—for it is they who are destined ultimately to destroy the evil of the earth. You, O Khoja Nasreddin, are the forerunner of those noble creators, hence the import of your earthly existence is of such significance that it will serve as an example to many a generation to come.”  {31} 

Khoja Nasreddin attended the old mendicant's prophecies with genuine interest albeit the paradisiac condition upon earth which he promised was not due for another five hundred thousand years or so. The old dervish possessed exact information about his own immortality, and so he was on easy and familiar terms with the centuries and millenniums, but these aeons of time cast a gloom upon Khoja Nasreddin. He was accustomed to looking upon the earth as his house and his home, and not merely a casual caravanserai upon the roads of stellar wanderings, and he wanted to put that house in order as quickly as he could. Five hundred thousand years! The eye of the mind lost itself in that vastness of time.

Midnight was drawing near. Khoja Nasreddin tried to bring the old dervish down from his stellar flight to more earthly levels and the matter for which they had met in this cell.

“I feel amply enlightened, O prophetic sage,” he said with all possible reverence. “I presume . . . I make so bold to presume, with all due humility, that I am now in a condition to grasp the nature of the aid that you wish to receive from me. May I venture to add that the hour is late, the minutes are flying—so please acquaint me with your business.”

The old man lowered his head.

“It is an exceedingly difficult case.”

“Speak! I engage to do it if only it be within the limits of human possibility. I will do it even if it does exceed those limits to a moderate degree.” With a deep sigh the old man began his narrative.

“In those days, when I was still ignorant of the fraternity of the Silent and the Sapient, when I was rich and lived in wickedness, abandoning myself to pleasures and vices, when the thought of giving all my earthly goods away to the poor and leaving myself  {32}  naked and barefoot had not occurred to me yet—in those days, among the various riches that I possessed, was a mountain lake situated here, in Ferghana. One day—O blackest day of my life!—I diced that lake away, lost it to one named Agabek, who combined within himself the ferocity of a dragon with the pitilessness of a spider. Upon coming into possession of that lake Agabek took up his abode upon its shore and exacted such extortionate dues from the unfortunate villagers for the use of irrigating water that many of them have fallen into poverty and others have been utterly ruined. . . .”

A sob choked the old man's utterance for a minute. Overcoming his emotion, he proceeded:

“Every year with the advent of spring rumours of the man's wickedness and greed reach my ears. I suffer, I weep, I am tormented by remorse, but I cannot mend what I had done. This evil hangs upon me like a stone, and when my earthly race is done, it will hinder my passing into the higher future existence, for the soul of man cannot be deemed to have attained a befitting degree of perfection if there remain on earth after him aught of evil that he has sown and not amended. . . .”

“I understand!” interrupted Khoja Nasreddin, seeing that the old man had spread his wings once more for soaring flight. “You desire me then to take that lake away from Agabek? You are right, wise teacher—my abject mind would never have grasped such a task had I not first been given the benefit of your most instructive speech. Hearken then: I have never seen this Agabek, but I promise you beforehand that his profits shall dwindle considerably before the year is out. Tell me, where is this lake of yours?”

The old man was silent. In the stillness of the night Khoja Nasreddin heard the distant song of the midnight cocks.

The old man's last, second day was over, and according  {33}  to the vow that he had taken, his lips would not open again until the next spring.

“One word!” Khoja Nasreddin cried in alarm. “Only one word—where?”

The old man was silent.

Khoja Nasreddin was unable to conceal his annoyance.

“You found time for everything, venerable sage: for lengthy discourses about starry wanderings and the light of the universe, but the single earthly word, the most important of all, you failed to utter. You were a second late.”

The old mendicant buried his emaciated face in his hands with a gesture of unutterable grief and despair.

A hot wave of compassion smote Khoja Nasreddin's heart, and a flush of shame mounted his cheeks.

“Forgive me the cruel reproach!” he cried, touching the mendicant's shoulder. “Be comforted—I know that your lake is in the mountains of Ferghana, and that is enough, I shall find that lake and find Agabek—I swear by the destined star of my reincarnation! So soon as the almonds blossom in my little garden I shall go forth. Continue in peace to perfect your spiritual being, O venerable sage, and leave all the rest to me.”

Returning home in the darkness, trudging through the puddles, he smiled at one moment, and became wrapped in thought the next. “Is that mendicant a madman or a sage?” he asked himself. The night was cold and damp, but in the moisture-laden wind and the clear bright radiance of the stars the approach of spring could already be felt.

Khoja Nasreddin turned into his little street. Here, by the roadside, stood a familiar hollow poplar—a very old tree, judging by the scars and dark warts on its rough bark. Just then its trunk was invisible, for the ground, the houses and the fences all merged together  {34}  in the dark, but he could see its branchy crown webbed against the darkly limpid sky, silvered with clusters of stars. Khoja Nasreddin jumped up, seized the lower branch of the poplar, and bent it down carefully so as not to break it. Only a week before the poplar had been lifeless, wrapped in a heavy winter lethargy akin to death, but now the scented though not yet sticky buds swelled under his fingers. Laying his ear to the wrinkled bark, he caught a faint, barely audible sound like the distant moan of a string—either the humming of the midnight wind, or the sound of the running juices within the poplar which had started their secret motion from roots to crown.

CHAPTER THREE

Since those memorable conversations Khoja Nasreddin no longer dropped any money into the old mendicant's cup, but always took with him from home a fresh barley cake wrapped up in a bit of clean linen.

The mendicant expressed his gratitude as before by a silent nod and a glance full of hope.

“Soon now, soon!” answered Khoja Nasreddin. “When it grows warm in the mountains and the roads are dry, I shall set forth to look for the lake.”

The sky grew ever clearer, loftier, and bluer, ever less overcast. At noon one could sit in the sun without one's robe on. Stirred by the advent of spring, Khoja Nasreddin had grown thinner, his eyes shone with the keen sparkle of youth, and his sleep those days was light and fitful.

Another week passed over him. One night, troubled by sleeplessness, Khoja Nasreddin went forth into his little garden and stood there in a transport of delight. The earth was floating in a pale-blue haze, and the dark  {35}  limpid air above it throbbed and hummed with the challenging calls of the flying geese and the whirr of ducks’ wings. The birds of passage were flying north. “Onward, onward!” trumpeted the geese as they marshalled their caravans high up in the sky under the very stars. “Hurry, hurry!” answered the fussy ducks, rushing helter-skelter from all sides in flocks, in pairs, and singly, and almost grazing the tree-tops in their wild haste. The wind soughed in the garden, shaking down a rain of white petals, and the brimming spring freshets sang in the aryks. In the stable the foal neighed restively and joyfully and struck the earthen floor with his hoof with a hollow sound. Khoja Nasreddin stood thus for a long time lost in contemplation of the great stir and bustle upon the heavenly highways.

Daybreak found him in the ass's stall.

“Grieve not, the days of our sorrow are ended!” said he, embracing his long-eared friend round the neck. “A week hence we shall be far away from here upon the high roads, in the noisy bazaars. But what about Guljan? Shall I tell her all, reveal to her the whole truth? But you know how perverse she is—if she were to suddenly drown in the river—which Allah forbid!—I would go to seek her body upstream and not downstream!”

He pondered. A number of ideas shot through his mind like darts of lightning, but he rejected them all, one after the other.

“Have I become altogether foolish? Why are you silent, my faithful ass? Think, help me!”

The ass responded with a sigh and belly rumble. At that moment a transparent roseate beam of sunrise slipped into the stall through a chink in the door and awoke an answering gleam in the eyes of Khoja Nasreddin.

“To be sure!” he exclaimed. “If I cannot go away  {36}  from my family, then why cannot my family go away from me?”

Upon returning from the bazaar that day, he said to his wife:

“I met a man from Bokhara today who is well acquainted with your father—old Niyaz. He quitted Bokhara two months ago and is now returning thither with a passing caravan. He said that your father is well, and suffers no privations, but feels very lonely. What a pity that Bokhara is banned to me and that we cannot pay him a visit!”

Guljan returned him no answer; she merely bent lower over her sewing. Khoja Nasreddin regarded her with a sad and kindly smile. Who could have recognized his Guljan of old in this fat loud-voiced woman with the red face? But Khoja Nasreddin had the gift of second vision, and could, when he so desired, look at his beloved wife with the eyes of his heart and behold her as she used to be. “O my gentle dove, forgive me this deceit!” he mentally exclaimed. “But you know only too well how perverse you are—now tell me in all conscience, could I have acted otherwise?”

The next day he resumed the conversation about the man from Bokhara.

“I wanted to invite him home, but the caravan had already departed to Bokhara,” he said at dinner, gazing at the wall to avoid Guljan's eyes, for he had really met no man from Bokhara either yesterday or today and had invented it all from beginning to end.

“In a week's time they will be in Bokhara,” he said wistfully. “They will enter the city through the southern gates, which can be seen from the roof of your house. I should not wonder if old Niyaz beholds that caravan from his roof. Anon the man from Bokhara will tell him about us—tell him that we are well, and live in Khojent, which is but a journey of one week from Bokhara.  {37}  And he will further tell Niyaz that Allah has blest him with seven grandsons, and all of them love their grandfather, although they have never seen him. . . .”

Guljan sighed, and a tear hung upon her eyelashes. Khoja Nasreddin perceived that the clay of her heart had been softened, and the time had come to set the potter's wheel of his cunning into motion and shape the earthen vessel of his design.

“In very sooth the old man ought to be shown his grandsons,” said he with a note of sadness in his voice. “May Allah afflict that robber Emir with blindness and festering boils—through him I dare not show myself in Bokhara! Howbeit, that ban applies to me alone, and there is naught to prevent you and the children from repairing thence. Within the period of a week you would be embracing the old man. What a pity we have no money for the journey.”

“How so?” retorted Guljan. “And what of the purse with eight hundred tangas lying in the chest?”

Khoja Nasreddin had only been waiting for her to mention the purse. The rest of the conversation followed a set pattern he was all too familiar with, just as a river with all its bends, sand-banks, and dangerous shoals is familiar to the boatman who was born upon it.

He steered his craft boldly.

“Nay!” he cried. “That money must not be touched. We need it for the house. I have allotted it already.”

“Oh have you?”

The dangerous sand-bank was drawing nigh. The ominous rumble of its vortex could distinctly be heard in his wife's voice.

Another stroke of the oar sent his boat shooting out into midstream, away from the quiet pools and creeks.

“First of all a good water hole has to be dug in the garden and lined with stone slabs so that our children may have a place to bathe in during the hot weather.”  {38} 

“You are quite right,” said Guljan. “How can we do without a pool when the river flows hard by our garden, only ten paces away? As for lining it, we could have it done with marble.”

The boat was rushing headlong towards the rapids, whose seething waters, capped by white foam, could be descried in the near distance.

“The pool will cost two hundred tangas,” Khoja Nasreddin said, turning down two fingers. “Furthermore, I think of building an arbour in the garden and decorating it inside with carpets. The carpenters say that this will cost another two hundred. And we shall have to pay a like sum for the carpets.”

“That makes six hundred,” said Guljan. “There will be two hundred left.”

“We shall have need of that too,” Khoja Nasreddin said hastily. “I wish to make a carved walnut gate in place of the plain one of boards which we have now. And lastly, I shall call in craftsmen to decorate our house with blue flowers within and without.”

The blue flowers were a sudden inspiration, and the words were out of his mouth before he knew it.

“Why without?” asked Guljan.

“For beauty's sake,” Khoja Nasreddin explained.

Suddenly the oar broke in twain, the boat struck the rocks and capsized. Khoja Nasreddin was caught up in the eddy and whirled away. There were screams and tears till late in the evening.

“There is no money for visiting a poor lonely old man, but there is money for decorating your house with blue flowers!” cried Guljan. “And why decorate it without? All the same, the first rain will wash off all your silly decorations.”

Khoja Nasreddin held his peace. For two days he stood bare-headed under the pouring rain of her reproaches, and on the third day a covered arba appeared  {39}  before the gate. Flushed with victory, Guljan rode forth to her father in Bokhara with all the children.

“Be careful on the bridges and downhill,” Khoja Nasreddin admonished the driver. “Do not drive your horse at a gallop.”

Made drowsy by the heat the driver sat dozing sweetly; his skewbald mare stood dozing, too, leaning her weight upon one hind leg; Khoja Nasreddin's admonitions were quite needless, for it was many a long year since that venerable pair had done any galloping.

After spreading some soft rice-straw upon the floor of the arba and covering it with a travelling rug, Khoja Nasreddin began to carry out from the house a variety of bundles, baskets and bags; at length Guljan passed through the gate, her seven children, all of them sons, coming after her in the order of their size.

The driver shook himself, sat up, braced his feet against the shafts and gave a flourish of his whip by way of demonstrating his preparedness, then relapsed into his former state of nodding drowsiness; he knew by experience that he had a long time to wait ere he would be told, “Great Allah above us—let us start.” As for the mare, she did not even wake up, but merely changed her foot, and rested now upon the right side.

Khoja Nasreddin helped his wife to climb into the arba, which she did by stepping on the wheel spokes; then he handed up to her all their sons, upon each of whom he bestowed at parting a resounding kiss. There was thus built up in the arba a many-armed motley-headed tangle of squealing, squalling and wailing young humanity, in the midst of which, like a mother hen over her brood, sat Guljan, looking worried and somewhat sad.

“O, dear husband mine, will you remember all my instructions?”

“I will, O rose of my heart! First, I am to take the  {40}  cooking-pot to the copper-smith to be mended, secondly, I am to have the chimney cleaned, thirdly, I am to pay the butcher our debt of sixteen tangas.”

“And forget not the garden wall,” said Guljan, pointing to a large gap in the adobe fence near the wicket. “Forget not to mend the wall.”

“I shall take it in hand this very day, as soon as I have seen you safely on your way. Tarry not too long in Bokhara, O light of my eyes!”

“We shall return in exactly three months.”

The leave-taking began all over again with embraces and kisses, squeals and wails; Khoja Nasreddin could not remember, in the turmoil, which of the children he had kissed twice and which not at all, so he began to kiss them once more for the tenth time.

The sun now stood high in the sky, the faint shadows of morning had given place to the short sharp ones of day, the driver was now wide awake, the mare had had a good sleep—it was time to start out.

“Great is Allah above us—let us start!” Khoja Nasreddin said with a tremor in his voice.

“Great is Allah!” answered the driver, and the arba, swaying and creaking, moved off with a slow roll of its great wheels.

Khoja Nasreddin walked behind it. They passed the corner of the street, passed the familiar poplar, which had already thrown out leaves and hung over the roadway like a light green cloudlet.

They passed the bazaar square; the city gates were not far off.

Guljan said to her husband:

“If you are going to see us off all the way to Bokhara you had better get in with me.”

He acknowledged the jest with a smile, stopped the arba, and kissed the whole family again for the last time, from Guljan down to the littlest one. He stood in  {41}  the roadway for a long time thereafter, gazing at the departing waggon; at last it was hidden from view behind a bend in the road, the creaking was silenced, and he was left alone.

Pensive and sad he returned home, and bethought him of the words of Ibn-Hazm: “At parting, the one who remains behind takes three-quarters of the sorrow, while the one who departs takes only one-quarter.”

The little yard greeted him with sunny quiet; there was not a sound save the lone cry of an oriole in the garden—Khoja Nasreddin had never heard it before owing to the perpetual clamour and bustle of the children.

Without entering the deserted house, he directed his steps towards the shed, opened the door slightly and gave a low whistle. The darkness responded with silence. He whistled a second time; from within came the mingled sounds of deep sighing, wheezing and shuffling, and the ass came forth—fat, sleepy, and sullen, unused to the sun and blinking discontentedly in its brilliant light. He lifted up his ears and looked round perplexedly, as it were.

“Wherefore are you surprised?” said Khoja Nasreddin. ‘That it is so quiet around? They have all gone to Bokhara, to visit old Niyaz, and you and I are now as free as birds of the air.”

To collect his saddle-bags and saddle the ass was for Khoja Nasreddin a matter of minutes.

“Oho, you have grown as fat as a Hissar ram,” he said, tightening the girth. “But within a week, I swear, you will be as lean as a greyhound! We have much to do, faithful comrade, and very little time to do it in. Forward! The long road is waiting for us!”

He hung a big brass padlock on the house door, barred the gate from inside with two thick poles, and not bothering in the least about the safety of his property, rode out through the gap in his fence.

CHAPTER FOUR

After passing the bazaar square, he directed his ass towards the Mosque of Guhar-Shad.

The mendicant was sitting in his usual place, his head slightly thrown back, gazing up into the blue sky with a gentle smile, as though revelling in the thought of his coming flight through that sunlit abyss.

Khoja Nasreddin stopped his ass.

“Give me your benediction, O venerable sage! Expect my return in three months’ time, when I shall tell you about the lake and about Agabek, and haply I may then be able to name my faith to you.”

What a look of rapturous bliss lit up the old man's countenance! He arose and saluted Khoja Nasreddin, touching the ground before him. His lips stirred in a silent prayer of exhortation.

Beyond the city gates the road bore off towards the river. Khoja Nasreddin first rode through the riverside gardens, then turned off into a field through a country lane. All around lay ploughed reeking land, dotted all over with people; it was the busy season of spring work in the fields.

In the low-lying ricefields three were at work. A powerful humped ox, knee-deep in the water, was slowly-dragging a rude wooden plough; behind the plough, his bent back shiny with sweat, followed the ploughman; and behind him, stepping high on his long red legs, strutted a stork, picking tadpoles and worms out of the ooze. “May Allah bless your labours!” shouted Khoja Nasreddin. All three stopped and turned their heads towards the road. The ploughman brushed the sweat from his forehead and answered, “Thank you, may Allah bless your journey!” and the slow-paced procession moved off again in the same order: the ox in front, the ploughman behind it, with the stork bringing up the rear.  {43} 

It was mid April; the shadows of the trees, yesterday so thin and light, today lay thick and heavy across the road—so richly had the spring clothed the trees in young foliage. Bounteous and beneficent, she made no distinctions between the noble almond-tree and the poor prickly shrubs of the steppe, between bipeds and quadrupeds, between the winged and the crawling—she lavished her gifts equally upon all, for all in her eyes had equal claims to life and happiness. The birds greeted her with a jubilant chorus of twitters and warbles, the frogs croaked, the lizards cricked, while the ants, bugs, beetles and all the other tiny crawling things of the earth, which nature had deprived of the power of utterance, expressed their delight with a great stir and bustle, scurrying hither and thither.

Could Khoja Nasreddin keep quiet amid all this joyous revelry and rejoicing? Intoxicated by the heady breath of spring, by the sunshine, and the freedom, he joined his voice to the jubilant chorus.

This is what he sang:

Perceiving a herd going forth to its watering-place, he sang:

Everything that he came across found an echo in his song, and since God has made the earth round, and all earth's roads therefore cross and recross without end, so too did Khoja Nasreddin's song go on and on without end; he could have gone all round the world and reappeared from the other side, but the song that he would have appeared with would still have been the same:

Meanwhile the country lane had grown wider and wider, the ruts ever deeper, and ever more often he met arbas, horsemen, and pedestrians.

Towards midday Khoja Nasreddin, with a leap of his heart, heard a low incessant rumble ahead of him like the sound of a distant waterfall. It was the hum and roar of the great high road.

The ass, too, recognized it with a start, and pressed onward at a brisk trot. “Forward! Forward!” shouted Khoja Nasreddin, prodding the ass with his heels,  {45}  although that animal was making the best use of its legs without being urged. The spectacles danced on Khoja Nasreddin's nose; he tore them off and flung them into the road, where, striking a stone, they shattered in a spray of glass.

Half an hour later the high road lay before them. As always, the dust hung over it in a heavy cloud, through which people, horses, oxen, asses and camels moved in an endless stream, some bound for the bazaar in Kokand, others coming from there. All mingled in a jostling surging crowd that neighed, bellowed, brayed and yelled in all keys, creating a deafening uproar.

Khoja Nasreddin directed his ass into the very thick of the throng, and the road caught him up in its eddying stream and swept him along. He was shoved from this side, and poked from that, an ox whipped him painfully across the face with its tail, and a camel sneezed on his head. “Beware!” a driver, half-crazed with the heat and the din, screamed in his ear; Khoja Nasreddin had scarcely dodged the man's whip, when he heard above him the curses and execrations of a burly caravaneer, who was ready to ride down all and everything in his path in order to bring his caravan in in time and receive his promised reward.

But in less than five minutes Khoja Nasreddin had fully recovered his inner possession. “Beware, beware!” he was shouting now himself in a voice even more piercing than that of the driver, as he sped forward. He jostled and overtook those in front of him, fought with those going the other way, slipped adroitly between the arbas, dived under the chains connecting the caravan camels, and boldly steered his ass through the brown strong-smelling waves of sheep flocks.

He spent the night at a roadside chaikhana, and sunrise found him in the saddle again. The road at that roseate early hour was quiet and deserted: the caravans  {46}  and arbas had not yet set forth from their halting places. The ass meandered from one side of the road to the other at his own sweet will; Khoja Nasreddin gave him head and did not touch the reins; he was occupied with his own thoughts. “One more night of travel, and tomorrow I shall see Kokand! There, at the bazaar, I shall surely learn something about this Agabek,” he thought, conjuring up a vision of Kokand's squares and mosques, the bazaar, the Khan's palace with the high-walled harem in which languished, according to rumour, two hundred and thirty wives—one for every day of the year, not counting fast days. Khoja Nasreddin had once visited Kokand, and left there a lasting memory of himself; he chuckled at the remembrance of one hot August night, the rope on the harem wall, the stuffy darkness of the harem passages and secluded nooks, and then. . . . But here Khoja Nasreddin sharply reined in the steed of memory. “O my precious Guljan, having once chosen you, I have remained faithful to you always and everywhere, even in far-off memories!” Delighted and moved by his own nobility, and feeling within his breast a pleasant lassitude, as if he had submerged his body in warm water, he cast a moistened eye around him, and nearly fell out of the saddle from astonishment.

There was no road; under the hoofs of the ass lay spread a carpet of fresh dewy grass, with a narrow path winding through it; below, under the hill-side, ran an angry little mountain stream, all in foam and eddies, while at one side rose a green wall of blossoming willows. In front, rearing its snowy caps above the clouds, loomed a hunched and sullen mountain, which only an hour before had been on the right side of the road.

“O misbegotten wretch, O vile crossbreed of a jackal and a lizard, whither-have you brought me, accursed ass!” cried Khoja Nasreddin. “I have never been here before, I know not whither this trail leads and what yon stream  {47}  is that rushes below. Why did you turn off the high road, what mischievous designs do you carry in that head?”

His first impulse was to raise his whip and make good use of it; but such peace and serenity reigned all round, the bees in the willows buzzed and the fat shaggy bumble-bees droned in such a friendly way, the smell of wild honey hung so sweet upon the air, the sun shone so kindly and the lofty sky smiled so graciously that his arm dropped of its own accord without touching the back of his ass.

“Haply you have learned the whereabouts of that lake from some ass of your acquaintance whom you have met upon the road?” said Khoja Nasreddin. “If that be the case, then, let the choice of the road be yours; you are the master, I am your servant; go whither you will, I shall follow.”

Could he imagine at that moment that his words would prove prophetic, that he would really become servant to his ass soon, and the latter his estimable and exacting master? But let us not anticipate events, bearing in mind the words of the most virtuous Muzaffar Yusup Rajabi: “Resemble not in thy narrative the puppy that yelps and whirls round, trying to catch the tip of its own tail,” and let us proceed to the next chapter, in which is related how Khoja Nasreddin entered into single combat with his own name, and of the grievous consequences that accrued to him therefrom.

CHAPTER FIVE

After a short rest he remounted his ass, let the reins hang slack and became sunk in thought, leaving his mount to choose what road it would.

The path ascended higher and higher until the stream was lost at the bottom of a deep cleft, where it growled unseen; a multitude of small swift-flowing  {48}  aryks crossed the path; here and there little aqueduct bridges had been thrown across the cleft for them in the shape of mouldy wooden troughs, from which the water fell in a gentle trickle into the depths below. Presently the path plunged into the odorous underbrush of small-leafed willows, ivy and wild vine; the hot spangled sunshine glided over Khoja Nasreddin's face; his thoughts, or rather the ghosts of thoughts—so fleeting and elusive were they—glided as lightly over the surface of his mind without leaving a ripple behind.

The nearest village, as it transpired, was an hour and a half's journey away, and the spring sun was beating down hotly; Khoja Nasreddin took off his robe and rode in his shirt, wiping the perspiration from his face every minute with a handkerchief. All the more pleasing was the cool welcome of the village chaikhana, which hung poised over a precipice, exposed from every side to the mountain winds.

The stalwart keeper of the chaikhana was rejoiced to see the guest and hastened away to fan the fire under the cooking-pots. The air was filled with the resinous odour of the sabine, the sweet-scented tree of the Ferghana mountains.

There were four other guests in the chaikhana besides Khoja Nasreddin: an old man with an ancient yellow-grey beard and hoary overhanging eyebrows—evidently a local inhabitant and a farmer; two shepherds in soft raw-hide shoes and thick felt gaiters interlaced with straps, and cloaks of the same coarse felt; the fourth was a pale thin itinerant artisan, either a cobbler or a tailor, with a travelling-bag, which lay under his elbow. They were sitting in a close circle, sharing a single teapot and a cup that was passed round, and whispering among themselves of things prohibited, as the fearful glances which they cast at Khoja Nasreddin bore witness.  {49} 

Not wishing to interfere in their conversation, he turned his back on them with his face towards the precipice.

Below stretched a blossoming valley with fields, gardens and villages, that rose gently on to sloping hills, and beyond them stood the mountains, across which lay India. The morning mist had melted, bringing the mountains closer; Khoja Nasreddin clearly saw the white wilderness of snowy fields, precipices and gorges filled with purple shadows; lower still streams wound their way down the russet-hued rocky slopes like veins of silver. The soft cool snow-breath of the mountains was wafted into his face.

The whispering in the corner continued ever more hotly. Khoja Nasreddin felt the steady gaze of four pairs of eyes with the back of his neck. “They are speaking about me, they will soon rise and accost me.”

And so they did. The old man rose and went up to Khoja Nasreddin.

“Peace be on you, traveller, who has visited our remote village. We have perceived traces of yellow dust upon your boots, but the roads hereabouts are stony and yield only a white dust. We have therefore decided that you are a stranger and have come to us from the valley. Be that so?”

“Yes, I have come from the valley,” said Khoja Nasreddin, holding his cup out to the old man and giving it a flick with his finger-nail by way of invitation.

“Then tell us, O traveller,” the old man murmured, receiving the cup and sitting down opposite, “what extraordinary events have taken place in the valley within the last few days? Haply the bread-bakers of Khojent have revolted? Or have the butter-makers of Kanibadam refused to pay taxes? Or mayhap something has happened in Ura-Tyube?”  {50} 

“Nay, I have not heard aught of those things,” rejoined Khoja Nasreddin, wondering at the questions.

The old man winked to his companions.

“Nor have I,” he said in a cunning voice. “I just asked you like that. We live here in the backwoods, and visitors from the valley are rare—that is why I asked.”

“Just like that?” Khoja Nasreddin said with a smile. “Then know, venerable sir, who asks ‘just like that,’ that the butter-makers of Kanibadam are paying their taxes regularly; also I would have you know, in case you know it not, that the town of Khojent still stands where it stood and has not dropped through the earth, and that no fire-spitting dragon has appeared in the vicinity of Namangan. Is there aught else you wish to know ‘just like that'?”

The old man understood the gibe, but held his peace; he drew his beetling brows together and hid his eyes in them. He feared to trust the stranger, yet the unuttered question burned and tormented him.

Khoja Nasreddin decided to help him.

“Old man, look closely at my face, gaze deeper into my eyes—do I look like a spy?”

“You have dived to the very bottom of my mind,” returned the old man. “Verily I am wavering between fear and a desire to ask you an astonishing and parlous question. But if you knew our righteous rulers, those blood-suckers . . . I mean those lights of justice—may Allah preserve their heaven-blest lives and strengthen the reins of government in their incorruptible hands!”

“Do not bother to praise the rulers before me, O venerable sir. Have I not told you already that I am no spy!”

“Your countenance inspires confidence, and so I shall be frank with you. We desire to ask”—the old man's voice sunk to a whisper, while the other three drew  {51}  closer—“we desire to ask, have you heard aught of the appearance in our neighbourhood of Khoja Nasreddin?”

Khoja Nasreddin had been prepared for anything but not to hear his own name. He choked with his tea and began to cough.

“Aye, Khoja Nasreddin has appeared!” the younger shepherd exclaimed in a hot whisper. “A drover of a sheep flock beheld him with his own eyes on the high road near Khojent.”

'That drover once dwelt in Bokhara and knows Khoja Nasreddin by sight,” added the second shepherd, a tall swarthy mountaineer with a black little beard and burning eyes that gleamed from under broad grim-looking eyebrows.

“And not only the drover,” the old man inserted. “A caravaneer has seen him on the same Kokand high road.”

Listening to these speeches, Khoja Nasreddin thought to himself that he had been over-hasty in discarding his dark spectacles. He had been recognized; sitting in this little chaikhana he seemed to hear the increasing murmur of the Kokand, Andijan and other bazaars of the valley, which had been disturbed by his name. “How ill-timed is this noise!” he mused. “I must put a stop to all these rumours and talk!”

“You are mistaken, good people,” he said, addressing the company. “The caravaneer and the drover were in error, that is all. I know for certain that Khoja Nasreddin is at present a long way from these parts.”

“But a pedlar saw him too!” the artisan protested warmly, red blotches of agitation covering his thin pale cheeks.

“A pedlar too!” Khoja Nasreddin cried within himself. “Verily, shaitan himself made me take my spectacles off.”  {52} 

“Then Khoja Nasreddin must have a double somewhere in Ferghana,” he said. “I repeat—the real, genuine Khoja Nasreddin could not have appeared upon these roads.”

“Why, O traveller? What is your assurance based on?” asked the old man.

The chaikhana-keeper, standing by his cooking-pots, put his word in too:

“If Khoja Nasreddin were travelling in distant parts a week ago, why could he not be here today?” The keeper came up to the table at which the company were sitting and changed the empty teapot. “Distance does not exist for him. Did he not once make the journey from Herat to Samarkand in four days?”

“The trouble is that he no longer travels,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “Know, good people, that the Khoja Nasreddin of old is no more. He is now the father of a large family, he has bought himself a house and forgotten about his former wanderings. His grey ass is growing fatter in its stall day by day, and Khoja Nasreddin himself has grown quite stout by reason of the peaceful sedentary life that he leads. He has grown foolish and lazy, and never leaves the house now without his dark spectacles lest he be recognized.”

“You will say next that he has become a coward as well?” the bearded shepherd said anxiously. “Everyone knows that he never feared anyone or anything.”

“That was mostly boasting,” Khoja Nasreddin said scornfully. “Three-quarters of all the stories told about him were pure invention.”

“Invention?” cried the artisan. “Then who was it that struck fear into the hearts of the iniquitous lords if all the stories about Khoja Nasreddin are invention?”

The shepherds, the chaikhana-keeper and the old man looked at one another and winked.  {53} 

“I know not,” said Khoja Nasreddin, unaware of these ominous glances. “But I do know that he has changed his name. He is now called Uzakbai, he is now. . . .”

He did not finish the sentence: the chaikhana-keeper, with a grunt, swung his huge fist up and brought it down on his back with a swing; in the same instant the young shepherd, with amazing agility, began to pummel his ribs from both sides, while the old man seized him by the beard with feeble fingers and shouted:

“So our Khoja Nasreddin is no longer Khoja Nasreddin—is that what you mean, accursed chattering spy!”

“These spies have been sent out to all roads to slander Khoja Nasreddin and blacken his name!” cried the artisan, falling to work on Khoja Nasreddin with his bag, which had some hard, heavy and angular object in it.

“Stop!” shouted Khoja Nasreddin, shielding now his head, now his ribs, from the rain of blows. “Whom are you beating in the name of Khoja Nasreddin? You are beating. . . .”

Fearing for the wholeness of his bones, he was prepared to disclose his identity (which revelation would hardly have been received with credulity, however), but the chaikhana-keeper prevented it. With a mighty kick, he ejected Khoja Nasreddin into the roadway under his ass's hoofs.

“Begone, filthy jackal, and never show your nose again in this village! If you do, I swear I will break all my fence poles upon your back!”

Khoja Nasreddin picked himself up without uttering a word, leapt into the saddle and drove his ass down the road at a smart trot, groaning and grunting at every jolt, and followed from the chaikhana doorway by a quintet of imprecations.

CHAPTER SIX

Thus lamentably ended his single combat with his own name—an example to him who would be admonished. It is not inappropriate here to recall the words of that merry vagabond and tippler Hafiz, who was beaten by the crowd at the bazaar in Shiraz for his mocking comments on the divine gazels of the poet Hafiz: “O my renowned name—thou didst belong to me once, now I belong to thee; in the days gone by I rejoiced that thou didst precede me by many a day's journey, but now I would tie weights to thy feet; I am the steed, and thou my cruel rider with a heavy whip in his hand! Thus does a man's destiny work itself out upon this sorrowful earth, where even fame causes him naught but injury and distress!”

Not until he was at a distance of five arrow-flights did Khoja Nasreddin draw rein. He dismounted from his ass, seated himself upon a roadside boulder, and sat there for a long time feeling his arms, legs, neck, and head. “May Allah strike that evil-smelling artisan with palsy!” he grumbled, nursing his bruises. “I wonder what he drags about with him in that accursed bag of his—grindstones, a press iron, or shoemaker's lasts?” Reflecting on this case and applying to himself the plaint of Hafiz, he proceeded on his way along the stony sun-warmed road. The blossoming willows exhaled their pungent odour of wild honey, lizards of different colours—turquoise, sapphire, emerald-green or just grey—with an unobtrusive but, on closer inspection, very beautiful and delicate pattern on their backs, sunned themselves on the rocks, larks trilled, and pine-finches whistled in the sky, bees blazed up in the sunbeams, dragon-flies glimmered with mica wings—in short, the world around Khoja Nasreddin was the same it had been an hour before, as though nothing had happened  {55}  to interrupt his journey, as though there had been no chaikhana on the edge of the precipice where he had been treated so inhospitably.

He could remember things well when need be, but he could also forget when he wanted. Moreover, the pain in his sides and his back had abated, a circumstance for which thanks were due to his thick travelling robe which had cushioned the blows. Soon his sense of injury melted away completely—he smiled, then chuckled, and finally burst out laughing.

“Do you hear, my faithful ass: I am already being beaten in the name of Khoja Nasreddin; all that I need now is to be hanged to the glory of Khoja Nasreddin!”

This jocular speech was interrupted by a faint long-drawn moan.

The ass snorted, lifted his ears and stopped.

Glancing to the right, Khoja Nasreddin saw a man lying under a bush, his head covered with his robe.

“What ails you, my man? Why do you lie here, moaning so pitifully as if your soul were quitting its body?”

“It is quitting it, indeed,” the prostrate man said from under his robe in a plaintive voice, groaning and moaning. “I pray Allah that it depart quickly, for my sufferings are terrible, my torment is unendurable.”

Khoja Nasreddin dismounted.

“And how long has this dire disease been tormenting you?” he asked, bending over the sick man.

“It has been sitting within me these five years,” moaned the sick man. “Every spring, at this exact time, it pounces upon me like a ferocious beast and tortures me for a whole month worse than the most cruel of executioners. To escape its ferocity I needs must perform a certain act of healing, but on this occasion I failed to do so in time—and here I now am, lying in the road, neglected and forgotten, without aid or sympathy.”

“Be comforted!” said Khoja Nasreddin. “You now  {56}  have both aid and sympathy. We shall proceed together to the nearest village, find there a leech, and with his aid you will perform the necessary act of healing.”

“A leech? Oh, for that act I need me no leech whatever.”

The afflicted man sat up and threw the robe from his head, revealing a broad flat naked face, utterly devoid of beard or moustaches, adorned with a tiny nose and a pair of diverse-coloured eyes—one a dull blue filmed over and bleared, the other yellow and round, and of such a piercing quality that Khoja Nasreddin felt uncomfortable under its gaze.

“Take me to the village, good man,” the sick one said, crawling out from under his robe with painful sighs and groans. “Take me into the village, haply there, among people, my sufferings will be relieved.”

With difficulty he climbed into the saddle. The ass, understanding that he was carrying a sick man, was careful at the descents and did not jump over the aryks, but waded through them. Khoja Nasreddin walked alongside, glancing at his groaning companion out of the corner of his eye. “He is doubtlessly an arrant knave and a caitiff, otherwise how come that yellow satanic gleam in his only eye?” he mused. “But haply I am mistaken, and my base suspicions are an insult to a virtuous man whose outward aspect totally belies his inner worth?” There was something about the sick man, some hidden quality that prevented Khoja Nasreddin from definitely presuming him to be a knave; on the other hand, try as he would to think well of his companion, the yellow gleam in the depths of his one eye perplexed his mind and guided his thoughts in the opposite direction.

The road made a steep descent. After rounding two bends Khoja Nasreddin saw the flat yellow roofs of a small village. By the smoke that rose cheerfully into  {57}  the clear sky he recognized a chaikhana, but, mindful of his recent experience, he vowed not to enter into any conversation respecting his own person, no matter what was being said around him.

But he whom fate has decreed to be beaten twice in one day, will be beaten twice; and so it was with him.

In the chaikhana he asked for a blanket, solicitously covered up the sick man, then turned to the keeper with a question respecting a leech.

“You will have to send to the neighbouring village for one,” said the keeper, a big stocky fellow with a large round head, a low brow, and a hairy beefy neck, red as that of a butcher. “Meanwhile let the sick man drink some tea, haply he will feel better for it.”

After drinking two teapots, the sick man rested his head on the pillow and fell into a light slumber, moaning piteously in his sleep.

Khoja Nasreddin joined the other guests and started a conversation with them in the hope of discovering something about Agabek's mountain lake.

No, none of them had ever heard of such a lake. As to one by the name of Agabek, was not the worthy traveller seeking that miller who had so profitably sold his lame cow the year before by skilfully concealing her fault from the buyer? Or did he haply mean the blacksmith Agabek? Or the one whose eldest son had recently married?

“Thank you, good people, the Agabek I seek is quite a different man.”

A different man? Then haply it is the one who had fallen through the ramshackle bridge across the stream last autumn with his loaded ox? Or the horse doctor Agabek? They were so eager to oblige Khoja Nasreddin that they named nearly a score of Agabeks, but none among them was the proprietor of a mountain lake.

“It matters not, I shall find him elsewhere,” Khoja  {58}  Nasreddin said, somewhat wearied by his companions’ loquacity.

“The blessings of Allah be with you,” they answered, sincerely grieved at not being able to assist him in his search.

Someone behind Khoja Nasreddin touched him lightly on the shoulder; he thought it was the chaikhana-keeper, and turning, was dumbfounded. Before him, grinning happily, stood the sick man, who but an hour before had been on the verge of transition from this perishable world to some other state (the lowest, Khoja Nasreddin was prepared to swear, that existed for such arrant knaves as he). He stood grinning, his flat ugly face beaming, and his round eye shining with a fierce cat-like gleam.

“Is that you, O my suffering way-companion?”

“Yes, it is I,” the man answered in a cheerful tone. “I want to say that we have no need now to tarry in this chaikhana.”

“But what about the act of healing? We are waiting for the leech.”

“Everything has been done already. The presence of another is but a hindrance to that act. I always heal myself without a leech.”

Ceasing not to marvel at this cure, Khoja Nasreddin settled his account with the keeper and went out to his ass. The one-eyed, anticipating him, hastened to tighten the saddle-girths. “He is no stranger to gratitude,” thought Khoja Nasreddin.

“Whither now?” he asked the one-eyed. “Haply our ways are the same—I am bound for Kokand.”

“And so am I, good man, thank you,” the one-eyed cried eagerly, and without losing a moment, he got into the saddle; he had construed Khoja Nasreddin's words favourably to himself as meaning that he would continue to ride on the ass while his benefactor would walk.  {59} 

“Had you not better get astride my own back?” said Khoja Nasreddin.

Put to shame by the gibe, the one-eyed began to apologize, saying that he had merely desired to test the girths. “He is not entirely devoid of shame and conscience,” Khoja Nasreddin said to himself.

They proceeded on their way. Along the road beyond the village, as if running down towards it from the slopes, stretched gardens enclosed in waist-high walls built of stones. Here in the foothills spring was late, retarded as it were by the difficult inclines and bends of the roads—and the trees were only just beginning to blossom.

The narrow stony road was deserted, the wheel-ruts barely visible; the waggon road ended here, and only a trail for pack-animals ran further up to the pass. The wind blowing from the snowy summits steadily grew cooler and fresher, the turbid icy aryks more brimming, and the blue spaces ever wider. The sky was a deep azure, and the air so light and rarefied that Khoja Nasreddin could not fill his lungs deep enough with it.

The one-eyed, too, breathed with difficulty, but did not slacken his pace, although Khoja Nasreddin, out of pity, held in his ass every now and then.

“You seem in a great hurry?” he said.

The one-eyed did not answer. He merely glanced back at the road over his shoulder.

“He may not be a knave at all?” Khoja Nasreddin continued his reflections, trying to forget the yellow cat-like gleam that issued from his companion's single eye. “Haply he is hastening home to his family or to the help of a friend in distress?”

He was not to remain long under that delusion.

From behind them came the distant thud of horses’ hoofs.  {60} 

The one-eyed quickened his pace and kept looking back every minute.

“Here they come,” he said at last.

“Let them come, there is road enough for all,” Khoja Nasreddin answered unconcernedly.

Ten paces farther the one-eyed said, “I feel very tired. Let us rest somewhere off the road, behind the rocks.”

“Wherefore should we turn off the road,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “We can rest just as well here.”

“But it is better behind the rocks—there is no wind there,” said the one-eyed, shivering in an odd manner; his yellow eye had become dilated and dark.

The sound of hoof-beats drew nearer; the one-eyed became fidgety and restless, and at that very moment the horsemen swept out from behind a bend in the road. In front, riding bareback with bare dangling feet, came the keeper of the chaikhana, and behind him galloped his guests.

“Stop!” the keeper shouted in a threatening voice. “Stop, accursed thieves!”

He dashed ahead, all but knocking Khoja Nasreddin over and shooting into his face a stinging spatter of flint chips from under the flying feet of his horse, then reined in sharply, throwing his mount on its haunches athwart the road.

The others dashed up, jumped off their horses and surrounded Khoja Nasreddin and his companion.

“You!” gasped the keeper, choking with rage. “Where is my new copper cooking-pot of Ura-Tyube workmanship?”

“Your cooking-pot?” Khoja Nasreddin said, perplexed. “You ought to know better where your things are, my worthy man. Why do you rummage in my bags? Has your pot suddenly grown legs to make it jump into my bag by itself?”  {61} 

“Grown legs?” the chaikhana-keeper spluttered, his face and neck livid with fury. “Jump into your bag by itself, vile thief?”

So saying, he took forth from the right saddle-bag, to Khoja Nasreddin's unspeakable amazement, a brand-new shining cooking-pot.

Falling into a violent rage, the keeper gave a jump and smote his chest with his fist. This acted as a signal to all the others. The next moment Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed were lying in the roadway under a shower of curses, blows, and kicks. Once more Khoja Nasreddin had cause to appreciate the saving qualities of his thick travelling robe.

“All that talk of his about Agabek was just meant to deceive us!”

“While the other one was thieving!”

“How cleverly he simulated illness!”

The blows and kicks were renewed.

At last the chaikhana-keeper and his friends had taken their full measure of revenge. Perspiring and panting, they quitted the field of battle leaving Khoja Nasreddin to his ignominy.

Once more there was a clatter of hoofs upon stone, which died away in the distance.

Khoja Nasreddin picked himself up. His first words were addressed to his ass:

“Now I understand why you turned off the high road this morning, O misbegotten son of your father's profligacy! You thought my robe was too dusty? But remember this, should anyone anywhere begin to dust my robe for me a third time without previously taking it off my shoulders—then woe betide thee, O long-eared receptacle of ordure! If need be I shall ride a distance of a hundred arrow-flights until I find somewhere a flaying-house with rusted blood-stained hooks, with curved jagged knives made from sickles, and with long elm-wood  {62}  sticks upon which ass's hides are stretched! Remember!”

The ass blinked his whitish eyelashes with a meek innocent look, as if all those dire threats were not meant for him at all.

The one-eyed lay prostrate and did not stir a limb.

Khoja Nasreddin shook him by the shoulder.

The one-eyed raised his head fearfully.

“Have they gone?” he asked. “I thought they were resting.” He shook the dust from his robe and added, “It was a good thing that they were all barefoot.”

“I do not see what good you find in that.”

“When a man is barefoot he kicks you with his heel,” explained the one-eyed. “And a heel-kick is incomparably weaker than a toe-kick.”

“You ought to know. . . .”

“Most deplorable for the ribs are Kanibadam boots,” proceeded the one-eyed. “The craftsmen there, for the sake of elegance, put hard sole leather in the toes; thus one man's elegance is another man's woe.”

“I have never tried Kanibadam boots upon my ribs, and have no intention of so doing,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “It were better, my dear man, if we parted company here and now and for ever.”

He mounted his ass and gave him a light flick between the ears—the usual sign to start off.

The one-eyed suddenly burst into tears and fell upon his knees, barring the way.

“Hear me!” he cried piteously. “No one, not a man in all the world knows the truth about me. I beseech you, be merciful, hear me out, and then a great deal will appear to you in a different light.”

His agitation was unaffected, his tears genuine; a deep tremor shook his frame.

“Yes, I am a thief!” he said, choking with tears and beating his breast with his fist. “I am a vile felon, I  {63}  know it. But believe me, stranger, no one suffers as much from my felony as I do myself. And there is not a soul upon this earth who would try to understand me.”

All this was so unexpected, that Khoja Nasreddin was bewildered.

Partly through curiosity, partly through compassion, he consented to hear the thief's story.

CHAPTER SEVEN

They seated themselves upon boulders, and the one-eyed began the sorrowful and astonishing story of his life.

“An overpowering passion for thieving became manifest in me at a very early age. While still a suckling, I stole my mother's silver breast-pin, and while she was turning the house upside down looking for it, I lay crowing secretly in my cradle—I was not able to speak yet—and hid the precious booty under the coverlet. When I grew stronger and learned to walk, I became a veritable scourge to our household. I stole everything that lay about: money, fabrics, flour, butter. I hid the stolen articles away so cleverly that neither my father nor my mother could find them; then, seizing my opportunity, I ran off with my booty to a homeless hunchbacked vagrant who dwelt at the old cemetery among the crumbling graves and half-buried tombstones. He greeted me with the words, ‘May I grow another hump in front, if thou, O child, who resembleth an unopened bud, doth not end thy life upon the gallows or under the knife of the executioner!’ We began a game of dice—that old hunchback upon whose flabby face were written all the world's vices, and I, a rosy child of four with plump cheeks and clear innocent gaze.”

At the memory of those golden days of irretrievable  {64}  childhood, the thief sobbed, then sniffled, wiped away his tears and proceeded.

“At the age of five I was a dexterous dice gambler, but the fortunes of our house had sadly declined by that time. My mother could not look at me without weeping, and my father got the writhes and said, ‘Cursed be the bed upon which I conceived thee!’ But I heeded neither entreaties nor reproaches, and, after recovering from the beatings which I received, I fell back into my old ways. By my seventh birthday my family had been reduced almost to beggary, but the hunchback had opened a chaikhana of his own at the bazaar with a secret gambling den and a hashish smoking den in the cellar, Seeing that there was nothing more to be got at home, I turned my greedy gaze and wicked thoughts upon our neighbours. I completely ruined the wheelwright, who lived next door to us on the left, by stealing from the bottom of his well a crock with money, which he had been saving up all his life; then, in two odd months, I reduced to utter poverty the neighbour on our right, of whose worldly goods I made a clean sweep. Locks and padlocks were no hindrance to me—I could open them as easily as a simple latch. My father's patience was exhausted, and he cursed me and drove me out of the house. I went, taking with me his last robe and his last money—twenty-six tangas. I was eight and a half at the time. I shall not weary your ears with the tale of my wanderings, but shall merely say that I have been in Madras, and in Herat, and in Kabul, and even in Bagdad. Everywhere I thieved—it was my sole occupation, and I achieved extraordinary skill in it. It was then that I devised this vile trick of laying myself down in the road, feigning sickness, in order to rob the person who showed me kindness. I will say without boasting that in this shameful calling of the thief I have no equal among all the thieves not only of Ferghana but of all Islam.”  {65} 

“Stay!” Khoja Nasreddin interrupted him. “What about the famous Bagdad Thief, of whom such wonders are related?”

“The Bagdad Thief?” laughed the one-eyed. “Know, then, that I am the Bagdad Thief!”

He paused to savour the effect of his words upon the astonished face of Khoja Nasreddin, then his yellow eye became misted over with the film of reminiscence.

“Most of the tales concerning my adventures are idle inventions, but some of them are true. I was eighteen when I first came to Bagdad, that fabulous city full of treasures and the unwary fools who own them. I worked the shops and the coffers of the Bagdad merchants as if they were my own, and ended by breaking into the treasure-house of the Caliph himself. To tell you the truth, getting in was not such a very difficult job. The treasure-house was guarded by three gigantic negroes, each of whom could have successfully grappled with a bull, and so was considered secure against thieves and robbers. But I knew that one of the negroes was as deaf as a tree-stump, the second was a hashish addict who was always half-asleep, land the third had been endowed by nature with such extraordinary cowardice that the stir of a night frog would frighten him out of his wits. I took an empty gourd, made holes in it to represent eyes and a grinning mouth, stuck the gourd on a stick, put a lighted candle inside it, draped it in a white shroud and raised it above the bushes in the night in front of the cowardly negro. He gasped and dropped down in a dead faint. The sleepy one slept on, the deaf one heard not; with the aid of picklocks I entered the treasure-house unmolested and took away as much gold as I could carry. In the morning the news that the treasure-house of the Caliph had been burgled spread throughout the city, and thence to the whole Moslem world, and I became famous.”  {66} 

“The Bagdad Thief was afterwards said to have married the Caliph's daughter,” Khoja Nasreddin reminded his companion.

“That is a barefaced lie! All those stories about me and princesses are sheer nonsense and falsehood. I despise women ever since a child, and—praise be to Allah!—have never been possessed by that strange madness which people call love.” He uttered the last words with contemptuous stress, obviously proud of his chastity. “Moreover, if you rob a woman of the most trifling sum she will act so unbecomingly and make such a terrible noise that a man of my profession can entertain for them nothing but disgust. Not for anything in the world would I marry anyone, not even la princess, no matter how beautiful she was.”

“We shall wait until your opinion about a Chinese or an Indian princess changes for the better,” inserted Khoja Nasreddin. “Then I shall say, half the task is done, and it remains but to persuade the princess.”

The thief understood and appraised the gibe; his flat roguish face with one white eye and a great blue bruise under the other lit up with a grin.

“One would think that Khoja Nasreddin himself had suggested to you such a subtle and sarcastic reply.”

At the mention of his name Khoja Nasreddin pricked up his ears and looked round fearfully. But the shining solitude of spring was unpeopled; the shadows of the clouds, southward-bound, skimmed over the brown mountain-sides, and dragon-flies hung poised in the sunny air upon glimmering wings; an emerald-hued lizard sat dozing on a hot stone next to Khoja Nasreddin, every now and then opening its quick little black eyes rimmed with gold.

“Did you ever encounter Khoja Nasreddin in your professional travels?”  {67} 

“Sometimes,” answered the one-eyed chief. “Ignorant and uninformed people often ascribe his doings to me and vice versa. But there is really no resemblance between us, nor can there be. Unlike Khoja Nasreddin I have spent my life in vice, have sown naught but evil in the world, and cared naught for the perfecting of my inner being, without which, as you know, there can be no passing from this perishable world into the higher state. My misdeeds have doomed me to beginning the circle of my stellar wanderings all over again.”

Khoja Nasreddin could not believe his ears: this one-eyed thief was speaking in the words of the old dervish from the Guhar-Shad Mosque in Khojent. Could it be that this thief belonged to the secret fraternity of the Silent and the Sapient?—thought Khoja Nasreddin, but immediately dismissed the thought as incongruous.

Conjectures, one more incredible than the other, thronged his mind.

“Such am I,” the one-eyed continued ruefully. “None but an ignoramus can try to seek points of resemblance between me and Khoja Nasreddin, whose entire life has been devoted to good works which will serve as an example to many a generation in ages to come.”

All lingering doubts vanished—this man had repeated the words of the old mendicant. “Does he know my name?” wondered Khoja Nasreddin, looking penetratingly into the thief's face and trying to detect therein the faintest shadow of simulation.

“Tell me, where did you meet with Khoja Nasreddin?”

His suspicions were unfounded; for once the conscience of the one-eyed was clear: he really did not know who the man sitting on the stone before him was.

“I met with him in Samarkand. With profound regret I must confess that that single occasion was marred by an evil deed on my part. One day in the spring, as I was  {68}  slinking about the bazaar, I heard a whisper: ‘Khoja Nasreddin! Khoja Nasreddin!’ The whispering came from two artisans. Fixing my only eye in the direction of their glances, I saw a middle-aged man of nondescript aspect standing before a shop, holding a grey ass by its bridle. The man was buying a robe and was about to pay for it. I had only a fleeting glimpse of his face. ‘So that is the celebrated Khoja Nasreddin, the Disturber of the Peace, whose name is blest by some and cursed by others!’ I thought. And a devilish temptation crept into my heart to rob him. Not for the sake of gain, for I had enough money at that time, but out of sheer devilment and thievish conceit. ‘Let me be the only thief in the world who can boast of having robbed Khoja Nasreddin,’ I said within myself, and proceeded to the execution of my design without a moment's delay. Quietly I crept up to the ass from behind with a hot cayenne turned inside out and stuck it under his tail with the aid of a smooth little stick. Feeling a burning pain in his hinder parts, the ass began to twist and turn his head and tail, then, deciding that a camp-fire had been kindled under his tail, he tore himself out of Khoja Nasreddin's hands with a bray of terror and dashed away, knocking over baskets with bread-cakes, apricots and cherries in his path; Khoja Nasreddin gave chase; there was a tumult and uproar; taking advantage of this, I took the robe from the counter unmolested.”

“So it was you, O nurseling of impurity, O son of sin and shame!” cried Khoja Nasreddin, his eyes flashing. “By Allah, never before had anyone played such a trick on me! You almost drove the two of us mad—I poured off ten sweats, trying to quieten his kicking and screams until it occurred to me to look under his tail! Ah, if I could have laid hands on you at that moment—the Kanibadam boots would have seemed softer than down to you by comparison!”  {69} 

In his indignation, he had unwittingly given himself away. He bethought himself when it was already too late: the thief now understood whom fate had cast him together with.

No words can describe the feelings of the one-eyed. He dropped upon his knees before Khoja Nasreddin, seized the hem of his garment and pressed his lips to it, like a pilgrim encountering a holy sheikh.

“Let me go!” shouted Khoja Nasreddin, tugging at his robe. “What is this—have you all plotted together to make a saint out of me? I am just an ordinary man of the earth—how many times must I tell you! I desire to be nothing else, neither a sheikh nor a dervish, neither a miracle-maker nor a stellar wanderer!”

“Blessed for all time be this road upon which we have met!” the one-eyed kept repeating. “Help me, O Khoja Nasreddin, my salvation is in your hands.”

“Let me go!” cried Khoja Nasreddin, giving his robe such a violent tug in his anger that he tore it. “Wherein does it stand written that I must save all the mendicants and thieves who knock about the world? Who, I would like to know, is going to save me from you?”

But apparently Fate had really written it down in one of her books that Khoja Nasreddin, upon crossing the threshold of forty, was preordained to devote himself to the saving of the souls of those who strayed; he was obliged to resume his seat on the boulder and hear out the story of the one-eyed thief.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“The current of my life followed thereafter a rapid course,” the thief proceeded. “I shall pass over many events and touch only on the principal ones. I continued in this calamitous state of sin and aberration until I met a pious old man, whose wise admonitions burnt themselves  {70}  into my breast like the seal of Suleiman. That old sage laid bare to me all the vileness of my vices and pointed out a way of purging myself of them, but I, fool that I was, failed to avail myself of his advice. I shall relate to you how it happened from first to last. Five years ago, at the close of winter, I came to Margelan—the city of silk. Shaitan led me to dip my hand into the girdle of an Afghan, and I was caught. The Afghan seized me, I broke away, and the whole bazaar gave chase. I darted hither and thither like a trapped hare and that day would doubtlessly have been my last had I not run into an alley and heard a quavery old voice, saying, ‘Hide here!’ It came from an old mendicant who was sitting by the roadside. ‘Disguise yourself,’ he said. We exchanged garments; I sat down in his place and hung my head low to conceal my face, while the mendicant crossed the road and sat down opposite. My pursuers rushed into the street, but paid no heed to the two humble-beggars, and ran on, scattering among the yards. Taking advantage of this, the old man led me out of the alley and hid me in his poor dwelling.”

“Cease,” Khoja Nasreddin interrupted him. Everything was now clear to him. “That mendicant would convert you to the ways of virtue, and related to you a long story about our souls wandering amid the stars, and about the ultimate triumph of good upon earth five hundred thousand years hence, but as soon as the midnight cocks began to crow he fell silent and uttered not a word more.”

“Was that you, then?” the one-eyed said, recoiling in fear. “Can that which I have heard about you be true-that you are able to assume any shape at will?”

“Proceed with your story. Why did you not take the path of virtue which the old sage commended to you?”

“O woe!” exclaimed the one-eyed. “Your question pierces my very heart like a poisoned thorn! Know, then,  {71}  that I did not remain deaf to the admonitions of the old sage. His words melted the lead of my errors like a hot flame. Before the midnight cock had crowed and the old man had fallen silent I dissolved in tears and repented me. Seized with trembling awe, I swore that I would mend my ways and walk the straight path never more to stray from it. Not until then did the sage reveal to me your name and the great meaning of your earthly existence. ‘Look at Khoja Nasreddin!’ he said. There is one, who all his life has been bounteously enriching the world with goodness unthinkingly and unwittingly, simply because he cannot live otherwise. If you can model your behaviour after him in the least imaginable degree you are saved for the future higher existence in other reincarnations.’ I quitted the old sage's hovel on the wings of hope, and my heart glowed within my breast. I swear that I would long ago have entered upon the path of virtue pointed out to me had not the Wicked One, that inveterate enemy of mankind, that crafty quencher of all our noblest impulses, hastened to spread beneath my feet his foul, stringy, mangy tail, treading upon which I slipped and fell. Burning with impatience to turn over a new leaf, I resolved to hie to Kokand, where I was less known than in other cities. I had about four thousand tangas; I pictured to myself a seductive vision of a future filled with virtue and undefiled by the slightest taint of sin. I purposed to open a chaikhana in Kokand, to spread it with carpets and hang it with cages containing song-birds, and there, amid the quiet and coolness and the soft splash of the fountain, to hold pious converse with the visitors and fill their souls with the light of the truth which the old sage had revealed to me. For myself I had chosen the most simple and frugal of lives, and all the excess of my profits was to go to orphans and widows. Upon estimating the sum required in purchasing a chaikhana, utensils, carpets and so  {72}  forth, I found that my money would suffice for all save the musicians, who were to play upon the lutes and sing songs of edifying import in high-pitched voices. I was short of a paltry sum, a mere three or four hundred tangas. It was here that the devil dug a pit of temptation in my path by throwing me together with a skilful dicer on the road to Kokand. ‘I will have one last game,’ said I to myself. ‘This sin will be forgiven me, for I shall use the money that I win for a good and righteous cause; should I have any money left over from these winnings, I shall give it away to the poor.’ Surely a man with such admirable intentions had the right to expect heavenly patronage in his game, but it turned out otherwise.”

“I know the rest,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “You played all night, and by the morning you had not a copper left in your pocket. Your chaikhana with its carpets, bird cages, fountains, musicians, grave converses and edifying songs—all passed into the pocket of the lucky player. Furthermore, you gave to him your boots, your robe, your skull-cap, and, if I remember aright, your shirt, leaving yourself only in your trousers.”

“In the name of the Prophet!” exclaimed the one-eyed. “What omniscience! You know even about the shirt! Then it is true that you can read a man's whole past and future in his eyes?”

“In your single eye I can read naught save the past; the future lies hidden behind your blind eye. Proceed.”

“What was I to do after such a calamity? Give up for ever my dreams of leading a virtuous life? Such thoughts made the world shroud itself in black smoke before me. ‘No!’ I decided. ‘I must be steadfast in my strivings towards good. This is the devil's doing, made desperate at the thought of my soul slipping through his vulture's paws, trying to lead me astray. I must  {73}  enter upon the path which the sage had predicted for me, even though it may mean committing another, albeit final, sin!’ Strengthened in that resolve, I arrived in Kokand, and there I did hear tidings that confounded my reason. It transpired that a new Khan had recently ascended the throne, and that city, once a flourishing garden for all thieves and knaves, had now become for them a barren desert. The new Khan had introduced such strict rules that the thieves had no choice but to shake the dust of the city off their feet or abandon their trade. The Khan had dismissed with ignominy the Chief of the Watch, for whom all the thieves of Kokand had been ceaselessly praying in the mosques for many a long year, and had appointed in his stead a new one, an energetic, ambitious and ruthless grandee by the name of Kamilbek. To curry favour with the Khan, the new chief had sworn to tear up all thievery in the city by the root, and at the time of my arrival he had fully achieved his dire purpose. The city swarmed with his cunning spies and ferocious guards; one could not steal a pea from a bag without falling into their clutches. Every thief, when caught, had his right hand chopped off and his forehead branded with red-hot irons; if anyone was clever enough to steal some trifle, he could not dispose of it, since receivers of stolen goods were liable to the same punishment, and everybody was afraid. And so a new obstacle arose in my path towards a virtuous life—that cruel grandee with his pitiless rules. Several days I spent in painful reflection, not knowing what to do, where to begin. May had already set in with its approaching festival of Father Turakhon, whose tomb, as you know, is not far from Kokand. And that vile fiend, in his ceaseless endeavour to possess my soul, inspired me with a calamitous thought—to avail myself of this festival in order to procure the money that I needed for entering upon the path of virtue. . . .”  {74} 

But let us leave the one-eyed thief and Khoja Nasreddin for a while, and acquaint the reader with the spring festival of Father Turakhon, without which much would remain unintelligible in our further narrative.

According to an old legend, Turakhon, a native of Kokand, lost both his father and his mother at the age of five, and went begging about the bazaar. He drained the bitter cup of orphanhood to its dregs; such trials either embitter a man, and turn his heart to stone, or lead him to the sublime heights of human wisdom, provided that, by the power of his spirit, he is able to recast the sense of injury and bitterness for himself into a sense of injury and bitterness for all. Such was the case with Turakhon. He came to manhood with a heart inflamed with wrath towards the hard-hearted rich and with compassion for the poor, especially the children, who are unable to help themselves.

He was twenty-five when he quitted Kokand with an outgoing caravan to return home a man of forty. He had spent all that time in India and Tibet, studying the mysteries of the healing art and achieving remarkable heights in that sphere. It was said that he healed people by touch, and also that he always made the rich pay high for his services, and forthwith spent that money on the children of the poor.

He always went about surrounded by a crowd of children of all ages; when he had money, he would go up to the shop of a seller of toys or sweets and buy it all up for his little friends. If he had no money, and happened to meet with a half-naked barefoot child, he would, without further ado, take him first to a seller of clothes, then to a seller of boots, of girdles, and skullcaps, and everywhere he would utter but two words: “Be charitable.” And the sellers, quaking under the stern regard of the old man—for he was exceedingly stern with grown-ups—clothed and booted the child and dared  {75}  not so much as mention a word about payment, bearing in mind that Father Turakhon, besides being able to heal, could also punish the heartless with all kinds of ailments.

When he died thousands of children, weeping copious tears, followed his coffin to the cemetery. The learned mudarrises and mullahs refused to number him among the Favourites of God, because, said they, he had not kept the fasts, had broken the rules and regulations of Islam, and had never in all his life made a donation for the decoration of the tombs, saying that the living poor were in greater need of the money than the dead sheikhs. The common people, however, raised Turakhon to sainthood of their own expressed will, and his fame spread far beyond the bounds of Kokand throughout all the East. The May festival bearing his name was a children's holiday.

Popular belief had it that on the eve of his festival Father Turakhon goes about the yards distributing presents to deserving children, which he leaves in the skull-caps hung out for that purpose. The children began preparing for that holiday long before the spring. Chill harsh winds were still blowing, the dry prickly snow was still falling from leaden skies, the gardens still stood black and lifeless, and the ground, frosted hard as stone, still rang beneath the wheels of the arbas, when the children every morning began to flock together in little bevies behind the walls, and fences and other sheltered places, and there, with blue nipped noses, shivering from the cold in their little robes and pressing their hands over their ears, they spoke long and gravely about Turakhon. They knew positively that he was a very difficult person to please, and getting a present from him was by no means an easy thing. The conditions were formidable ones. For fifty days preceding the festival it was required: first, that one should at no time  {76}  grieve one's parents; secondly, that one should do some good deed every day—for instance, help a blind man to cross a foot-bridge or lend an old person a hand in carrying his load; thirdly, throughout those fifty days one had to deny oneself sweetmeats laid out so temptingly on the hawkers’ trays in order to save up money for a beautiful new skull-cap (everyone knows that Father Turakhon does not like greasy old caps and usually passes them over, making an exception only in the case of the very poorest children).

In the course of fifty days quiet and good conduct reigned in every family. The children did whatever they were told, went about on tiptoes, and spoke in whispers lest they incur the displeasure of Father Turakhon. Even the most mischievous children became gentle lambs during that period; there was no screaming or shouting to be heard, no fighting, no games of marbles, or wild pickaback races in fluttering robes amid whoops and whistling.

And on the eve of the festival there was a great stir and bustle, with secret meetings, fearful whisperings, and a faster beating of excited little hearts. The fact of the matter was that the mullahs frowned upon this festival, and in some places forbade it entirely, thus rendering it all the more alluring in the eyes of Turakhon's young votaries. Three threads had to be sewn on the skullcaps: a white one betokening Good, a green one betokening Spring, and a blue one betokening Heaven; then, at nightfall, one had to creep forth into the garden or the vineyard, and there hang up one's skull-cap with one's face turned towards the tomb of Turakhon and one's eyes fixed all the time upon the constellation of The Seven Diamonds. Then one had to utter thrice the secret words addressed to Turakhon and make three low bows to the ground—and not until all this had been performed could one return to the house and go to bed.  {77}  Jumping up in the night and running out to look at the skull-caps was strictly forbidden—and that is the reason why that night was a night of torment for many an impatient little heart.

But the festival morn made up for everything! Squeals of delight sounded in every home. To some Father Turakhon had left presents of silk robes, to others boots with red or green tassels, here toys and sweetmeats, there shoes, rings and dresses for the little girls. That is how kind and thoughtful Father Turakhon was! And all day long, amid the hazy spindrift of the new-fledged greenery of the gardens, the children danced in gaily coloured rings, singing a song which they had made up in honour of their friend and protector:

And now let us return to Khoja Nasreddin and his one-eyed companion, whom we had left sitting by the roadside. Nothing had changed here during our absence: they were still sitting upon the boulders by the road, the sun was shining, cloud shadows glided over the mountain slopes, dragon-flies hung in the warm air on glimmering wings, and lizards lay upon the rocks basking in the sun.

The one-eyed proceeded with his story.

“I succumbed to the guileful blandishments of the Tempter. On the eve of the festival of Turakhon I went forth and made the rounds of the neighbouring yards, gardens and vineyards. Everywhere I collected the skull-caps  {79}  with the presents. Several times I returned to my den in the cellar of an abandoned watch-tower, emptied my sacks there and went forth once more after plunder. Sunrise found me the owner of several thousand skullcaps and a multitude of children's robes, tasselled boots, dresses, slippers, bracelets, necklaces and other articles. Looking at the gaudy heap of goods which I had collected, I thought: ‘Here is enough for two chaikhanas with musicians! And I can sell it all without hindrance, for who would dare to identify his own things? Celebrations in memory of Father Turakhon are forbidden in Kokand, and who would risk being thrown into prison for the sake of some paltry children's robes and skull-caps?’ See to what depths of infamy I had fallen! Wearied by my nocturnal labours, I fell into a slumber.

“My awakening was terrible! My whole den was shaking and rocking, lit up by a weird lurid quivering light. In this spectral light I beheld the saintly Turakhon himself towering above me. His face was aflame with wrath, his eyes burned me through and through, his voice thundered with the roar of a cataract. ‘O impious one!’ he uttered in a terrible voice. ‘O misbegotten wretch and sinner! Thou hast dared to steal from the children their innocent joys; in place of the cries of delight and sounds of rejoicing so dear to my heart, I now hear everywhere the sounds of tears and weeping! Thou hast dared to sully my stainless name—what will the children now say of me when they find not either the presents they expected from me or their own new skullcaps? They will say, Father Turakhon is a liar, a deceiver and a thief. Dost hear me, O evil-smelling vessel of all human vices and infamy!’ Dazed with wonderment and affright I hearkened to the wrathful speech of the saint. ‘Hear then thy sentence, perfidious wretch, who deserveth to feed only upon the flesh of dead hyenas!’ he thundered. ‘Henceforth I doom thee to thievery always  {80}  and everywhere, no matter how loathsome it may be to thee. Thou shalt abhor stealing, but steal thou shalt! Every year on the eve of my festival thou shalt be attacked by agonizing pains in the belly, from which thou shalt not obtain relief save by one means—by stealing! The pain shall pass, but what frightful torments thy conscience shall suffer every time thou committest an act of thievery! A whole year of abstinence, a whole year of striving after moral excellence, and when thy goal was almost attained, to steal at the very end of it and thereby destroy at a single blow the entire edifice of thy aspirations towards good and forbearance from evil. And thou shalt continue thus until thou hast requited thy sin, and the means by which thou shalt requite it thou must discover thyself.’ And with these concluding words of Turakhon there came another thunderous clap that shook my den to its very foundations. There was a fearful crash, and clay rained down upon my head; mazed with terror, wild-eyed, I rushed out of the cellar, and at the same instant the tower collapsed, burying beneath its debris all the goods that I had plundered.”

“That was at the beginning of May five years ago,” Khoja Nasreddin interjected. “A violent earthquake accompanied by an unheard-of thunder-storm then destroyed many houses in Kokand. Its effects were even felt in Khojent: where the ancient Mosque of Guhar-Shad fell to the ground—the very same mosque in which there now sits an old dervish. . . .”

Here, however, he stopped, deciding for the time being not to tell his one-eyed companion anything about his acquaintance with the old mendicant.

“So it was you who caused that earthquake!” he said.

“Alas, it was I!” admitted the one-eyed. “Afterwards I learned that the gravestone in Turakhon's tomb cracked that day. The reason for its cracking was that the saint, falling into a violent rage, had quitted his  {81}  grave in order to punish me. From that day onward I abide in an abject and woeful state. Every year at this time, on the eve of the festival of Turakhon, I am afflicted by the cruellest pains, of which you were a witness. I cannot obtain relief therefrom save by thievery. Now you understand what I meant by that act of healing which suffered not the interference of a leech, and how that cooking-pot came to be in your saddle-bag.”

“Now I understand. Tell me, does not your ailment revive when you are caught and the stolen things are taken from you?”

Khoja Nasreddin had good reason for asking that question, for he was a prudent man who had an eye to the future.

“No, it does not. But when I am caught I am usually given a very cruel beating. Today I was beaten for the cooking-pot. . . .”

“As was I,” Khoja Nasreddin reminded him.

“And a year ago the watch of Andijan beat me for stealing a prayer-carpet.”

“Did the watch let you go? Wherefore did they not throw you into the dungeon?”

“Have you not heard the tale of the silly cat?” the one-eyed said, smiling. “Mice appeared in a man's house. To rid himself of them he brought home a mangy stray cat. The silly cat killed all the mice in a single night; the next morning, seeing that his stores were now safe from marauders, the master threw the cat out into the street and shut upon it the door of his cosy house with its soft cushions, its warm fireside, and its saucer with milk. The men of the watch were wiser than that cat!”

Khoja Nasreddin laughed at this tale, then asked the one-eyed what he was journeying to Kokand for and what affairs he had there. The thief answered that every year in the spring he went on a pilgrimage to the tomb  {82}  of Turakhon, and spent several hours there over the grave, weeping tears of repentance and imploring forgiveness. So far, however, all his prayers had remained unanswered. The saint was inexorable.

“And what think you of doing further?”

“I wait to hear your advice.”

Khoja Nasreddin pondered. His original resolve to part company with the one-eyed had been shaken. And the cause of that was the old mendicant of Khojent, who would seem to have linked their destinies together. “It makes no difference whether I have to save one or two from lapsing into the lower state,” Khoja Nasreddin decided. “Moreover, he has learned my name, therefore it will be safer for me to keep an eye upon him.”

“Very well, you may accompany me. We shall see whether we two between us cannot succeed in appeasing Father Turakhon and softening his righteous wrath. But you must swear never in future to commit the act of healing you wot of without my leave.”

The one-eyed gave his oath right willingly. There was no end to his expressions of gratitude and praise.

Meanwhile the sun had long since crossed the line of day, painting the snows on the summits a delicate saffron and spreading deep purple shadows upon the mountain-sides. The wind had freshened, the dragon-flies and midges had disappeared, and the lizards had hidden themselves between the rocks. Khoja Nasreddin felt a lassitude in his empty stomach, and, besides, one had to think about lodgings for the night.

“Forward!” said he, mounting his ass. “We have spent no little time here, and Kokand is still a long way off.”

The ass, well-rested, tossed his head and twirled his tail, and they resumed their way.

CHAPTER NINE

In a hollow in the vicinity of Kokand, where the inhabitants of the southern part of the city cultivated rice, there were in those days warm lakes, which received their waters from hot underground sources. Springtime here began a full week earlier. The gardens on the hillsides all round would still be black, while the lakes were green and blossoming, warmed by the sun from above and the hot springs from below.

It may be gathered therefrom that Father Turakhon had wisely chosen this depression for his tomb, since it gave him a whole week in which to make his diverse tailoring, boot-making, toy-making and khalva-cooking preparations. His humble tomb was decorated with only two black horse tails, fastened to poles at the entrance; all round stood clumps of gnarled old elms, whose lower branches were hung with a motley fringe of silk ribbons, brought hither by the saint's worshippers. The vast number of these ribbons bore evidence that the memory of him was still green in the hearts of all Moslems.

Khoja Nasreddin dismounted before the tomb and reverently saluted Turakhon, whom he sincerely venerated. His one-eyed companion lagged far behind. He was crawling along the road on his knees, sprinkling dust upon his head and wailing, “0 merciful Turakhon, forgive me in the name of Allah!” His penitent plaint could barely be heard through the elm-trees.

The tomb-keeper came forth—an old man in rags, with a face as yellow and wrinkled as a dried apricot, but with eyes in which lurked a hidden flame. A black, warped, worm-eaten door of carved wood was opened, and a musty ancient odour issued from the cool semi-darkness—a peculiar odour that sank into one's soul, Khoja Nasreddin took his boots off, put on the soft slippers  {84}  which the old man obligingly offered him, and entered the tomb. The white walls of rough-hewn stone, bare of any decorations or paintings, supported a dome with two narrow latticed windows. Two thin blades of light stabbed the semi-darkness, and crossed upon the tombstone, which was split down the middle. A raised stony path two cubits wide ran from the entrance to the headstone, and on both sides of it the floor was covered with grey-green dust, which had accumulated there for ages. This dust, in accordance with custom, was preserved untouched. To leave one's footprints upon it was considered an act of desecration. It was so quiet in the tomb that Khoja Nasreddin could hear the sound of his own blood pumping in his ears. He advanced towards the shrine, bent over it, and kissed the stone under which rested one of the kindest hearts that had ever throbbed in the world.

“O merciful Turakhon, will I ever be able to atone for my sin?” the wailing voice of the one-eyed now sounded near at hand, and a moment later he crawled into the vault. His head was grey with dust, his flat face scratched and bleeding. He flung himself face downwards upon the tombstone and lay there still and silent.

Khoja Nasreddin went out, leaving him alone with Turakhon.

Act hour passed by, then a second, but the one-eyed came not forth from the tomb. Khoja Nasreddin waited patiently, sitting on a worn old rug in the shade of an elm and conversing with the old tomb-keeper about dervishhood and its advantages over other modes of life.

“To have naught, to desire naught, to strive after naught, to fear naught, least of all physical dissolution,” the old man was saying. “How else can one live in this sorrowful world, where lie is heaped upon lie, and where all swear that they desire to help one another, but merely help one another to die?”  {85} 

“That is not life, but the bodiless shadow of it,” protested Khoja Nasreddin. “Life is a struggle, not a burying of oneself alive.”

“Insofar as the outward embodied life is concerned, your words, wayfarer, are perfectly true,” the old man said. “But there is also such a thing as an inner spiritual life, the only attribute of ours over which no one has any power. Man must choose between lifelong slavery and freedom, which is attainable only in the inner life and only by dint of utter self-renunciation.”

“Have you found it?”

“Yes. Since I have renounced the outward trappings of this world, I no longer lie, or cringe, or fawn, for I have nought that can be taken from me, unless it be my corporal old life. Let them take it; indeed, it is of slight value to me. Here is this shrine of Turakhon—the mullahs love it not, the guards molest his worshippers, but, as you see, I fear not to serve him openly and unselfishly, simply because it gratifies my heart to do so.”

“That you do it unselfishly, I see by your raiment,” observed Khoja Nasreddin, indicating the old man's indescribably tattered robe, motley with patches and frayed to ribbons around the hem, as if it were sewn from the same strips of stuff and ribbons that decked the trees around the tomb.

“I ask but little from life,” the old man resumed. “This ragged garment, a drink of water, a piece of barley bread-cake—that is all. But my freedom is for ever with me, for I carry it within my soul.”

“Far be it from me to wish to offend you, worthiest of old men, but any dead person is freer than you, since he demands nought from life whatever, not even a drink of water! Must the road to freedom necessarily be the road to death?”

“To death? That I know not. But to loneliness—yes.”

The old man paused, then added with a sigh:  {86} 

“I have long been lonely.”

“That is not true!” rejoined Khoja Nasreddin. “I hear in your speeches the voice of charity, compassion, love of mankind. Your compassion awakes an answering echo in the hearts of a multitude—therefore, you cannot be lonely upon this earth. A living man can never be lonely. People are not lonely, they are united; therein lies one of the profoundest truths of our joint existence!”

“Fond dreams! Fancies! From the cold, the winds, and rain people defend themselves by walls, from the harsh truth—by dreams and fancies. Defend yourself, wayfarer, defend yourself, for life's truth is frightful!”

“Defend myself? Nay, venerable sir, I do not stand on the defensive, I attack. Always and everywhere I attack, in whatever guise the world's evil may present itself. And if I am fated to fall in the struggle, no one shall say that I fled the field. And my weapon shall pass into other hands—of that I shall take good care!”

Khoja Nasreddin's ardent speech was interrupted by the appearance of the one-eyed, who came forth from the vault. His countenance was pale and subdued. While he was performing the ablution at the cistern, the old man related:

“Every year that unfortunate man plants a rose cutting outside the tomb in the hope that it will strike root, and this will serve him as a sign of grace. But as yet not a single cutting has taken root. The tears come into my eyes at the sight of that man; you have rightly divined in me a feeling of compassion for my fellow-men, O wayfarer. I have rid myself of selfishness, vanity, covetousness, gluttony, and fear, but of compassion I cannot rid myself. Allah has given me a soft heart, and it will not harden.”

The one-eyed, during that time, was occupied with his own affairs. He took from out of his garments a  {87}  cutting wrapped up in a damp piece of cloth, and loosening the earth with his knife, stuck it into the ground in front of the entrance to the tomb.

“It will not take root,” Khoja Nasreddin whispered to the old man. “That is not the way to plant.”

“Haply it will,” the old man answered. “I shall tend it and water it thrice during the day.”

Khoja Nasreddin perceived tears glistening in the corners of the old man's eyes.

Their business at the tomb was done. Taking leave of the old keeper, our wayfarers quitted the shady coolness of Turakhon's elm grove.

Kokand met them with clouds of hot dust, and the press and surge of the crowd at the city gates. The great spring bazaars were beginning, and the gates were besieged with incomers. Outside the city wall lay pitched a colourful humming camp with awnings of rush mats, with tents of horse-cloths, with taverns and chaikhanas doing a roaring trade. In shallow holes along the roadsides sat beggars as dry and yellow as the parched earth around them; they looked like an outgrowth of that earth, as if rising from it, or, on the contrary, slowly sinking into it. And a little to one side jesters, jugglers, snake-charmers, dancing girls, rope-walkers and such like ravishers of Moslem hearts plied their mean trades amid the hideous din of drums, the blare of brass trumpets and the raucous shrieking of pipes. Above this multi-tongued clamorous crowd, in a pale shimmering sky hung a blazing sun, flat, dull and beamless; the dust was everywhere—it flew upon the wind, gritted on your teeth, got into your nose and eyes and ears.

Khoja Nasreddin, who was a great lover of spectacles, lost no time. With a bread-cake in one hand, and  {88}  his skull-cap filled with ripe cherries in the other, he went about through the fair, starting his round with the jugglers. He tarried before a dark-skinned dried-up old man with a red mark over the bridge of his nose—the sign of his tribe; with eyes downcast, the Hindoo was playing softly and plaintively on a reed-pipe, while before him, completely under the spell of his pipe, two serpents swayed their bodies slowly and drowsily; his lips still on the pipe, he laid the two serpents, each separately, into a deep basket with a tight cover, and not until he had done that did he give his benumbed lips a rest. After the tuneful pipe, how sinister was the hard rustle that came from within the baskets, how soul-chilling the ominous hissing that rose to a malevolent whistle! From overhead came the faint roll of a drum; up there, at a dizzy height, a little man, naked to the waist, in wide red trousers that billowed out in the wind glided along a thin stretched rope; he squatted and stood up erect, tossed his pole into the air and caught it again, contriving the while with one hand to beat a small drum that hung in front of him from his girdle; below was the buzzing surging crowd, the reeking dust surcharged with the odours of sweat, dung and the greasy fumes of the cook-shops—while he was all alone up there in the heavenly heights, companioned by the wind, separated from death by the flimsy thread of his rope.

Nearby stood the white tents of the dancing girls. Around one of them was a noticeable stir, and Khoja Nasreddin hastened thither to join the throng.

Two strapping Dungans with pitch-black plaits falling down to their waists, deftly rolled out of the tent a flat drum the width of a millstone; then one of them, with his head thrown back, began to blow into a long narrow gourd, producing a plaintive waspish buzz. It was the tune of an old Kashgar dance called “The  {89}  Angry Wasp.” The shrill plaintive hum continued for a long time, now growing in volume, now dying away. Suddenly the tent flap was drawn aside, and the dancing girl ran out.

She ran out and stopped, as if abashed at the sight of the crowd, her sharp young elbows pressed to her sides, her small hands spread outwards. She could not have been more than seventeen. Her gold-tinted delicate face was innocent of kohl, paint or whitening—she had no need of them. Her lithe body was sheathed in coloured silks—blue, yellow, red and green—that gleamed in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, their hot brilliant colours blending together into a rainbow. Darting at the crowd a swift glance of her oblique glittering eyes veiled with dark eyelashes, she threw off her shoes and sprang nimbly on to the drum straight from where she stood. At the touch of her small feet the drum emitted an angry growl. The trumpeter raised his gourd still higher, and his face reddened with exertion; his instrument whined, and twanged, and snuffled; the girl began to look round in alarm: somewhere close by a wasp was circling round her, threatening to sting her. That angry wasp assailed her everywhere—from the sides, from below, and from above; she beat it off, waving her arms and twisting her body; her small heels beat ever faster and hotter upon the drum, which responded with a taut swelling rumble that goaded her on to still more frantic effort; they merged into one, each driving the other. Dodging the wasp, the girl fell on her knees, leapt to her feet again, sought the angry wasp among the folds of her garments, while the coloured silks kept unwinding and unwinding, falling over the drum and now barely covering her slender body. When she was undraped to the waist, the wasp suddenly darted in from underneath; the dancing girl uttered a shriek, and began to spin round like a top on the madly  {90}  booming drum; a coloured whirlwind burst around her, the last covering, a pink one, fell away, and she stood utterly naked before the crowd. All of a sudden she quivered from head to foot. Her body curved outward, her head fell back, and a long slow tremor ran through all her body. The wasp had stung her after all! She ran into the tent, followed by the rapturous lustful roar of the crowd; and forthwith a fat, short-legged Persian merchant with a black beard, a round belly and oily, sweetly-slumberous bulging eyes waddled into the tent after her.

Khoja Nasreddin and his companion passed the night in a wretched flee-ridden chaikhana, and at sunrise the next morning entered Kokand.

In the course of their progress through the town they met with ever more and. more guards of diverse ranks, who scurried about the streets, squares and alleys, and hung around on every corner. Verily, there was no work for thieves in Kokand.

“I wonder what this mob of officials costs the poor townsfolk?” Khoja Nasreddin thought. “No thieves in a hundred years of ceaseless depredation could cause them so much damage.”

They passed the old madrasah—the gathering place of the faithful of Kokand—and the stone bridge across the shallow turbulent Sai, and before them opened the principal square with the Khan's palace enclosed within high fortress walls.

Here began the bazaar.

CHAPTER TEN

In those remote times every large city of the East had a title of dignity as well as a name. Thus, Bokhara was known by the grand and imposing name of  {91}  Bokhara-i-Sherif, which means Noble Royal Bokhara. Samarkand bore the title of Valorous, Victorious and Splendrous, while Kokand, in keeping with its situation in a flourishing valley and the gay careless disposition of its inhabitants was called Kokand-i-Lyatif, meaning Merry Pleasant Kokand.

There was a time—and not so very long ago either—when that title was a felicitous one, for there was not a city anywhere that could vie with Kokand in the great number of its festivals and in the gaiety and light-heartedness of its citizens. In recent years, however, a gloom had been cast upon Kokand and its blithe spirit had been quelled by the austere hand of the new Khan.

Festivals were still celebrated by force of habit, the trumpeters and drummers still exerted themselves zealously outside the chaikhanas, the jesters still performed their antics at the bazaars for the entertainment of Kokand's light-minded inhabitants, but the festivals were not what they were, the gaiety lacked sparkle. Depressing rumours trickled from the palace: the new Khan, inflamed with a zeal for Islam, devoted all his time to pious converse, and cared for little else. Madrasahs and new mosques were being built; mullahs, mudarrises, and ulemas poured into Kokand from all over the land; to feed all this greedy horde money was needed; and so the taxes were, increased. The Khan's sole diversion was horse-racing; he had been a passionate lover of horses ever since a child, and not even Islam could quench that passion in him. In every other respect, however, he was beyond reproach, and his heart was locked against the hollow vanities of the world. The garden path between the harem and the royal bedchamber was overgrown with grass, and it was many a day since the tap of tripping footsteps had been heard upon it in the still hours of night, accompanied by the slow wheezy breathing of the chief eunuch and the dreary  {92}  shuffling of his dragging slippered feet. The Khan demanded similar chastity from the lords of his court, and piety from his subjects. The town swarmed with guards and spies.

New interdicts with new punishments for disobedience were for ever being proclaimed. Only a few days ago a firman concerning adultery had been issued, in accordance with which faithless wives were to be punished by flogging and faithless husbands were to be deprived of their masculinity under the knives of the legal physicians; numerous other firmans were there of the same kind; every inhabitant of Kokand lived, as it were, in a meshwork of thousands of threads to which little bells had been hung; no matter how careful you were you could not help brushing against one of the threads, and then there would sound a low ominous tinkle fraught with calamitous consequences.

But so potent is the spell of spring that during the days of which we speak the inhabitants of Kokand forgot their troubles. Under the brilliant rays of the young sun the bazaar presented a scene of noisy animation. Famed since olden times for their love of flowers and song-birds, the people of Kokand had remained true to that custom. Everyone had a tulip, or a sprig of jasmine, or some other spring flower stuck under his skull-cap over the ear. Winged little captives were warbling away in the darkness, and often some idle chaikhana frequenters would toss the keeper a coin, and, amid the approving hum of the company, open the cage door and set the little songster free. Waggons, horsemen and pedestrians would stop, and everybody with upturned face would watch its rapturous free flight in the shining sky.

“Father Turakhon is expecting good deeds from us,” Khoja Nasreddin said to his one-eyed companion. “Let us then begin with these poor little captives. Take this money. But remember—not a single tanga must you  {93}  abstract from any gaper, even though his purse did gaze at you with appealing eyes.”

“I hear and obey.”

The one-eyed went up to the nearest chaikhana and bought up all the birds at once. One after another they rose into the sky with a flash of wings in the sun.

A crowd gathered and blocked the roadway. Loud praise of the one-eyed's generosity was heard.

He opened each cage, took out the bird, held it in his hand for several moments, enjoying the living warmth of its body, the tremulous palpitation of its tiny heart, then he tossed it into the air with the words, “Fly in peace!” “I fly! Thank you, good man, I shall say a kind word for you to Father Turakhon,” it answered in its own bird language, then vanished. The one-eyed laughed a low happy laugh.

“It is a wonder that I never thought of this before. I sometimes had a lot of money and could have set them free by the thousand. I never thought that this child's play could so gladden one's heart.”

“There are many things that you knew not and still do not know,” answered Khoja Nasreddin, thinking within himself, “I have not been mistaken in that man-he has preserved in his heart the living fount.”

“Make way! Disperse!” came menacing shouts, accompanied by a roll of drums. The crowd fell back and broke up, and Khoja Nasreddin perceived before him a great officer of state astride a chestnut Tekin stallion. This grandee was surrounded on all sides by a posse of guards—all fierce, big-moustached zealots of the grabbing brotherhood with fat red faces, armed with spears, sabres, pole-axes, and other awesome implements. The grandee's chest glittered with a multitude of medals, large and small, and his well-fed face with its black twirled moustache expressed insolent pride. The stallion, which two men were holding by its bridle, pranced  {94}  and curvetted, glanced askance with a fiery-purple eye, arched its neck and champed the bit. Its saddle-cloth gleamed with gold.

“Whence come you, wretched ragamuffins?” the grandee demanded, his lower lip thrust out in distaste.

O, had he but known who it was standing there before him in that shabby robe, and greasy skull-cap and those patched boots!

“We are rural dwellers who have come to Kokand for the bazaar,” Khoja Nasreddin answered meekly, with a look of servile humility upon his face. “We have done no wrong, and have only set free a few birds to the glory of our peerless Khan and as a token of respect towards you, O illustrious beacon of might.”

“Are there no other ways of expressing devotion to the Khan and respect to me than by setting free some silly birds and collecting a crowd?” the grandee demanded angrily, uttering the words “setting free” with twisted lips of loathing towards their hidden meaning. “It is high time that all these ‘settings free* were forbidden,” he said wry-mouthed, “all these stupid customs that disgrace my city! You have money to spend, I see, and instead of piously paying it into the treasury—that were verily a means of proving your devotion!—you squander it in the bazaar. Search them!” he commanded his guards.

Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed were seized, and stripped of their girdles, robes and shirts.

The guards exultantly held up to their lord a purse filled with silver and copper. The grandee smiled viciously, pleased at his own perspicacity.

“’Tis what I thought! Put it away!” he commanded the chief of his guard. “You will give it to me later to be handed over to the treasury.”

The guard dropped the purse into the fathomless pocket of his wide crimson trousers, and the grim  {95}  cavalcade moved on to the sound of a rolling drum: in front, the grandee upon his horse, behind him his guards in crimson trousers and high-boots, with the drummer in similar trousers but no boots—his rank entitled him to none—bringing up the rear. And wherever they passed the gay clamour of the bazaar was silenced, the chaikhanas emptied, and the birds, frightened by the drum, stopped singing; all life ceased, froze beneath the glassy stare of the grandee, and all that remained in its stead were his firmans with their dire threats and interdicts. But as soon as he passed life came into its own again behind his back, riotous with colour and sound, for ever young and unquenchable, defiant of all interdicts, laughing at them. He passed through life like a hostile foreign body; he could, for a while, check its flow, but he was powerless to subdue it and keep it under his will. Great Living Life rejected him with every one of her spring flowers, with every one of her sounds.

Khoja Nasreddin gazed after the retreating guards and said:

“The chiefs who wield earthly power are divided into three species: the minor, the medium, and the major, according to the degree of mischief that they work. We are left without a copper in our pockets—but it could have been worse; we might have been left without our heads as well, for that chief was of the major species.”

“My hands were itching to fish our purse out of the guard's pocket,” confessed the one-eyed. “But I had not your leave.”

“Do you never think for yourself?” Khoja Nasreddin returned with chagrin. “To restore a purse to its rightful owner requires no special leave.”

“Here it is!” said the one-eyed, and with these words he pulled the missing purse out from under his girdle.  {96}  “He also had two bracelets in his pocket—gold ones, to judge by their weight—but I did not take them.”

The recovery of the purse was celebrated by a grand feast at the nearest cook-shop. The keeper was run off his legs serving his generous customers with viand after viand, seasoned with pungent Afghan condiments that seared the tongue and palate. From the cook-shop they went to a chaikhana, from the chaikhana to a seller of honey snow, and ended the feast at a khalva tray.

Then they went about through the bazaar. And the Kokand bazaar in those days was of such length and breadth that not even the fleetest of runners could have made the round of it at a single go. The Silk Row alone stretched for a length of two arrow-flights, and the Potters', Footwear, Armourers', Garment and other rows were not much shorter; as for the horse fair and the cattle market, their size was vast. All this immense space was filled with a surging, swarming, jostling throng. Khoja Nasreddin and his companion elbowed their way through it with difficulty.

No pen can describe the profusion and splendour of the wares laid out upon counters, rush mats and carpets. Everything that the East of that day could boast of was there! Hookahs, from the simplest and crudest to the most expensive ones of Istanbul workmanship, ornamented with gold and precious stones; silver-backed Indian looking-glasses for the fair ravishers of masculine hearts; diverse-coloured Persian carpets that enthral the eye with the extraordinary delicacy of their patterns; silks, which have borrowed their brilliance from the sun; velvet, surpassing in softness and lustre the deep evening sky; trays, bracelets, earrings, saddles, knives. . . .

Boots, robes, skull-caps, girdles, ewers, ambergris, musk, attar of roses. . . . But here we must check the  {97}  headlong career of our pen, for a list of all the riches of the Kokand bazaar would fill two if not three bulky volumes.

Bazaar day, crowded with vivid colours, sounds, and odours, flew by quickly. The sinking sun was melting the fringes of the high clouds, which glowed with a rosy light. The hours of repose had set in: people departed to their homes, visitors repaired to the chaikhanas. But the drums announcing the close of the bazaar had not sounded yet, and many of the shops were still plying their trade.

Among these was the shop of a money-changer by the name of Rahimbai, one of Kokand's wealthiest citizens. A stout man with a double chin, puffed-up cheeks, and a beefy neck that bulged from under his robe, wearing a multitude of rings on short stubby fingers, he sat behind his counter, gazing down with heavy-lidded eyes at the neat little stacks of gold, silver and copper coins that were set out on it. Here were Indian rupees, square Chinese chengs, Tatar altins that had found their way hither from the wild steppes of the Golden Horde, Persian tomans with the figure of a roaring lion engraved on them, Arabian dinars, and a multitude of other coins then current in the East; there were coins here also from the distant lands of the Infidel—guineas, doubloons, and farthings, bearing upon them the sinful images of the Frankish kings, armour-clad, with drawn swords, and with the profane sign of the cross upon their breasts.

Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief drew level with the money-changer's shop at the very moment when he was reckoning up his profits for the day. He was collecting his money off the counter with an air of melancholy profundity, his thick red lips showing vividly  {98}  through his black beard. The coins slipped from his fat fingers like gold and silver fishes, and dropped into his bag with a delightful splash, while the base copper, which he raked in without counting, fell with a dull sound like that of broken stones.

Khoja Nasreddin glanced at his companion, in whose seeing eye he had thought to catch a piercing yellow gleam. But he saw it not. The thief was looking at the gold calmly, and his countenance reflected thoughts of quite a different nature.

“Today, just before sunrise, I dreamt that my rose cutting had taken root and thrown out buds,” he said. “Am I to believe that dream or not? Can it be that Turakhon will not forgive me, that my old sickness will attack me once more in a year's time, and that I shall have to resort once more to the act of healing?”

Let us explain here, in passing, that Khoja Nasreddin had by this time shrewdly studied his companion and grasped the true nature of his ailment, which was due to a fixed idea arising from self-suggestion. The works of the most wise Avicenna, the father of leech-craft, tell us that every disturbance of the bodily health immediately affects the mental condition, and vice versa; Khoja Nasreddin had drunk from the fount of Avicenna, and by applying his precepts to the one-eyed thief, had succeeded in drawing a correct conclusion.

“That is a prophetic dream,” he answered, striving to impart to his voice the tone of kindly assurance recommended in Avicenna's exhortations. “Remember it. I have cause to believe that Turakhon will be more gracious to you this time and you will receive forgiveness.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a woman—a widow, as the blue edging on the sleeves of her robe indicated. The edging was new, and the robe much the worse for wear. From this Khoja Nasreddin inferred that her husband had died recently  {99}  and that his widow had no money left with which to buy even the garments of mourning.

“O kind and generous merchant, I come to you with a prayer to save my children,” she said to the moneychanger.

“Go your way, I give no alms,” the man muttered without raising his eyes, which were glued on the money.

“I ask not alms, but assistance that will not be unprofitable to you too.”

The money-changer deigned at last to look up.

“After the death of my husband I have some jewelry left—all that remains of a once prosperous home, I have been keeping it for a black day,” the woman said, drawing a small leather bag forth from her garment. “That black day has come—all my three children are ill.” There was a ring of tears in her voice. “I have offered the jewelry to various merchants, but none will buy them until they have first been inspected by the Chief of the Watch, as decreed by the latest firman. But you know, O worthy merchant, that after that inspection I shall have neither money nor jewelry—the Chief of the Watch will assuredly declare them to be stolen goods and will seize them for the treasury.”

“H'm,” the money-changer smirked, scratching his beard. “Whether they will go to the treasury or not is yet a question, but that he will seize them is most certain. On the other hand anything purchased from an unknown person without its being inspected beforehand by the Chief of the Watch is fraught with hazard. The firman promises a hundred strokes of the rod and imprisonment for such an offence. But out of sympathy for your sorrow. . . . Show me what you have there.”

She handed him the little bag. He untied it and shook out upon the counter a heavy gold bracelet, earrings with large emeralds, a ruby necklace, a gold  {100}  chain, which according to an old custom the husband presented to his wife as a token of the indissolubility of the nuptial bond, and several other small gold trinkets.

“What do you want for these?”

“Two thousand pieces of silver,” the woman said timidly.

The one-eyed nudged Khoja Nasreddin, saying, “She is asking for exactly a third of its true worth. Those are Indian rubies—I can see from here.”

The money-changer pursed his thick lips disdainfully.

“The gold is impure, and the stones are of the cheapest kind from Kashgar.”

“He lies!” the one-eyed whispered.

“Out of sheer compassion for you, woman, I can offer you for the lot—well . . . a thousand pieces of silver.”

The one-eyed winced and his yellow eye blazed with indignation; he darted forward with the intention of interfering, but Khoja Nasreddin restrained him.

The widow attempted to argue.

“My husband said he had paid over a thousand for the rubies alone.”

“I know not what he told and I care not. This jewelry may have been stolen—remember that. Very well, I shall give you another two hundred tangas. A thousand and two hundred, not a copper more!”

What could the poor widow do? She consented.

The money-changer stuffed the jewelry into his bag with a casual air, and gave the woman a handful of money.

“The robber!” the one-eyed whispered, quivering. “I am a thief myself, and have spent my whole life among thieves, but never have I met such a blood-sucker as that!”

But this was not all. The woman counted the money  {101}  and cried out, “You have made a mistake, worthy merchant—there is only six hundred and fifty here.”

“Begone!” the money-changer shouted, his face reddening with anger. “Begone, before I hand you over to the Watch together with your stolen gold!”

“Help! He has robbed me! Help, good people!” the woman cried, weeping violently.

The one-eyed's indignation overflowed all bounds, and Khoja Nasreddin would scarcely have been able to restrain him had not a deafening drumbeat suddenly sounded round the corner.

The grandee and his guards were approaching the shop. Having finished its round, the company was heading towards the Office House.

The woman fell silent and backed away in fear.

The merchant, his hands folded under his belly, saluted the grandee with a low bow.

The latter, from the eminence of his stallion, responded with a careless nod.

“Greetings to the most worthy Rahimbai, the adornment of our trading community! It seemed to me that I heard cries near your shop.”

“Yes, it was she!” the money-changer answered, pointing at the woman. “She is guilty of immoral, disgraceful behaviour, she is disturbing the peace, demands money, talks about some jewels or other. . . .”

“Jewels?” the grandee said with sudden animation, his glassy bulging eyes lighting up with such a gleam that the yellow eye of the thief could be said, in comparison, to be as guileless and gentle as that of a babe. “Bring that woman before me!”

But the widow was gone. Anxious to save her last money, she had fled down a by-street.

“Here is an example: the more downtrodden the common people are, the freer do all kinds of swindlers feel,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “While destroying theft,  {102}  they have encouraged robbery in broad daylight under the guise of trade. Run after that widow and find out where she lives.”

The one-eyed vanished. Among his various peculiarities was an ability to disappear from before one's eyes and to mysteriously reappear, as if melting into the surrounding air and then materializing out of it once more.

Not to lead the guards into temptation, Khoja Nasreddin concealed himself behind a heap of stones that had been prepared for lining a large irrigation aryk which flowed past this spot. From there he could hear and see everything that went on within the shop.

The grandee graciously accepted the merchant's invitation to partake of a cup of tea. They started a friendly conversation respecting the horse races that were soon to be held in the presence of the Khan.

“I fear no rivals but you, worthy Rahimbai,” the grandee said, twirling and stroking his moustache. “I have heard about the stallions which you have bought for these races in Arabia. I have heard, but not seen—for you conceal them from the strangers’ gaze more zealously even than you do your wife. Rumour says that they have cost you forty thousand tangas, including their transportation by sea. Not even the first prize could requite your expenses.”

“Fifty-two thousand they cost me, fifty-two,” the merchant said complacently. “But I do not consider expense when it is a question of delighting the gaze of our great Khan.”

“That is most praiseworthy, and I shall bring your zeal to the ears of the Khan. But be not angry if my Tekins take the first prize away from you. Arab steeds are known for their excellence, of course, but I consider Tekins to be the best in the world.”

And the grandee held forth at considerable length  {103}  on the merits of different breeds of horses, while the merchant listened to him and chuckled inwardly, his fingers playing on his fat belly.

The air suddenly became odorous with perfumes. The money-changer's wife came in. She was a tall slender woman under a light veil, through which one divined rather than saw the paint and whiting on her cheeks, the kohl on her eyelashes and eyebrows, and the Chinese mastic on her lips.

The grandee rose and saluted her.

“My greetings to the most estimable and beautiful Arzi-bibi, the wife of my best friend.”

She answered with a bow and a smile. Unable to resist a chance to boast of his wealth and his generosity before the grandee, the money-changer pulled some jewels out of his bag and forthwith made a present of them to his wife, saying mendaciously that he had bought them in the Goldsmith's Row only an hour before for eight thousand pieces of silver. His wife thanked him for the present in the most elegant of terms, and while her words were addressed to her husband her gaze was directed upon the grandee. Wallowing as he was in self-conceit, the merchant noticed nothing, and continued to wax eloquent about the eight thousand pieces of silver which he had paid for the jewels, about the fifty-two thousand which he had paid for the Arabs, and the other thousands which he had paid for this, that and the other. The grandee listened and twirled his moustache, behind which lurked an indulgent smile that was half sneer—the kind of smile that many a Kokand man would fain have worn upon his own face and torn from that of another by means of the dagger or, more often than not, by informing against him.

“These jewels will enhance your attractions, O beautify! Arzi-bibi,” said the grandee. “What a pity that the  {104}  pleasure of gazing upon that angelic countenance in the setting of those jewels is given to your husband alone.”

“I think it will be no great sin if you put on the earrings and necklace, Arzi-bibi, and uncover yourself for a minute before the illustrious Kamilbek, who is my best friend,” the merchant said with alacrity (so far had his self-complacency and foolish conceit led him!).

She consented without demur (forsooth!), and put on the jewels and lifted her veil.

The grandee fell back with a groan, and covered his eyes with his hand as if dazzled by her beauty.

The merchant was so pleased with himself that he puffed, and snorted, and grunted in an excess of delight.

Khoja Nasreddin perceived all this from behind the heap of stones, and he shook his head, thinking within himself: “What are you rejoicing at, you fat witling! You bring stallions over from Arabia, but your wife finds them much nearer home!”

The thief returned, materializing out of the air before Khoja Nasreddin.

“The widow lives close by,” he said. “It is true that she has three children and all of them are ill. The six hundred tangas are not even enough to pay her debts. Tomorrow she will be sitting without a copper once more, through the mercy of that villainous bloodsucker.”

“Remember this shop, remember the widow's house,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “We shall soon have need of them. And now, let us go.”

They went, leaving the grandee, the boastful moneychanger and his wife with all their thousands, their jewels, their Arab steeds, and their shameful secrets. The chaikhana at which they were staying was at the other end of the bazaar, and they walked on for a long time, passing the deserted trading rows and crossing the hushed squares, The flaming sunset dazzled the eye,  {105}  the evening light flowed over the land in broad soft waves, and in this golden radiance the minarets and the brooding bulks of the mosques seemed to lose their earthly weight and looked transparent and flimsy, as though about to float up into the sky and melt in its clear serene flame.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The mountain lake! Khoja Nasreddin asked about it from everyone at the bazaar—farmers, itinerant artisans, jesters and jugglers—but in vain. No one had ever heard of such a lake. “Where could it have got to?” thought Khoja Nasreddin. “Haply the old mendicant owned it in some earlier incarnation, somewhere upon Jupiter or Saturn, and his memory now failing him in his old age he has muddled it up and sends me to search for it upon the earth?”

The other matter respecting the propitiation of Turakhon likewise caused him no little perplexity of mind. “Only a week remains until the festival,” he reflected. “I need money, not less than six thousand, but where am I to get it?”

He was obliged to turn to the one-eyed thief for advice, without, of course, disclosing the reason for which he needed the money.

“In former times it would have been the easiest thing for me to procure six thousand tangas in Kokand,” rejoined the thief. “Now the people of Kokand are all impoverished, and seldom will you find a man with such a weighty purse upon him. Unless it be the money-changer?”

“Again you are in the thrall of sinful thoughts,” Khoja Nasreddin said in a tone of rebuke. “Must you necessarily steal? Is there no other way?”

“Winning at dice?”  {106} 

“You may chance to be the loser. We must choose a winning game.”

A thought, half-formed but pregnant with fruitful seed, flashed across Khoja Nasreddin's mind.

“A game for three: you, I, and that fat perfidious money-changer. But how can we entice him into our game?”

“The fat money-changer, that fleecer of widows and orphans!” exclaimed the one-eyed. “Entice him into our game? It were easier to entice this pole or that camel yonder!”

“It would be best to get the money from him of all men,” Khoja Nasreddin proceeded, warming to the idea. “Voluntarily, of course, entirely of his own free will. It would be exceedingly beneficent to the money-changer, too, in respect to his passing into a higher existence at the close of his earthly career.”

“To get that blood-sucker to part voluntarily with six thousand tangas!” laughed the one-eyed. “Why, his earthly career would end at the first hundred. Look you how he clutches his bag—there is no snatching it away.”

This conversation took place in the chaikhana at a late hour on the threshold of midnight. The city was asleep, the bazaar lights had been extinguished, and only the pitch fires on the watch-towers were burning. A young moon hung forlorn over the minarets, silvering their tiled caps with an icy light. It was cool and quiet Summer ruled the day with its stifling heat and dust, but the winged nights with their lustrous haze and the mysterious freshness of the starry wind were still of the spring. The one-eyed thief crawled under his blanket and had begun to snore, while Khoja Nasreddin lay with open eyes, spellbound by the magic of the blue mist which had descended upon the earth from mysterious spheres, laden with the dim visions of a remote world.  {107} 

The beat of drums heralding midnight recalled Khoja Nasreddin to earthly matters—to the fat merchant and his leathern money-bag. By an effort of will he shook off the sweet torpor of abstraction. “Search, Reason, search! The money-changer must give six thousand tangas, and he shall give them of his own free will, for so I have planned and so it shall be!”

Meanwhile, the unsuspecting money-changer, troubled by no premonitions of coming ills, was whistling peacefully through his nose and smacking his lips in sleep beside his beauteous spouse. She lay awake, gazing with loathing at his overgrown belly rolling under the silk coverlet, and thinking of the passion-thrilled glances and irresistible moustache of the grandee. The bedchamber was hot and stuffy—the shutters were fastened tight and the lamp shed oily flakes of soot upon the tray. “O handsome Kamilbek!” thought the lady. “How sweet is thy embrace and how repulsive the impotent touch of this fat idiot!” With sinful thoughts such as these she fell asleep, having before her to the last the seductive vision of the magnificent black moustache and convinced that its lordly owner fully shared her amorous conceits and fancies.

She was mistaken. Quite other thoughts occupied the mind of the lord of her dreams at that late hour—thoughts of personal advancement, of new royal favours, and of the overthrow of his rivals.

He was standing in the palace bedchamber before the bedside of his royal master, giving him an account of the day's happenings in a fawning manner. Such was the custom established by the Khan. One would think his majesty had not time enough during the day, but that was not so: he was simply afraid to be left alone at night, as he had long been afflicted by asthmatic fits.  {108}  He suffered cruelly from this ailment, which never left him despite the court physicians, who assured him to a man that it was weakening its hold day by day and would soon go altogether. The physicians had not lied to the Khan, they had merely withheld the circumstance that it would go together with his life.

Propped high up on the pillows with the heavy quilt thrown back, the Khan was breathing painfully and wheezily, his puny chest rising and falling under his fine silk night-shirt. Although the windows of the bedchamber were open and the perfuming vessels were not smoking, he still gasped for air.

“After the closing of the bazaar,” the grandee reported, “when I had satisfied myself that the city was quiet, I repaired to the horse course in order to verify with my own eyes that everything was prepared for the coming races.”

“You verified with your own eyes last year too,” the Khan interrupted. “Yet one stallion stumbled and fell. Mind that there are no holes this time.”

“This time I am prepared to answer for it with my head,” the grandee said with a bow. “I trust that my Tekins will suitably gladden the eye of my illustrious lord and sovereign.”

“Your Tekins have rivals, we hear. Some merchant—we forget his name—has bespoken horses from Arabia, for which he is said to have paid over fifty thousand. Have you seen those horses?”

“I have, O Sire,” the grandee lied without turning a hair. “The horses, without a doubt, are good, but they do not come up to my racers. I may add that the merchant boastfully exaggerated the price he paid. Those Arabs, according to the reliable information of my spies, cost him little more than twenty thousand tangas.”

“Twenty thousand? What horses can they be at  {109}  twenty thousand a pair? Does he think to appear before our eyes upon the horse course with jades!”

“The merchant is base-born, how should he know the rules of highest decorum,” the grandee let fall insidiously.

Having thus cast a slur upon the fat money-changer, his racefield rival, the grandee proceeded to do likewise with other rivals at court. He mentioned the Treasurer, who, with suspicious prodigality, had recently given a feast for eighty guests, the Tax Vizier, and the Chief Eunuch, of whose excessive devotion to hashish he gently dropped a casual hint.

Here the grandee paused, preparatory to dealing a telling blow at his chief enemy. He had been premeditating that blow for a long time, nursing the thought like a careful gardener nurses a precious hothouse fruit. The grandee's enemy was the military leader Yadgorbek, called the Intrepid, captain of the Kokand Horse—a gallant soldier covered with the scars of enemy sabres and crowned with the glory of many victories. Servile sneaking meanness always hates the shining nobility of brave and chivalrous souls. The grandee hated Yadgorbek for his outspoken speech, and still more for the respect and genuine affection in which he was held by the common people.

Yadgorbek was a grim, burly, aged figure with a drooping grizzled moustache, wearing a plain turban with a single golden feather in it—an emblem of his military rank—a shabby silk robe that shone at the elbows, and boots creased at the toes by the stirrups and worn brown at the heels from constant contact with the horse's hair. Attended by a single bodyguard—a decrepit half-blind old man, who had been his faithful servitor and man-nurse since the days of his youth—Yadgorbek, hunched in his saddle, rode slowly through the bazaar on his war horse—also old and battle-scarred— {110}  and the hushed crowd fell back and followed the warrior with respectful whisperings, while his one-time soldiers, as grey as he and with the same honest scars upon their faces, shouted to him from the chaikhanas: “Salutations to thee, Intrepid! When shall we take the field again? Do not forget us, we can still wield a sabre!” When he presented himself, once a year, at the palace, the old warrior was always silent, never saying a word about his exploits, but the scars on his rugged face spoke loudly enough, preserving in themselves, as it were, like an echo from the past, the tumult of battle, the blare of martial trumpets, the swish of naked swords, the vicious screaming neigh of horses, the clank of shields, and the deep roll of drums that filled manly hearts with fury.

All this was a thorn in the side of the grandee, who had never been in a single fray, had never caught the flash of an enemy sword-blade over his head. Kamilbek the magnificent had never entered a fray until his enemy had been securely bound with ropes and laid face downward upon the ground with two guards sitting upon him—one on his neck, the other on his feet.

“What more?” asked the Khan, with a deep-sounding yawn. It was late, and he felt a heaviness in his swollen eyelids, yet beneficent sleep would not come to him.

The grandee arched his body and trembled from crown to heels. Here at last was that long-cherished moment!

“There is a certain word of sorrowful truth in my mind, Sire!”

“Speak!”

“I fear to burden the regal heart of my all-powerful sovereign.”

“Speak!”

“It concerns the military chief Yadgorbek.”  {111} 

“Yadgorbek? Is he guilty of aught? What be it?”

The grandee faltered, then manfully overcoming his emotion, uttered in a distinct sonorous voice:

“I have proved him guilty of adultery!”

“Adultery? Yadgorbek?” the Khan exclaimed, utterly confounded. “You have gone mad! We could believe anything but this.”

“Yes, Sire, adultery!” the grandee repeated firmly. “We have conclusive evidence. Having six years ago become a widower. . . .”

“We know. . . .”

“The said voluptuary Yadgorbek, desiring not to marry in the lawful manner ordained by Allah, did two years ago enter into criminal intercourse with a Persian woman by the name of Sharafat.”

“We know,” the Khan interrupted him. “But that woman is single; her husband departed to India five years ago with his caravan and perished during the journey.”

“I beseech my Sire to bend his illustrious ear to my further speech. After the proclamation of the firman—and two months have since elapsed—Yadgorbek did not break off his adulterous liaison with the said woman, hence he is guilty and punishable under the law.”

“But wherefore need he break off relations with her when she is free, I tell you!” the Khan cried, this time with a note of annoyance in his voice. “How can the firman be applied in this case, what is all this nonsense about adultery?”

As the ruler of a large khanate, he was obliged, whether he wanted to or not, to enforce the existing laws if he was to preserve his kingdom against the arbitrary power of his officers of state.

“My King asks—can the firman be applied?” hissed the grandee, giving his moustache a ferocious twitch. “But what if this woman is not free, and her marriage,  {112}  which has not been legally dissolved, is still valid? What if her husband has not perished and is still alive?”

“Alive? Where then has he been these five years?”

“He is alive and is now a slave in Peshawar in India. I have two men from Peshawar imprisoned in the dungeons—they were seized the year before last at the bazaar for sorcerous designs upon our great Khan. Of course, they fully confessed their guilt after the second interrogation, and were sentenced by me to imprisonment in the dungeon in accordance with the law. Well then, these men only recently—a day or two ago—gave additional evidence to the effect that they had met the husband of this woman at the Peshawar bazaar in the grievous condition of a slave. Thrice had he sent tidings to his wife, begging to be ransomed, but she responded not, instigated thereto, I vow, by her adulterous lover Yadgorbek. That, my Sovereign, is what the men from Peshawar testified at the interrogation—the two of them, and both in the same words.”

“Everyone testifies in the same words when you interrogate them,” the Khan remarked with a grim smile. “What will the populace think, what will the soldiery say if Yadgorbek were seized on such a laughable pretext? There is some trickery here, methinks.”

He was annoyed by the brazen effrontery of the grandee, who had prepared the sentence beforehand, irritated by that swaggering black moustache; besides, his malady was making itself felt by a dull pain at the back of his head. The Khan's words, when next he spoke, therefore had a rasping stinging quality in them.

“There is some trickery here, we say. The men from Peshawar were seized a year and a half ago, and they testify to having met the husband of this woman only now. Why did they not give this evidence till now?”

“They were stubborn in their denials, and have not confessed till now.”  {113} 

“Stubborn in denial?” the Khan said, the smile on his face growing grimmer. “According to you they confessed to sorcerous designs, which threatened them with imprisonment, after the second interrogation, but it took them a full year and a half to confess to having met the husband of this woman, a fact which threatened them with nothing. And that in your dungeons, in your hands? Rather strange, is it not? Eh?”

The grandee realized that he had chosen the wrong moment. The Khan was in a bad humour, and used his sting indiscriminately upon the first person who chanced to be nearest. He should have kept away from the palace that night, pleading indisposition, and put someone else in his place to receive the royal sting. But it was too late now to mend his mistake; men who huddle around the foot of thrones often make such blunders—he who catches the piece first is also the first to receive a slap in the face.

“O sublime Hub of the Universe, I have ere now observed Yadgorbek's predilection for adultery, and if I have kept silent about it before, my Khan, it was solely because I was concerned for His Majesty's precious health, which might have been impaired by such grievous tidings,” the grandee began, shifting, shuffling and grovelling in the hope that he would still have his own way.

But, alas, this was an unlucky night for him!

“You observed ere now a predilection for adultery in Yadgorbek?” the Khan repeated. “Where? Haply in the tented field, which you never shared with him? And with whom? Was it with his sabre that he committed adultery? We have observed other things, though. We have observed such a predilection in others . . . in persons who possess enough of both time and lustihood for it, persons, who, for the sake of their adulterous doings, grow magnificent moustaches and wear varnished  {114}  boots on such high heels that they look like Chinese damsels in them. That is where adultery should be sought. We are sure that such a search would not be a long one.”

The ground rocked and floated away from under the grandee's feet. Was it just a guess, or had the Khan received information from somebody? Haply he knew all, and even the. name of Arzi-bibi was known to him? Haply he was just biding his time, like a cat that had already laid its claws upon the mouse? All these thoughts rushed through the grandee's head like a violent Arabian whirlwind that overthrows palm-trees in its progress.

He thought no more of prosecuting his artful designs. It would need all his skill now to escape from his own trap.

He turned away from the lamps sensing the tell-tale pallor of his face, and started to cough in order to clear the huskiness from his throat.

He should have retreated with wit and cunning and not turned his open back to the Khan; but being by nature a coward, he took to his heels in a panic.

“As always His Most Excellent Majesty is right!” he exclaimed with exaggerated fervour. “By his divine wisdom my King has torn the veil from before my eyes. Now I see clearly that those miscreants from Peshawar have slandered the noble-hearted Yadgorbek in order to belittle the glory of his martial deeds and thereby dim the lustre of the Kokand Khanate. So that was their perfidious purpose! It remains now to discover where lies the source of instigation, where lurks the treachery. Tomorrow I shall reinterrogate the miscreants from Peshawar myself.”

The Khan listened in silence. The smile that played upon his thin lips was full of portent. What word did it conceal, what would its import be when it rolled off  {115}  those lips at last? His reason confounded by fear, the grandee tried to defer that word by speaking without a stop and with ever increasing fervour.

“Blessed is this night, O Sire!” he exclaimed. “Owing to the fathomless wisdom of our Sovereign, treachery has been unmasked and the smirch removed from a man's good name. Now my conscience is clear, my reason elevated, my soul illuminated—and now I can withdraw.”

He bowed and salaamed at each word, backing towards the life-preserving door, but the chamber being a spacious one, he was given no time to make the last step across the threshold; he had his right foot over it and was drawing up the left in a final salaam—in another moment he would be behind the door, saved—but it was here that the winged arrow of retribution overtook him.

“Wait!” said the Khan. “Now then, come hither, come closer.”

With terror-glazed eyes fixed unwaveringly upon the Khan's beckoning finger, the grandee retraced his faltering steps in silence, as though he were being dragged forward by the neck on an invisible noose. Every step of that backward journey from the door to the Khan was accomplished at the cost of the most acute inward agony.

“Where are those Peshawar men of yours?” demanded the Khan.

“They are in the dungeon, Sire!”

“We desire to interrogate them ourselves.”

The light became darkness before the grandee's eyes, and his head reeled.

His tongue, however, did what it had to do independently of his reason.

“They will be brought to the palace in the morning.”

“Not in the morning but now,” said the Khan. “We  {116}  shall not fall asleep in any case. So cause them to be brought hither.”

“They are not prepared for the palace, Your Majesty,” the grandee stammered. “They are in rags, they are hairy and unkempt. . . .”

“No matter, if need be the barber can be wakened.”

“They offend the nostrils most abominably. . . .”

“We shall keep them aloof by the open window. And I shall question them in fullest detail respecting the husband of this woman: how he came to be in Peshawar, and who made a slave of him. Also respecting the sorceries for which they had been seized. If we remember aright you then received for your zeal ten thousand pieces of silver, or was it fifteen? They will tell me everything. You shall withdraw, of course, in order that they may be able the freer to speak and we the better to listen and comprehend. Ho, there, guards!”

He struck a brass disk hanging from one of the lamps with a little hammer.

The chief officer of the palace guard appeared.

“You shall remain here for the time being,” the Khan said to the grandee. “And you take four men of the palace guard and go with them to the prison, where two men from. . . .”

But at that moment an asthmatic fit seized him by the throat with its bony hand and stuffed shredded horse hair down it, as it were. The Khan swayed, and gasped, and went livid; a dry racking cough shook and convulsed his puny body; his eyes goggled, his tongue lolled. The night physicians came running in with bowls, and towels, and ewers; pandemonium broke loose.

The grandee did not know himself how he made his escape from the palace. But for that sudden attack of asthma which had rendered the Khan insensible, that  {117}  night might well have been the last for the grandee's prosperous career.

Not until he came out into the square under the fresh nocturnal wind did his soul return to his body.

The danger had been staved off but it had not blown over. When the Khan recovered he would bethink him* self of the men from Peshawar and cause them to be summoned before him.

These men from Peshawar had to be removed, and removed at once before day came. But how?

The grandee was perplexed in his mind.

Yesterday he could have had them executed or secretly put to death, and none would have so much as said a word. But today those tested expedients were of no avail. Who knows but that the twin heads of the men from Peshawar would not have a third added to them—his own?

There remained one last resource, never yet tried by the grandee in all his manifold affairs of secrecy—escape from prison!

With this decision, he repaired to the Office House where he had trusted men whom he could always rely upon to execute his orders without question and to hold their peace thereafter.

The sorcerers from Peshawar, who had that night become objects of interest to the Khan himself, were in fact just ordinary stonemasons, who had been working together for many a year, and had come to Kokand to seek a livelihood; both were elderly men, and had never had anything to do with sorcery in their lives; the grandee had simply made this up for the purpose of self-advancement.

After a year and a half spent in the dark dungeons, the Peshawarians had recently been summoned for a brief interrogation at the Torture Tower to give fresh  {118}  evidence, the nature of which was no less obscure and bewildering than that which they had given at first. It was all about a woman, whom somebody somewhere, by means of black magic, had turned into a slave, and about a man who would not ransom her, or on the contrary, about a man who had been turned into a slave and a woman who would not ransom him, or both of them being turned into slaves . . . whereupon somebody had cast an evil spell upon an aged military chieftain and turned him into a Persian woman by the name of Sharafat—in short, the heads of the poor Peshawarians were in a maze and they returned to their prison eel! gloomily indifferent to that which awaited them, and knowing for certain only one thing—that now, after their second interrogation, nothing could save them from the executioner's block.

It was in this conviction that they met the three jailers, who went down to them before dawn and unlocked their fetters.

Acting with all due caution and secrecy, two of the jailers led the Peshawarians upstairs, while the third remained below to file an incision on the empty chains.

Everything went smoothly in complete accord with the grandee's well-laid plans, when an unforseen hitch suddenly occurred above: the prisoners, convinced that they were going to the scaffold, demanded a mullah. Being devout and godly Moslems, they refused to depart to receive the mercy of Allah unshriven.

Persuasion was of no avail.

In vain did the jailers assure them in hurried conspiratorial whispers that they were being set free.

The Peshawarians did not believe it, and became more urgent than ever in their demands for a mullah.

Meanwhile the precious minutes were flying and daybreak was drawing nigh—a time that was by no means auspicious for that which was afoot.  {119} 

The attempt to eject the Peshawarians from the prison by force came to naught, for they raised an outcry which drew a deep answering echo from the multitude of other prisoners in the dungeons below. And the prison was in hazardous proximity to the palace, where the sounds were likely to be heard.

The jailers were obliged to report the case to the grandee, who had wisely kept out of the way, albeit he was within call of the prison.

The grandee did not happen to have his trusty mullah at hand at that moment. Much though he had foreseen, he had nevertheless overlooked his prisoners’ strong faith in Islam.

Secrecy forbade employing the offices of an outside mullah.

Muttering imprecations and maledictions, the grandee ordered one of his trusted guards to disguise himself as a mullah—that is, to don a white robe and a white turban—and repair to the Peshawarians in that garb.

The new-begotten mullah approached them with a sanctimonious countenance, but instead of uttering the solemn words of prayer demanded by the occasion, his lips, by force of long habit and much to his own surprise, suddenly vomited a torrent of profanity, as a result of which he was identified by the Peshawarians.

The guard's blunder very nearly ruined the whole plan. Horrified at the thought of not obtaining sacramental absolution and seeing that they were being deceived in this last and most important matter, the Peshawarians raised a still louder outcry, and the dungeons answered them back with a low roar, like the rumble of an earthquake.

The case was reported once more to the grandee.

He gnashed his teeth and his face paled, as if acting  {120}  mirror to the pale streak of dawn that already glimmered in the east.

The minutes flew.

Dawn was nearing.

The plan was miscarrying.

Exposure threatened.

Impelled by fear, the grandee in his desperation resolved upon an extreme measure.

He ordered the prisoners’ escape to be announced and the alarm to be sounded by the blowing of trumpets, the beating of drums, the clanging of shields, the waving of torches and the loudest possible shouting.

Amid this tumult and hubbub the Peshawarians were to be bound—their screams being drowned in the general din—then gagged, tied up in thick woollen sacks, and conveyed to the south gate on swift-footed steeds, accompanied by four trusty guards.

Pursuit of the runaways was to be directed towards the north gate.

All this was carried out.

The trumpets blared, the drums beat, the torches blazed, and cries and shouts were raised: “Catch them! Hold them!”

With drawn sword and bristling moustache the grandee pranced before the prison on a white horse in the light of the flaming torches as if he had just come dashing down at the sounds of alarm.

He issued orders with a voice of thunder:

“To the north gate!”

The pursuit party swept off—the grandee in the lead upon a white horse with drawn sword raised aloft.

As for the Peshawarians suffocating in their sacks, they were rushed off towards the south of Kokand upon swift steeds.  {121} 

After a two hours’ ceaseless gallop the guards drew up near an abandoned cemetery in a dense thicket of reeds and blackthorn bushes.

The Peshawarians were shaken out of their bags.

They were still breathing, albeit feebly.

The morning sun, the fresh breeze, and water from the irrigation ditch plentifully thrown over them from a leathern folding bucket had their desirable effect.

The Peshawarians came to themselves and recovered the faculty of comprehending human speech.

True, the speech that was addressed to them consisted almost entirely of blasphemies, but the Peshawarians were nevertheless able to gather therefrom that they were being set free, and they blessed the name of Allah for their so marvellous a deliverance.

They received orders to proceed on their way and cross the southern border of the khanate, and never again to appear in Kokand.

They were given fifty pieces of silver between them—half the amount which the grandee had assigned for softening the obduracy of the border watch.

The other half the guards shared among themselves, then leapt into their saddles and galloped back to Kokand.

The first thing that the Peshawarians did upon finding themselves alone was to perform the ablution, of which blessed rite they had been so long deprived in their underground prison.

Then, spreading their robes upon the ground, they knelt with the rising sun upon their left hand and their emaciated faces turned towards the holy city of Mecca.

They prayed long and earnestly, as befitted the importance of the miracle that had happened that day.

When they had finished their prayers, peace entered their hearts, the pure simple hearts of simple men who honestly earned their bread by the sweat of their brow.

They shared the money equally between them—twenty-five  {122}  pieces of silver each—and hid it away against the time of their joining their families, which had suffered want in the absence of their bread-winners.

Then they trudged down the road, rejoicing in the sunshine, the green foliage, and the birds, and conversing about past misadventures, unable to understand either why, a year and a half ago, they had suddenly been seized and thrown into the dungeon, or why, that night, they had as suddenly been thrown out of the prison under such peculiar circumstances.

They could but shake their heads, marvelling at the inscrutable ways of Allah, at the tangled skein of human destinies, and the profoundly wise and deeply mysterious designs of those in authority which baffled the simple mind of the ordinary mortal.

The next day, without further hindrance and having suffered only to the extent of ten pieces of silver each out of the twenty-five which they had laid aside, they crossed the southern border of the khanate, and that same evening found them working, hewing stones for the construction of a new mosque.

Thus, by little and little, from one ongoing job to another, they pursued their homeward way until they arrived safely in their native village and tasted of the joys of reunion with their families.

We know not of their further destiny, but we believe that never again will they become grist to that ill-famous mill, where the waters of self-interest drive the wheels of cunning, where the shafts of ambition set in motion the rackwheel of slanderous information, and the millstones of envy grind the grain of falsehood.

The nocturnal storm which had raged around the Peshawarians had not touched with its wing the chaikhana wherein Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief  {123}  had spent the night; only a faint echo of the alarm raising drumbeat and trumpet-blare had been wafted here from the prison, and the thud of hoof-beats in the direction of the north gate had rung hollow and muffled upon the ground. Then all was silent again until the morn.

The moon had gone, and the blue haze had vanished, giving place to the grey mist that precedes the dawn, but Khoja Nasreddin, his thoughts riveted on the fat merchant and his money-bag, had not yet closed an eye in sleep.

A hundred artful means of tricking the money-changer out of six thousand tangas had been devised and rejected. “Should I bait him with the false apparition of profit?” Khoja Nasreddin pondered. “Or should I frighten him into giving the money up?”

And suddenly the hot flame of discovery shot him through from head to foot. Here was a sure way of opening the money-changer's bag! Everything became vividly clear, as if lit up by a white flash of lightning. All doubts were dispelled.

So intense was the force of this enlightenment that it communicated itself from Khoja Nasreddin to the house of the merchant at the other end of the city. The money-changer began to toss about under his blanket, breathing hard, smacking his thick lips, and clutching the left side of his belly where he always carried his money-bag.

“Out!” he said, nudging his wife. “What a bad dream I had just now. I dreamt that I slipped and fell off a ladder into a feeding-trough with oats, and that a grey ass gobbled me up, money-bag and all. Then the ass expelled me in his dung, but without the money-bag—it remained within his belly.”

“Be quiet, let me sleep,” his wife grumbled, thinking within herself: “The handsome Kamilbek, of course, never has such stupid, such indecent dreams!” Smiling  {124}  dreamily, she gazed at the window, which was turning rosy in the rays of dawn, heralding the birth of a new day, which bore within itself for everyone a full share of cares—for her, for the money-changer, and for the handsome Kamilbek.

CHAPTER TWELVE

But the greatest cares that morning fell to the lot of Khoja Nasreddin.

Leaving the one-eyed thief at the chaikhana, he went forth at peep of dawn to the furthermost end of the bazaar where they traded in old clothes. There, at a cheap price, he bought a frayed old carpet, a gourd, an old Chinese book, a silvered mirror, a string of beads and various other odds and ends. Then, he went along the bank of the Sai until he came to the Bridge of the Beheaded.

The bridge owed this awesome designation to the fact that in days gone by it was the custom for the heads of executed persons to be displayed there on tall stakes; now, by order of the Khan, the stakes were set up on the principal square, where they could be viewed from the palace, while the bridge, preserving only its sinister name from the days of old, passed into the possession of the diviners and soothsayers.

Not less than half a hundred of them always sat there—those wise seers who penetrated the veil of hidden destinies. The more venerated and celebrated of them occupied the niches in the stone parapet, others, who had not attained such eminence, spread their carpets outside the niches, while the lesser ones accommodated themselves wheresoever they could. On the carpet in front of every soothsayer lay sundry magical objects such as beans, rat bones, gourds filled with water from the charmed spring of Gul-Kunar, tortoise  {125}  shells, the seeds of Tibetan herbs, and many other things of those that are requisite for probing the dark depths of the future. Some of the more learned adepts had books—thick, tattered tomes with pages yellowed by age containing mysterious signs that filled the minds of the uninitiated with awe and trepidation. As for the chief soothsayer, he, by special permission of the authorities, had a human skull, an object of burning envy on the part of all the others.

The soothsayers were divided strictly according to the different branches of the art. Some dealt only in marriages and divorces, some in impending demises and the inheritances resulting therefrom, others in amorous affairs; the domain of some was trade, others had chosen travel as their field, while still others had specialized in diseases. And none of them could complain of the meagerness of his income, for the Bridge of the Beheaded was thronged from morn till evening, and towards sunset the purses of the soothsayers were crammed with copper and small silver.

Khoja Nasreddin approached the largest niche, which was occupied by the chief soothsayer—a puny old man, so shrivelled and skinny that his robe stuck out on him in sharp corners, and the skull that lay before him on the carpet seemed to have come off his own shoulders. With a humble salaam, Khoja Nasreddin asked to be shown the place where he could be allowed to spread his carpet.

“What manner of soothsaying do you intend to practise,” the old man inquired peevishly.

The soothsayers poked their heads out of their niches to hear the conversation. Their looks were unfriendly.

“Another one!” said a fat soothsayer on the left.

“There are too many of us on the bridge as it is,” said a second, a ferret-faced man with long teeth that projected from his upper lip and caught the lower.  {126} 

“Yesterday I did not earn even ten tangas,” complained a third.

“And others keep thrusting themselves in! I wonder where they all come from!” added a fourth.

Khoja Nasreddin had not expected any other reception from the soothsayers, and so he had prepared softening words in advance.

“O wise seers of human destinies, you have naught to fear from my rivalry. My soothsaying is of a special kind that deals not with trade, nor with amorous affairs, nor even with funerals. I divine naught but thefts, and the recovery of stolen things, and in this calling, I may say without boasting, I have never yet met my equal.”

“Thefts?” the chief soothsayer said, and suddenly all his bones beneath his robe began to creak and joggle in a fit of cackling laughter. “Thefts, say you, and the recovery of stolen things? Then sit down anywhere—you will not earn a copper in any case.”

“Not a copper!” the others chimed in, echoing the bone-rattling laughter of their leader.

“With your soothsaying there is naught for you to do in our town,” said the old man. “Thievery in Kokand has been torn up by the roots; it were better for you to go away elsewhere, to Herat or to Khoresm.”

“Ah to go away. . .” Khoja Nasreddin said ruefully. “Where shall I take the money to travel when I have only eight tangas in my pocket.”

Sighing with an air of despondency, he stepped aside and spread his carpet on the flagstones.

Meanwhile the bazaar all round had awoken to full voiced clamour. The shops had opened, the rows were humming, the square was surging. More and more people came to the bridge—merchants, artisans, childless women, rich widows craving new husbands, jilted lovers and all manner of young idlers languishing in expectation of a legacy.  {127} 

Work started in full swing! The future, always clad for us in the garb of impenetrable mystery, was here on this bridge presented to the gaze in utter nakedness; there was not a corner of its innermost recesses to which the keen glance of the valiant soothsayers did not penetrate. Fate, which we call the Stern, the Inexorable, the Inevitable, assumed on this bridge the most abject appearance and was daily subjected to the cruellest ill-usage; it would be correct to say that far from being an all-powerful queen, it was here a sorry victim in the hands of cold-blooded interrogators, headed by that bag of old bones, the proud owner of the skull.

“Shall I be happy in my new marriage?” a widow of a certain age would tremulously inquire, and wait breathlessly to hear the reply.

“Aye, you will be happy if a black eagle flies not into your window at sunrise,” said the reply of the soothsayer. “Beware also of utensils befouled by mice, and never eat from them.”

And the widow would depart, filled with dark misgivings about the black eagle, which confounded her imagination, and giving not a thought to those least of animals—the mice. Yet it was in them that lay the threat to her domestic weal, as the soothsayer would readily explain to her if she came complaining about the correctness of his prophecies.

“A man from Samarkand offers me eighteen bales of wool. Will that be a profitable transaction for me?” inquired a merchant.

The soothsayer on trading affairs began to count his rat bones and scatter his beans, then, with an air of grave profundity, gave answer:

“Buy it, but take care, when paying for it, that there be not a single bald man within a hundred cubits around you.”  {128} 

The merchant departed, racking his brains how to avoid the malign influence of the bald, whom it was no easy task to recognize under all the turbans and skullcaps that filled the bazaar.

Pride of place among all the soothsayers was held unchallenged by the possessor of the skull. Verily he was a great and masterly adept of his art. How significantly he pursed his bloodless lips, with what rapt concentration he blew upon the dried scrap of snake-skin, scrutinized the tortoise shell, and smelt the gourd filled with water from the charmed spring of Gul-Kunar before touching his principal treasure—the skull. Then came the turn for the skull. Muttering something unintelligible with knitted brows, the soothsayer stretched forth his gnarled bony hands towards it, then suddenly snatched them away as if he had burnt himself. Again he reached for it, and again he snatched his hands back. At last he picked up the skull and slowly raised it to his ear. Two skulls presented themselves to the gaze of the awe-stricken client—one of bare bone, the other covered with skin. And the two skulls began a ghastly colloquy between them, the bone one whispering, while the skin-covered one hearkened. Who, after that, had the effrontery to pay in copper? The hand drew silver out of the purse of its own accord.

A day passed, then a second, and a third. No one resorted to Khoja Nasreddin for recovering stolen things, and not once did he have occasion to refer to his Chinese book or to smell his gourd.

In the evenings, when he rolled up his carpet, the soothsayers called out mockingly from all sides:

“Today he has earned nothing again!”

“How much have you left of those eight tangas, hey you, diviner of thefts?”

“What will he sup on today, that soothsayer who has never yet met his equal?”  {129} 

Khoja Nasreddin held his peace, simulating an air of dejection.

On the fourth day the town was shaken and confounded by a most daring theft, the like of which had never been seen or heard of even in the good old days when thieves had prospered. The two Arab stallions, which the fat money-changer had been taking such loving care of in anticipation of the spring races, had been stolen from his stable during the night.

In the morning the news of the theft was passed from mouth to mouth in fearful whispers, at noon it was spoken of aloud, and towards the evening there was a beating of drums and a blare of trumpets all over the bazaar, proclaiming a reward of five hundred pieces of silver to anyone who pointed out the tracks of the insolent thieves.

The soothsayers upon the bridge were thrown into a flutter. All eyes were turned upon Khoja Nasreddin.

“Make haste now to earn those five hundred tangas!”

“Take them, why do you tarry?”

“He spurns such a trivial reward, he is expecting one of five thousand!”

This jeering and screeching choked the breath of Khoja Nasreddin and made his heart burn within him.

He restrained his anger against the hour of his triumph.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Meantime excitement in the city waxed high.

The money-changer fell ill with grief and took to his bed.

The grandee, who, with grievous perturbation of spirit and no little injury to his health, had just come away from his nocturnal interview with the Khan concerning  {130}  the mysterious flight of the Peshawar prisoners, was confronted with the threat of further and still more painful interviews as a result of this theft. In troubled anticipation thereof the grandee resembled a thunder-bearing cloud (through which, nonetheless, a hidden smile would break ever and anon like a momentary sunbeam, a smile begotten by secret thoughts respecting the coming races, where his Tekins would no longer meet their dangerous Arab rivals).

The Khan summoned the grandee to his bedchamber that night. The audience was a very short one, all the speech issuing from one side, while the other's part in the interview was necessarily restricted to salaams, to a twitching of moustaches, to a rolling-up of eyes, to an uplifting of hands to the sky and to other word-substituting bodily movements (without which the sons and daughters of mankind would verily at times experience insurmountable difficulties in affairs official, not to mention affairs conjugal).

The grandee went forth from before the Khan's presence sallow of visage, and summoned before him instantly all the major and medium chiefs.

His speech with them was shorter even than that of his lord with him.

The major and medium chiefs, in their turn, summoned before them the minor chiefs. The speech there consisted of a few expletives.

As to the lower ranks, that is, the common spies and guards, no words at all were vouchsafed them, and all they received were cuffs.

Such a disquieting night had not been known in Kokand for a long time. In all the streets, squares and alleys there was a clank and rattle of arms and a glint of spears, shields, and sabres in the cold moonlight where the guards were searching for the thieves. The pitch fires on the watch-towers shot dark-red tongues of flame  {131}  into the serene sky, and a smoky glow hung over the city. The night watch exchanged mournful calls. Hundreds of spies lay hidden about in dark corners, under the bridges, in the gaps of garden walls, on waste plots, and in the cemeteries.

The major and medium chiefs, attended by the minor chiefs and the lower ranks, made a personal round of all the chaikhanas and caravanserais. They visited also the chaikhana in which slept Khoja Nasreddin, and played a flaming torch over his face. He did not even open his eyes, although he could feel his beard crackling and smelt the odour of singed hair.

The one-eyed thief was not with him that night.

Morning brought with it no tranquillity for the town.

Towards midday the grandee and his numerous retinue appeared upon the Bridge of the Beheaded.

His eyes blazed, his moustache bristled, and his voice struck terror into men's hearts.

He stretched forth his right hand, and lo, two mounted soldiers sprang forward from the body of horsemen—one upon a bay stallion, the other upon a grey. The first, flourishing his riding-whip and hanging sideways over the saddle, rushed along the bridge at a furious gallop with a whoop and a whistle, bringing a wave of hot air mixed with horse sweat sweeping over the soothsayers; the second headed his horse downstream, crossed the shallow Sai in a cloud of spray, leapt out on to the opposite bank at a single bound, and disappeared in one of the by-streets.

The grandee stretched forth his hand in another direction, and the foot guards rushed thither in a jostling cursing throng amid a clank of shields, sabres and spears.  {132} 

Thereupon the grandee directed his steps towards the old man, the chief soothsayer, and held secret converse with him.

Khoja Nasreddin could hear nothing from where he sat, but he guessed every word.

They were discussing, of course, the means by which the stolen horses could be recovered. The old man promised to summon to his aid all the supernatural agencies under his authority, including those which lay concealed within the skull. The grandee snorted and twitched his moustache—he had not come there to listen to silly fairy-tales, he desired things done!

The old man had no choice but to resort to the earthly agencies under his authority. Accordingly, the soothsayers were all questioned as to whose fortunes they had told yesterday and the day before, and whether they had marked aught suspicious in their clients that might point to their being involved in the impudent theft.

Each and all answered that they had not marked aught of the kind.

The grandee was ill-pleased and tugged at his moustache. His glazed stare held in it a threat of bastinadoes, whips and banishment from the city.

The soothsayers were downcast. Destiny, which had suffered such indignity at their hands, suddenly appeared to them in a new and awesome light as a power that gloated in long-awaited vengeance on their discomfiture. Today not only the beans and rat bones, but even the skull itself was impotent against it.

It was Khoja Nasreddin's turn to answer.

He repeated with the others that he had seen and heard nothing suspicious.

The grandee gave an angry snort—again nothing!

Suddenly a voice was heard out of the niche opposite (just as Khoja Nasreddin had calculated), a malicious snuffling voice:  {133} 

“But said you not that you had no equal in soothsaying for the recovery of stolen things!”

At the word “recovery” the grandee pricked up his ears.

“Wherefore were you silent, then, soothsayer?” he demanded, his glassy eyes kindling. “Speak!” His pent-up rage was seeking an outlet. “I shall scatter the whole of your accursed nest, reduce it to dust and ashes!” he roared. “Guards, seize that man! Take that soothsayer, that knave, and flog him with whips until he tells where the stolen horses are. Or let him confess in public that he is a shameless liar! Flog him!”

The guards tore off Khoja Nasreddin's robe. Two of them ran under the bridge to wet the thongs. Delay was dangerous. Khoja Nasreddin addressed the grandee humbly:

'Tour unworthy slave lays at the feet of your illustrious lordship his humble prayer to be heard. I do verily divine the whereabouts of lost things and am able to discover the stolen horses.”

“You are? Then why have you not discovered them yet?”

“O illustrious lord, my soothsaying requires that the man who has suffered from the thieves should call upon me in person, otherwise my soothsaying will not be effective.”

“How long will it take you to recover the horses?”

“A single night, if the victim comes to me today before sundown.”

These words caused a stir and whispering among the soothsayers.

The face of the skinny old man, who had already savoured the bitter taste of banishment in his mouth, lit up with hope.

The grandee stared fixedly at Khoja Nasreddin with a look of angry perplexity.  {134} 

“You dare to lie to my face! I, who know all your tricks and knaveries, I, who suffer you here on this bridge only because it is cheaper than keeping so many extra spies on staff pay!”

“There is no falsehood in my words, O refulgent and excellent lord!”

“Very well, we shall see. But if you have lied, soothsayer, you had better not been born. Summon hither the money-changer Rahimbai!”

“The worthy Rahimbai is ill,” one of the medium chiefs of those who thronged around the grandee said obsequiously.

“And am I not ill?” the grandee flared up. “Am I not ill? I have not closed an eye these two nights, searching for those accursed horses! Am I to do his work for him while he lies about in bed! Summon him! Bring him hither on a litter!”

Eight guards, led by two medium chiefs and one major chief, hastened to the house of the merchant.

The grandee was of medium height—even barely so; this created a disparity between his appearance and the high commanding rank which he held; in order to remedy this deplorable default of nature, he always wore close-fitting top boots on excessively high slender heels, thereby enhancing his stature and grandeur. He walked to and fro upon the bridge, his heels clicking on the flagstones, then stopped, leaned his right arm majestically on the stone parapet, and slowly raised his left hand to his black moustache, which he began to stroke and twirl. A reverential hush reigned all round him, and by little and little his anger cooled.

In moments of leisure the grandee was no stranger to lofty meditation, and even derived pleasure therefrom as a token of his unquestionable superiority over his underlings. “Is it not the first duty of a chief to  {135}  inspire fear and awe in his underlings?” he mused. “The simplest way of achieving this is by flogging them one and all, without discrimination, taking good care that the chastisement be accompanied by admonitions befitting the occasion, for otherwise its salutary effect will be lost.” Such reflections soothed the grandee—he felt as if he had soared upon the mighty wings of lordly wisdom into the star-peopled heights, whence everything seemed small and insignificant, to be looked down upon with contempt, but not with anger; the glance which he fixed upon the skinny old soothsayer, while not being exactly kindly, seemed to have acquired a spiritualized quality and passed right through him without singeing him or otherwise causing him any injury. “As to the actual guilt of the flogged one,” he continued widening the circle of his thoughts, “such doubts should never have access to the reason of the chief, for even if the flogged one were not guilty of the offence for which he is being punished, he is most decidedly guilty of some other offence.” The profundity and magnitude of this last thought caused his breath to depart; higher than that no mortal could ever aspire, for beyond it lay the realm of divine wisdom; he had soared to its very outer edge and his mental gaze had been dazzled by the fathomless ocean of blinding light which had been unfolded before him.

The house of the money-changer was not far away. Within half an hour the litter had returned.

The money-changer crawled out from under the silk curtains, sallow of aspect and bloated of countenance, with an unkempt beard to which clung bits of pillow fluff. Clutching his heart, groaning and moaning, he bowed before the grandee and said in a faint but sarcastic voice:  {136} 

“I salute the most illustrious and all-powerful Kamilbek! What cause had he to rouse his abject slave from his bed of woe, a slave so mean and low that he is even unable to find protection in this city against impudent thieves?”

“It is precisely on that account that I have summoned the worthy Rahimbai—to prove to him our zeal in the search for his lost horses. I am grieved and troubled most excessively.”

“What troubles the illustrious Kamilbek? Are not his Tekin stallions now certain to receive the first award at the races?”

This was an open blow, straight to the face.

The grandee paled.

“The shock of his loss and his illness resulting therefrom have confounded the reason of our worthy Rahimbai,” he retorted with cold dignity. “Here before you is a soothsayer who, according to his words, possesses extraordinary skill and undertakes to discover the lost horses.”

“A soothsayer! And it was for this that my illustrious lord has roused me, a sick man, from my bed! No, let my gracious lord have his own fortune told, and I shall withdraw.”

So saying, he turned away to depart.

The grandee uttered with icy hauteur:

“In this city it is I who give orders! The most worthy Rahimbai will now please to hold converse with the soothsayer.”

He knew how to command obedience, did that grandee. The merchant made a wry face, but nevertheless approached Khoja Nasreddin as he had been bidden.

“I do not believe you, soothsayer, not so much as a farthing's worth. I accost you because I am so compelled by authority. Two thoroughbred Arab horses are missing from my stable.”  {137} 

“One white, the other black,” added Khoja Nasreddin, opening his Chinese book.

“The whole city can testify to the truth of your words, O most perspicacious of soothsayers,” the money-changer said derisively. “Many have admired my horses on the day when they arrived from Arabia.”

“The white horse has a tiny scar no thicker than a woollen thread under its mane, while the black has a wart in its left ear the size of a bean,” Khoja Nasreddin calmly continued.

The merchant was taken aback.

These distinctive marks were known to none but two—himself and his trusted groom—no one else.

The sneer vanished from his face.

“You are right, soothsayer! But how did you penetrate?”

The grandee, too, roused himself and drew nearer.

Khoja Nasreddin turned over a page of his Chinese book.

“Furthermore, the tail of the white stallion has a white silk enchantment thread woven in it, and the tail of the black horse a black silk thread.”

Not even the trusted groom knew that. The enchantment threads had been plaited into the horses’ tails by the merchant himself in deep secrecy, as it was strictly forbidden on pain of imprisonment to resort to magic, spells and enchantments at the races.

Khoja Nasreddin's words filled the money-changer with dismay.

Not was the illustrious Kamilbek left unmoved by these words. His thoughts tore off at a full gallop. “At this rate I should not wonder if he does find them! This is more than I bargained for. My duty is to display the utmost zeal in the search, but the outcome of it does not depend upon me; whether the horses are found or not—that is in the hands of Allah; better that  {138}  they were not, at least until after the races. Shaitan has sent me this soothsayer! But what can I do? Aha, sorcery! If I frighten the money-changer, catch him red-handed, drag out the investigations, then his Arabs will never come to the horse course in time.”

“What say you to this, worthy Rahimbai?” he demanded in the ominous tone of a judge.

“I know nothing about any silk threads whatsoever,” the merchant stammered, his face changing in such a manner as to completely betray him. “Perhaps it was the stablemen . . . without my knowledge. . . . Or the previous owner of the horses . . . out there, in Arabia. . . .”

At this point, however, he bethought himself of the fact that the horses had disappeared and consequently there was no evidence against him.

“It is all a lie!” he exclaimed with feigned indignation. “The soothsayer is a liar and a slanderer. If my horses were found. . . .”

“They will be found tomorrow,” Khoja Nasreddin interrupted him. “Wait, my book has more to say. It says that among the nails driven into the horseshoe on the right foot of the white stallion there is one gold nail, also a charmed one. It is covered with grey paint to make it indistinguishable from the others. A similar magic nail has been driven into the horseshoe of the black stallion . . . but I cannot quite make out on which foot.”

“H'm! Magic nails, charmed silk threads!” the grandee murmured with a twisted smile. “Official duty compels me to start investigations.”

As for the merchant, consternation deprived him of the power of speech; however, he did not remain in this condition: the habit of lying, acquired through long years of trading, came to his rescue.

“I do not understand what this soothsayer is talking  {139}  about. I believe he is simply doing this to raise his price. Let him say outright how much he wants for his soothsaying and what surety he can offer in case it be false.”

The book of his soul was an open one to Khoja Nasreddin—much more so than the Chinese one. The merchant now had no doubts that he was dealing with a soothsayer who possessed a remarkable gift of divination. The desire to recover his lost horses struggled in him with the sinister spectre of prison. Those charmed nails, the magic silk threads, the grandee, who had nosed it all out. . . . No one but the soothsayer could help him out in this predicament.

“The price and all the rest of it must be arranged only between us two, before two pairs of eyes,” said Khoja Nasreddin, addressing his words to the merchant's most burning and secret desire.

“Cannot a third be present?” the grandee said anxiously.

“No, for then my soothsaying will be ineffective.”

The grandee was obliged to submit. He moved away and ordered the guards to clear a space. Within a minute, Khoja Nasreddin and the merchant were out of everybody's hearing. The chief soothsayer tried to slink back into his niche but was kicked out therefrom.

“We are alone,” said the merchant.

“We are,” said Khoja Nasreddin.

“I cannot understand where those nails and silk threads could have come from.”

“We shall find that out in a minute,” said Khoja Nasreddin, reaching for his Chinese book.

“Nay, soothsayer!” the merchant answered hastily. “That is an affair of yesterday, whereas we must think. . . .”

“Of tomorrow, of the future,” Khoja Nasreddin finished the sentence for him.  {140} 

“Precisely! It would be a good thing, soothsayer, if the horses could be returned in their . . . well . . . er . . . their original shape, so to speak.”

“Without the nails and the silk threads, you mean. I understand.”

“Not so loud, soothsayer! And now, what is your price?”

“My price is a moderate one, worthy merchant—ten thousand tangas.”

“Ten thousand! Merciful Allah, it is half of what they cost me! With their transportation from Arabia to Kokand they cost me twenty thousand tangas.”

“You mentioned a different price to the illustrious Kamilbek. Do you remember, there in the shop—fifty-two thousand?”

The merchant opened his eyes wide. Verily the omniscience of this amazing soothsayer went beyond all permissible bounds!

“And all this comes from your book?” the merchant said after a pause in an awed voice.

“Yes.”

“A remarkable book! Where did you get it?”

“In China.”

“Are there many books like that in China?”

“This is the only one in the world.”

“Praise be to Allah, may his name be exalted! It is terrible to think what would be with us tradesmen if a hundred such books were to appear in the world! Shut it, soothsayer, shut it. The sight of those Chinese signs afflicts my heart. Very well, I consent to your price.”

“Do not try to cheat me, merchant!”

“I am disarmed, and that book in your hands is like a sharp sword.”

“Tomorrow you will receive your horses. You will receive them without silk threads or gold nails, as  {141}  agreed upon. Get the money ready—gold, in a single purse. And now let us perform the last rite.”

Khoja Nasreddin uncorked the gourd and sprinkled some of the magic water over himself and the merchant.

The grandee, the chiefs, the guards and the soothsayers watched all these proceedings in silence.

The skinny old man, chief of the soothsayers, was sickening with envy; twice had he tried to sneak up to the talkers, and twice had his design been thwarted by the guards, who had kicked him away.

When he heard the price that had been charged for the soothsaying he writhed.

“Ten thousand!” he cried hoarsely, and fell down in a fit.

No one raised him up, for all were stricken dumb, amazed at the incredible price.

The grandee coughed significantly and smiled, but said nothing. But when the merchant bent his steps homeward, a whole flock of spies followed in his tracks.

“That means that I, too, will not escape their attention, ” thought Khoja Nasreddin. And he was not mistaken. Looking back, he saw three behind him and another on the side.

“Soothsayer!” the grandee said, beckoning Khoja Nasreddin with his finger. “Remember, the horses may not be returned to the merchant save in my presence! And there is no need for you to hurry in this matter. And mind the silk threads and nails do not disappear by any chance, if you do not wish to rue the day you were born! Go!”

Khoja Nasreddin rolled up his carpet and quitted the Bridge of the Beheaded, followed by the venomous whisperings of his fellow-soothsayers.

The spies followed in his wake.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

All day he heard their stealthy steps behind him. They followed him into the eating-house and from the eating-house into the chaikhana. He lay down to rest, and all four spies sat over him—two on one side, and two on the other, and speaking across his prone body, began a dreary conversation about the meagerness of their wages and the trials and tribulations of their trade. To the accompaniment of these mournful speeches he fell asleep, and awoke to find another set of spies, those of the night watch, clad in the grey garb of invisibility, sitting over him. And the conversation of these night spies was the same as that of their day mates, namely, of the trials and tribulations of their trade, and the stinginess and fault-finding of their chiefs.

Dusk had fallen, the glow of sunset had faded, and a thin crescent moon hung in the sky. The muezzins from all the minarets lifted up to it their drawn-out sadly ringing cries. Khoja Nasreddin began to prepare for his evening sitting. He uncorked his gourd, poured some of the magic water into a cup, dipped his fingers into it, sprinkled the oil wick, then lit it. The corner of the chaikhana was illumined by a pale flickering light, and the grey garb of the spies was swallowed up in it: all the more clearly did their dismal-looking visages show up as they pressed forward the better to be able to see; most annoying of all was the oldest of the spies, a shoddy unsavoury individual, who, in his eagerness to glance over the shoulder of the hunted one, sniffed and snuffled odiously over his ear.

Khoja Nasreddin said a prayer, so as not to be accused of having sinful traffic with the devil, then opened the Chinese book, and pored over it thoughtfully. The spies made a note of the fact. But instead of reading,  {143}  as they thought, he was simply beguiling the time, and did not even glance at the book. “I shall be honest,” he reflected. “I shall return the merchant his horses without the nails and silk threads; as for the wrath of the illustrious grandee, I shall try to escape it by disappearing as soon as possible.” The shoddy old spy had almost climbed on to his shoulders, and his malodorous sniffling tickled his ear in a most repulsive manner. In waving him off, Khoja Nasreddin struck the tip of the spy's nose with the edge of his hand, and with a last wet sniff and snuffle the offending organ was withdrawn.

The one-eyed thief appeared in the road before the chaikhana. Seeing the spies, he understood everything, and walked past without even glancing at Khoja Nasreddin.

A minute later a light tap could be heard under the dais of the chaikhana.

“I hear!” Khoja Nasreddin cried in a sepulchral voice, as if addressing an invisible spirit that had risen before him. “I see!” And he bent over the magic water. The spies came crowding around him once more, sniffling and snuffling. “I see the horses, a white one and a black one, I see manes, I see horseshoes of pure iron without admixtures of any kind, I see their mighty tails, groomed and curry-combed! Then let them appear tomorrow in the aspect given them by nature, which mingles not iron with other substances, nor horse hair with other filaments. ‘Vaz on ru ki paidovu. . .,’ ” etc., etc.

With these verses he concluded his sorcerous seance, kneeling down in apologetic thought to the great Jami for having dared to utter his renowned and divine stanza in the vile hearing of the spies, whom it behooved to hear naught save the howl of jackals and the screeching laughter of hyenas. But those spies had  {144}  never tasted of the fruits of Jami, and took his versed to be a magic incantation; the name of the poet therefore was not defiled through being reflected in the minds of the spies.

A soft scratching with a finger-nail came from under the dais—a sign that Khoja Nasreddin's words had been heard and understood; the concluding stanza was a prearranged signal to prompt action.

The sorcery over, Khoja Nasreddin shut the book and poured the magic water back into the gourd.

The shoddy old snuffler arose and departed, obviously to make his report. The other three spies remained.

Meagre was their perfidious catch, and little did they detect beyond the fact that the one spied on had drunk his tea, smoked his hookah, then laid him down and slept until the morning.

The night passed.

Never had there been such a crowd of people on the Bridge of the Beheaded as there was on that sunny May morning.

That day the horses were to be found! The whole city flocked to the bridge. Both banks of the Sai were crowded, and the roofs of the houses around were gay with the coloured shawls of the women.

The grandee and the merchant had been on the bridge since early in the morning.

“Where are my horses, soothsayer?” the merchant shouted to Khoja Nasreddin when he appeared from a by-street in the company of the spies.

“And where is my money?”

“Here it is,” the merchant said, pulling a fat purse from under his girdle. ‘Ten thousand in gold. No need to count it, it has been thrice verified.”  {145} 

Khoja Nasreddin leisurely untied his bag, got out the Chinese book, and seated himself upon his carpet.

The grandee looked on from afar with a heavy stony stare.

The merchant was quivering with eager excitement.

“Quick,” moaned he in a languishing voice. “Why do you dawdle, soothsayer!”

Khoja Nasreddin returned him no answer. He seemed to be deeply engrossed in his book, but actually he was watching a white-speckled red-backed ladybird crawling busily over the page. “I shall speak when it flies away,” he thought. But the ladybird had no intention of flying away. It crawled about, journeying from page to page, then got under the cover, where it apparently saw fit to revive its spirit with a short doze in the cosy darkness.

The merchant groaned, clutched his heart, and trembled, and his cheeks were losing their roundness of aspect before one's eyes.

Khoja Nasreddin breathed not a word.

At last the ladybird crawled forth into the light, parted the pretty corselets on its back, freed its dark little wings, spread them and flew away.

Not until then did Khoja Nasreddin utter in a solemn voice:

“The book says, O merchant, that the horses shall return to you in the original shape with which nature has endowed them.”

The merchant rejoiced.

“Your horses, O merchant,” Khoja Nasreddin proceeded, “are in the old quarry near the village of Chomak. Descend that quarry from the eastern side, advance some twenty paces, and there, in a cave on the right. . . .”

He had scarcely finished speaking, when the money-changer's grooms from one side of the bridge, and  {146}  the grandee's guards from the other, swept out into the road at a furious gallop, whooping and whistling. The crowd parted before them, let them pass, then closed up again.

The horsemen disappeared.

The dust raised by the horses’ hoofs floated away on the wind.

There was a lull. The grandee and the merchant stood side by side, but looked different ways, each agitated by his own thoughts and hopes.

The vast crowd stood silent.

In the stillness Khoja Nasreddin distinctly heard the splash and murmur of the turbulent water beneath the bridge, and overhead the piercing cries of a hawk, who, with spread wings, hung poised in the blue heights as though resting upon an airy pillar.

The distance from the bridge to the village of Chomak was little more than eight flights of an arrow.

Half an hour had passed—time for the horsemen to have returned.

By little and little a stir, the hum of voices and laughter arose among the crowd.

The money-changer was on the hot embers of expectation. He started at every sound.

The grandee, on the contrary, preserved an air of arrogant calm, only his high heels tapping occasionally on the flagstones.

From the top of a tall plane-tree, whose shadow covered half the bridge, there came the shrill cry of a small boy, “They are coming!”

There was a great stir among the crowd. A broad lane was cleared through the crowd, and at the opposite end of it Khoja Nasreddin beheld the returning horsemen.

No Arab horses, either white or black, were with them.  {147} 

Before Khoja Nasreddin had time to wonder at this unexpected turn, he was seized and dragged off by the guards.

“Wait, I conjure you by Allah, wait!” shouted the money-changer. ‘The horses were in the cave—here is the bridle that has been found there! Release the soothsayer, he is near the truth!”

The soothsayer was verily near the truth, much too near for the illustrious grandee's comfort.

In vain did the merchant shout and scream—the guards were not to be stayed, not to be checked in their headlong career. Khoja Nasreddin had all at once grown small and abject in their hands, and assumed an appearance of felonious guilt, as anyone does who is being dragged off to prison. The last he saw upon the bridge was the grandee with his head thrown back haughtily, the merchant, shouting himself hoarse, and, slightly to one side, the merchant's head groom with the silver-plated bridle in his hand.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The dungeons of Kokand, named zindan, were situated by the main gates of the palace citadel on the outer side of the walls—a circumstance which pointed to the profound wisdom of its builders. Had this prison been located within the walls, all the care of feeding its multitudinous criminal population would have fallen upon the Khan's treasury; but being beyond the precincts of the palace, the underground prison was no burden upon the treasury, for the prisoners fended for themselves. Those who had families lived on what was brought to them, the rest existed on the alms of the compassionate townsfolk.

The prison represented a covered ditch with three air-holes, from which there always issued a warm  {148}  stench. A steep staircase of forty steps ran down to it. At the top, before the entrance, an ever vigilant jailer kept watch—either Abdullah Biryarimadam himself, called Abdullah the One-and-a-Half on account of his gigantic stature—a grim, sinewy giant who was never seen without his heavy whip, or his assistant, a thick-lipped low-browed, ferocious Afghan. The Afghan carried no whip, but all the knuckles of his fingers bore the bruised traces of contact with the prisoners’ jaw-bones.

Upon these two lay all the care and keeping of the prisoners, including their feeding. Two alms-baskets for food and a narrow-necked little ewer for money always stood at the entrance to the prison. The alms thus collected were disposed of by the jailers at their own discretion; the money and the best of the food they took for themselves, and the prisoners received only the leavings. From morning till night voices could be heard from the dark depths beseeching passers-by for bread, accompanied by groans and sobs, that rose to screams and howls when Abdullah with his whip or his assistant with his horny fists went below.

Stunned by the fall down the forty steps of the steep staircase, by the groans, and howls, and the sickening stench, it was some time before Khoja Nasreddin recovered his senses. When he came to himself and his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he beheld all round him a multitude of criminals of all sorts.

Each of them was a rung in that terrible ladder upon which the grandee performed his brilliant ascension towards the summits of power, fortune, and honours. The last week he had had to make a slight alteration in that ladder by removing two rungs from it—the Peshawarians—and compensating it with another—Khoja Nasreddin; but there are rungs which  {149}  may prove extremely treacherous to the ascender, who may easily break a leg on them, if not his neck—and that was a circumstance which our indefatigable and lordly fortune-builder happened to overlook.

Anger and compassion burned in Khoja Nasreddin's heart; even he, who had seen so much in his day, had not thought that such a vile and appalling place could exist anywhere upon earth; he had descended into the very abode of evil!

One more scar was laid upon his heart—of those that clothe the heart in the armour of pitilessness.

But he had to think about his own fate, try to understand what had happened.

The case had become entangled and perplexing for Khoja Nasreddin himself.

Where were the horses? How had they disappeared from the quarry? That they had been there was certain, for had not the merchant recognized his bridle.

Had the grandee, through his henchmen, had a hand in the disappearance of the horses or had he not?

What charge did he intend to lodge against the apprehended soothsayer—merely that of deception, or something else besides?

Where was the one-eyed thief, what had befallen him?

Khoja Nasreddin was lost in conjectures. A dark suspicion had begun to creep into his mind. “Haply the one-eyed has simply driven the horses away to sell them in some other city? If so, it were better and safer for him that I am in prison. . . .” At this he broke off his reflections, shocked at the baseness of such suspicions. “No!” said he within himself. “The one-eyed may be a thief, a born thief from head to heels, but he is an upright man, he is not a traitor!”

Khoja Nasreddin strengthened himself in this opinion and chose trust as the prop of his spirit.  {150} 

Whether he was right or wrong we shall discover in due course. Meantime let us quit the dungeons and hie back to the Bridge of the Beheaded where the recent commotion had not yet subsided. Purple with baffled rage, the money-changer stood before the grandee trembling in every limb and saying in a choked voice:

“The horses had been found! As good as found! A bridle had been picked up in the quarry—there it is! And at the very last moment the illustrious Kamilbek has seen fit to interrupt the soothsaying and pack the soothsayer off to prison. But let not my noble lord be deceived—I have fathomed his designs! I am no stranger in the palace, God be praised. I shall fall at the feet of the great Khan and pray for his protection and justice!”

The grandee listened with icy disdain.

His horse was led up to him, and he mounted it, and from the lofty eminence of his saddle, he murmured majestically:

“The soothsayer is guilty of many misdeeds, and that is why he has been thrown into prison. I was to have seized him yesterday, but refrained therefrom in order to help the most worthy Rahimbai in the search for his horses. And now the most esteemed Rahimbai repays me with black ingratitude for all the trouble I have taken to preserve his property.”

The money-changer raised his fat stubby hands to heaven.

“To preserve my property! By Allah, I see in all this but a single care of yours—to win at the races!”

The grandee vouchsafed him no reply, and amid the roll of drums and shouts of “Clear the way!'* he made his stately departure, escorted by his guards with raised pole-axes, drawn sabres, levelled spears, pointed tridents, and brandished maces and javelins.

The throng around the bridge thinned. The crowd  {151}  broke up, their expectations defeated. There was laughter, jeers and jokes without end.

Many people among the crowd had been fooled upon that bridge at various times. They loudly abused the soothsayers, and exposed their roguish tricks.

The soothsayers were crestfallen. They foresaw a calamitous shrinkage of their incomes. That accursed braggart, who was to have discovered stolen things, had shamed and disgraced their whole class!

The money-changer hastened homewards, muttering as he ran and waving his arms.

The spies, of course, followed in his tracks.

Within an hour they had reported to the grandee that the money-changer had summoned the barber to him and was having his beard put in order.

Within another hour he was reported to be cleaning his guild plate with sand, and airing his brocade robe, which members of the merchant class kept hidden in their chests against special solemn occasions.

These preparations made the grandee frown. That merchant seemed to be bent in real earnest on carrying his complaint to the palace. The mad impudence of the man!

Troublesome consequences might arise. Especially now, when the memory of the Peshawarians had not yet faded from the Khan's mind.

Precautionary measures had to be taken without delay.

The grandee clapped his hands, and before him appeared his chief assistant for criminal investigation—a fat sombre man on crooked legs with sunken fishy eyes set close together under a low forehead; the fame of this ferocious officer rested on the fact that no malefactor in his hands persisted in the denial of his guilt for more than two days, after which period he made a full confession; among the crimes which he had brought  {152}  to light were most astonishing cases such as that of the market seller, for example, who had confessed to having bought cheap satu-oldi melons, and, with the aid of yellow and green paint, disguised them as bas-oldi melons for the purpose of selling them at a profit.

“Where are the papers respecting the rebel Yarmat-Mamish-Ogli, who was executed the year before last?” asked the grandee.

The fat one noiselessly withdrew and reappeared a few minutes later with a sheaf of papers. He laid them before the grandee and retired to the door, where he stood in an attitude of frozen silence, staring down at the tip of his own nose. He was distinguished for his extreme taciturnity, and it was a cause of wonder how he managed to prosecute his investigations so successfully. The answer to this riddle was to be found by glancing at his hands—gnarled and knotted hands with hook-like fingers.

The grandee, with knitted brows, became immersed in the papers. He looked at that moment like a chess player pondering over the board. The pawn in his fingers was the soothsayer, that is, Khoja Nasreddin.

That paltry pawn had to be made into a queen. The soothsayer had to be charged with grave crimes and to be represented to the Khan as a dangerous malefactor.

By this move several ends were achieved at once, namely:

One, the fat merchant's complaint about the soothsayer having been deliberately removed would be refuted by the soothsayer's own confession;

Two, the Arab stallions would not make their appearance at the horse course, and the first award would be given to the Tekins;

Three, the fat merchant would be punished for his  {153}  impudence by not having his lost horses returned to him even after the race;

Four, with this aim in view, the aforesaid soothsayer was to remain in prison for life, or better still, sent to the scaffold;

Five, should the affair have a favourable issue, other advantages besides the aforementioned might accrue from the situation, and a new medal for zeal result therefrom;

Six, he would have to act with dispatch but with great circumspection; the Khan might possibly wish to re-examine the soothsayer himself, as had nearly happened in the recent past in the case of the Peshawarians. O how lamentable, how vile and shameful such pettiness was in a ruler—no wonder it was said that he was base-born, and his real parent was the groom of the royal stables!

Here the grandee paled at his own thoughts, and began to cough loudly, glancing at the fat one out of the corner of his eye to see whether he had noticed anything.

The fat one abided in the same steady contemplation of his nose-tip. The grandee composed his mind and resumed his reflections about the case.

The papers that lay before him spoke about the truly dangerous rebel Yarmat-Mamish-Ogli, whose name the great Khan had good reason to remember. The grandee now wavered, not knowing whether to accuse the soothsayer of being an accomplice or of being an accessory after the fact. Or should he think of some other and more reliable move?

He remained long in thought, then at last fell back against the cushions with a sigh of relief.

Kinship with Yarmat—here was a trap from which the soothsayer would never wriggle out! Let him prove if he could that the rebel's grandfather was not his  {154}  grandfather too. Even if the soothsayer's deceased grandmother herself were to rise from her grave to refute with indignation such a slanderous imputation, her evidence could be challenged and disavowed, for it has been known since time immemorial that women never confess their acts of infidelity.

“Cause the soothsayer to be brought into the tower!” commanded the grandee.

The sombre face of the fat one beamed with ferocious joy, his hands twitched and slowly drew back into the sleeves of his robe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The low vaults of the tower were illumined by four torches set in iron brackets along the walls. The torches burned dimly and smokily, and in their pale lurid light Khoja Nasreddin beheld a rack standing in the corner, and beneath it a wide trough in which thongs lay soaking. Set out on a bench in neat order were a thumbscrew, pincers, awls, needles for driving under the finger-nails, iron heating gauntlets, wooden screw boots, ear, tooth and nose drills, various pulling weights, bamboo belly-filling water-pipes with brass funnels and numerous other implements employed in the interrogation of malefactors. All this stock-in-trade was in charge of two executioners, both of whom were deaf-mutes—a circumstance ensuring that the secrets here wrung from the lips of evil-doers would not be spread abroad.

The chief executioner, a palid, elderly man with thin lips, a flat dreary nose and lacklustre, sweetly languorous eyes in deep sockets, was preparing the rack while his assistant, a hunchbacked dwarf with long dangling arms was examining the lashes; he weighed each thong in his hand, then wiped it with  {155}  a cloth, the while he ceaselessly worked the bellows of the torture forge with his foot.

On a wide couch against the wall, facing the door, the grandee sat enthroned with a hookah in his teeth; on a small table before him lay the scrolls of papers and Khoja Nasreddin's bag with his soothsaying paraphernalia. At the grandee's feet sat a scribe, and at his side, with a grim smile on his ferocious visage, stood the fat one, to whom every interrogation in that tower was a festive event.

Let us be truthful and admit that a prickly chill crawled up Khoja Nasreddin's spine. “O my precious Guljan, O my little ones, will I ever be fated to see you again!” he thought.

Obeying the glance of the fat one, the chief executioner stripped Khoja Nasreddin of his shirt, and stroked his bare back lightly and lovingly with his soft boneless hand.

The dwarf chose a lash and posted himself behind him.

The grandee took his time before opening the proceedings, studying and turning over the papers, marking them with his finger-nail, smiling ominously to himself and muttering.

At last he turned upon Khoja Nasreddin his penetrating all-seeing eye, and said:

“You know yourself the cause of your having been seized by me and thrown into prison. I know everything about you, I have long been hunting you. Now tell me yourself about your evil deeds and disclose your true name.”

This was not the first interrogation in the life of Khoja Nasreddin. He kept silent, trying to gain time.

“Have you lost the use of your tongue?” the grandee said with narrowed eyes. “Or have you forgotten? I shall have to refreshen your memory.”  {156} 

The fat one thrust out his chin, and stared fixedly at Khoja Nasreddin with unblinking eyes.

The hunchbacked executioner stepped back a pace and raised his lash.

Khoja Nasreddin neither flinched nor blenched, but he was perplexed in his mind, feeling as if he had been plunged into a black chasm of uncertainty.

The one thing he had feared was that he had been identified!

What if the papers contained his real name?

If they did, then he was lost.

But how could they have identified him?

Could it have been the one-eyed after all? Had he sold the horses, and together with them, his protector? Was this but another of those ultimate sins preceding his entry upon the path of virtue?

This is what any ordinary man in place of Khoja Nasreddin would have decided, and thus would have assuredly betrayed his troubled mind and dismay either by a fear-shadowed glance or by a misplaced hysterical laugh—and, of course, would have been sent to the scaffold, ruined by his own weakness and mistrust. But Khoja Nasreddin was not that kind of man. Even here, in the hands of the executioners, he remained true to himself and found the strength to say to himself inwardly and repeat with all firmness of spirit, “Nay!”

It was this power of trust that saved him and enabled him to preserve full clarity of voice when he answered the grandee in the following words:

'There was no deception in my soothsaying, O illustrious lord.”

This answer appeared simple and artless, but actually it was a hidden snare. It happens sometimes in life that the hare sets a trap for the wolf.

“Soothsaying forsooth!” sneered the grandee. “Your  {157}  soothsaying proves but one thing—that you are as arrant a rogue and a trickster as all the others of your fellow craftsmen.”

Praise be to Allah, the Most High—the grandee had given himself away! He thought the interrogated one to really be a soothsayer. Hence, his real name did not figure in those papers.

A pressing stone seemed to have rolled off Khoja Nasreddin's heart. In this first crossing of swords victory had gone to him.

“My illustrious lord has himself seen the bridle,” he said, hastening to follow up his advantage. “I make bold to assert that the horses were in the cave. Only a few minutes before the appearance of the horsemen they stood there eating choice grain.”

This was a second trap set for the grandee; he walked straight into it.

“Then why were they not there?” he asked, letting down all his defences.

Khoja Nasreddin rode at him full tilt.

“Because the day before, in a brief conversation on the Bridge of the Beheaded, I had read in certain powerful eyes a desire that the said horses should not be in too great a hurry to return to their master.”

The grandee gave ground.

He was taken aback.

He began to cough.

He shot an uneasy glance at the fat one and at the scribe.

By a great effort he recovered his inner possession.

His glance regained its former steady quality. In that glance could be read the thought: “Dangerous, and very much so. To the scaffold with him!”

Picking a paper out of the heap of scrolls the grandee unfolded it, and prepared himself to question  {158}  Khoja Nasreddin concerning his kinship with the rebel Yarmat—a fatal question fraught with inevitable disaster for the questioned.

Khoja Nasreddin anticipated the grandee.

“And in other eyes, in which burnt not the high flame of authority, but which were accustomed to the contemplation of gold, this least of soothsayers did read certain misgivings respecting a lady of unsurpassing beauty, suspected of marital infidelity. Those suspicions begat jealousy, jealousy gave rise to vengeful design, and from that sprang danger that already hangs over the Refulgent and Mighty unbeknown to him.”

Here was a staggering blow!

The grandee's breath was interrupted.

The scroll in his hand shook and began to roll up from the bottom of its own accord.

Three lightning glances—one at the soothsayer, one at the fat one, one at the scribe.

Before all else these witnesses had to be got rid of!

With a swift movement he slipped one of the papers into the wide sleeve of his garment, then screening himself behind a tone of imperious displeasure, he addressed the fat one, “Where is the letter from the governor of Namangan—I see it not?”

The fat one began to rummage hurriedly among the papers. The letter, naturally, was missing.

“You are for ever mixing things up and forgetting,” the grandee said irritably. “Go find it.”

The fat one departed.

After waiting a sufficient length of time the grandee suddenly bethought himself and cried out in a tone of vexation:

“Ah, I have forgotten! Scribe, run and tell him to find me also the secret report of the mullah of the Shahimardan Mosque while he is at it.”  {159} 

The scribe, too, departed hence.

They remained in the tower eye to eye. The deaf-mutes did not count.

“What nonsense are you talking there, soothsayer!” the grandee said to Khoja Nasreddin in an imperious tone. “Yesterday's hashish, I see, has not yet evaporated from your head. What is all this babble respecting a lady of surpassing beauty, jealousy, designs against one vested with authority and what not!”

He pretended not to have heard and understood.

Khoja Nasreddin forthwith defeated his cunning devices.

“I spoke about the merchant Rahimbai, and about the beautiful Arzi-bibi his wife, and about a third party whose name my excellent lord knows all too well.”

There ensued a long-lasting silence.

Victory was complete. Khoja Nasreddin felt his own eyes grow bright and hot.

The grandee was worsted, overthrown, crushed, and destroyed. He clung to his hookah with trembling lips. The dead hookah responded with a watery sizzle, but with not a wisp of smoke. Khoja Nasreddin rushed over to the torture forge, plucked forth a coal, thrust it into the hookah and began to blow it up with unaffected zeal, hastening to restore to the grandee his reasoning faculties in order to close the matter in hand before the fat one returned.

His zeal was rewarded. The grandee began to puff at his hookah, and by little and little floated up from the drowning depths of his stupefaction.

He had now but one alternative—to come to terms with the soothsayer.

However, he did not surrender at once, and still tried to laugh the matter off.  {160} 

“Where heard you that gossip, soothsayer? You are fond of chattering with all kinds of old women on that bridge of yours, I see.”

“I have an old woman with whom I often hold converse.”

“Ah, what is her name, her description, quick, where does she dwell? I would fain have speech with her too.”

“My old soothsaying-book—that is who told me everything, and I read confirmation of it in the eyes of the merchant.”

“And you would have me believe that you can fathom any secrets with the aid of your book? Fairytales for little children!”

“As my illustrious lord pleases. I can be silent if he so desires. But what if tomorrow the rumour of it reaches the ears of the great Khan? For the merchant intends to seek protection for his connubial couch at the court.”

Blow after blow, each more deadly than the other!

Verily, this was a black day for the grandee; the terrifying vision of the palace physician rose before him, and he shuddered as if at the first touch of the sharp ruthless steel.

Haply the merchant had already drawn up his complaint? Haply he had already presented it at the palace?

Procrastination spelt ruin.

Craft and artifices had to be cast aside and the matter discussed in a frank open manner.

“Well, soothsayer, I am fully convinced now of the veracity of your fortune-telling,” said the grandee, assuming an air of friendly candour. “You can be useful to me—do you hear? I shall let you out of prison, give you a reward, and make you chief soothsayer in place of that old dotard with the skull.”  {161} 

Khoja Nasreddin had had no thought of turning the old skull-possessor out of his niche, but he had no choice. He thanked the grandee for his favour, bowing and promising unbounded loyalty.

“Good!” said the grandee. “You have said truly—loyalty. You and I understand each other, soothsayer. You have of course perceived already that my order to have you seized and thrown into prison was but a blind, a stratagem. I understood at once when I saw you yesterday that you were a great master of your trade, surpassing all the others in skill. I need such men as you, hence I invited you into the tower today. The fact of the matter is that I do not trust my assistant, that fat one. I believe he will soon have occasion to try the ear drill, the belly-filling tube and the pulling weights upon himself. It was to throw him off the scent that I ordered you to be seized on the bridge, having in mind a quite different and secret purpose, namely, to hold private speech with you without listening ears, the way we are doing now, for in the not distant future, when I shall have sent that evil-smelling fat one to the scaffold, you will be able to take his place—on the condition, of course, that you will display proper zeal and befitting loyalty in my service. . . .”

He held forth a long time in this mendacious and rambling strain, wasting precious time, while the fat one was likely to return at any minute. Not without difficulty, Khoja Nasreddin succeeded at last in directing the talk into the necessary channel.

“Henceforth you are the chief soothsayer,” declared the grandee. “The old man charged his underlings a tenth part of their earnings, but you can take twice as much. Those idle rogues deserve not to be pitied—they just sit there growing fat, while you were the only one to warn me of the danger. Take from them a  {162}  fifth, and if they so much as squeak, tell me—I shall quieten them. And now, soothsayer, we must discover when the merchant intends to lodge his complaint. Mayhap tomorrow?”

“No, not so soon. He has not yet sufficient proofs. He is waiting until my illustrious lord, throwing discretion to the winds. . . .”

“He will now be waiting in vain. But how did he nose this out? Which of my enemies whispered in his ear? Could you find that out, eh?”

“If I consult my book, which lies yonder in the bag.”

“Take it.”

Khoja Nasreddin fished the famous book out of the bag, opened it and smiled tenderly at the Chinese characters, as if greeting kind old friends; he seemed even to find them somewhat more understandable.

“Well?” the grandee demanded impatiently. “Do they speak or are they silent?”

Imparting to his voice the sepulchral gravity befitting such an important act of soothsaying, Khoja Nasreddin knitted his brows and inflated his stomach.

“Lo!” he moaned in a singsong voice. “I behold the sun declining beyond the edge of day, I behold a bazaar. I behold a shop and the fat merchant Rahimbai sitting therein. I hear a drum and the terrifying shouts of the guards. There appears a mighty and illustrious one; I recognize his proud gaze, his noble moustache. He deigns to notice the despised merchant and lowers himself beside him. They drink tea and converse. They speak about races, about Arab and Tekin horses. But what apparition is this? It seems as if the queen of the nocturnal skies herself has descended to earth! What words can worthily describe the astonishing loveliness of the lady who has entered the merchant's shop? She comes in with slow swinging  {163}  hips that agitate the feelings and captivate the reason. Her face is hidden beneath a veil, but the dawn-like glow of her tender complexion and the coral of her lips shine through the silk. Lo, the despised merchant opens his money-bag and draws forth therefrom various jewels. Then, then. . . . Ah, here is where treachery lurks, here is the perfidious snare!”

He cast a glance at the grandee. The latter was leaning forward with his whole body, his moustache twitching, his tongue cleaving to his mouth, powerless to utter a word.

“O infamous merchant!” cried Khoja Nasreddin, recoiling from the book as if in the deepest indignation. “O base huckster! He commands his wife to put on the jewels, he causes her to uncover her face before the illustrious lord. I see the dazzling sun and the glorious moon admiring each other. Their hearts are inflamed with mutual passion. They burn, they yearn towards each other, they forget discretion, their ardent glances betray them, the hot blood mantling their cheeks declares their guilt! The heavenly secret lies bared, the coverings fall away. That base merchant, that filthy spy, that vile and jealous monster, that malevolent destroyer of other people's love has achieved his foul purpose. He intercepts their glances, he listens to their quickened breathing, he counts the number of their heart-beats. He is confirmed in his suspicions, and fulsome envy hisses in his reptilian heart. He plans revenge, but conceals his crafty designs under the outward guise of benignity.”

“So that is what he is up to!” the grandee murmured. “Truth to tell, I never thought that that over-fattened pole-cat could be so crafty. By Allah, soothsayer, you might have been the fourth in that shop and perceived it all with your own eyes! From now on your chief task is to watch the merchant. Watch him with  {164}  the greatest vigilance and wakefulness! And report to me about all his intentions.”

“Not a single thought of his shall slip by me. As soon as I quit this prison. . . .”

“You shall quit it towards evening. It cannot be done sooner, as I must first make my report to the Khan.”

“And if the Khan does not agree?”

“Let that not worry you.”

“One word more, my illustrious lord: certain expenses will be incurred.”

“On departing hence you will receive two thousand tangas to start with.”

“If such be the case, then all the desires of my mighty lord shall be executed.”

A door slammed above and footfalls sounded on the stairs. The fat one and the scribe returned without having found the required papers. They were astonished beyond measure to find the soothsayer not stretched out bleeding on the rack where he should have been, but standing whole of limb before the grandee and even smiling, albeit almost imperceptibly with his eyes alone.

“Conduct this man upstairs and see that all his wants are attended to,” the grandee commanded the fat one. “This is a special case, of which I shall personally report to the great Khan.”

The fat one conducted Khoja Nasreddin into one of the upper chambers of the tower, where there was a carpet on the paved floor, and a soft couch with cushions, and even a hookah. A bowl of pilau was placed before Khoja Nasreddin, and he ate it under the steady unwavering gaze of the fat one.

The door shut with a bang and silence reigned, the deep silence of a prison which Khoja Nasreddin no longer feared.  {165} 

He reclined on the couch. A great weariness flowed through all his limbs, as if he had been doing heavy work. He shut his eyes. But his thoughts would not be lulled to rest in his busy brain—they sped after the grandee into the apartments of the Khan. “What will they decide? But that concerns me not; let the magnificent Kamilbek take care of himself.” Far-away camels’ bells began to ring in his ears—that was the song of silver-winged sleep alighting upon his pillow. His thoughts slackened their pace. “The horses? Where could they have gone to, and where is the one-eyed now to be sought?” A last hazy thought took soaring wing—the thought of the merchant's wife. “O fragrant rose of the gardens of Horassan, your amorous dalliance has saved my life!” And that last thought melted into the emptiness of space. Khoja Nasreddin had fallen asleep.

He slept the deep calm sleep of the victor. It is not inappropriate to repeat here that in his recent encounter, which ended so happily for him, he was saved from the first blow only by the strength of his belief and trust—that golden shield of the noble-hearted. In this connection one cannot help recalling Faris ibn Hattab of Herat, that most pure-minded of sages, who said, “People need but little to achieve happiness upon earth—trust towards each other, but that accomplishment is beyond the reach of the base-spirited, whose only law is self-interest.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“It would have been better if his head were cut off. Kinship with such a dangerous rebel is fraught with menace.”

“I have ascertained beyond a shadow of doubt, O King of the Age, that no ties of blood exist. The soothsayer  {166}  comes from a different family altogether, from a different village.”

'That does not prove anything. He may still be a relation, haply not a direct one, but a distant one. And then what?”

“He has never even met with Yarmat. The spies mistook him for someone else, he was seized by error.”

“Once he has been seized and thrown into prison why not cut his head off for safety's sake? We see no reasonable cause for abstaining. Revolt is much more serious than those Peshawar sorceries of yours, it is no joking matter. One Yarmat is enough for us. His doings have been recorded in wrinkles upon our face!”

“O King of the Age, far be it from me to show ignoble solicitude for preserving the loathsome head of a despicable soothsayer. I had in mind a matter of far more vital concern—the strengthening of the throne.”

“Then proceed.”

“It was because I was prompted by these higher considerations that I have today brought the enfeebled camels of my reflections to the palace in order to cast them down upon their knees before the caravanserai of your royal might and give them to drink from the spring of your regal wisdom. . . .”

“Stay, grandee. In future you will please to write all such words down on paper beforehand and read them out to the Master of Ceremonies of our royal court. And let him give them attentive hearing—that's what we have increased his salary for.”

“To the Master of Ceremonies—words intended for the royal ear!”

“We have twenty of you viziers, and each one speaks two hours—when shall we sleep?”  {167} 

“I hear and obey. This last year we have cut off many a score of heads, thanks to which the throne has been strengthened.”

'There, you see. It is always useful!”

“Would it not be still more useful at this stage to offer an example of imperial mercy? If we release the soothsayer and make this known to the populace through the town criers, would it not be reasonable to assume that their bosoms will expand with joy and they will cry out, rejoicing, ‘O, how happy are we, how blessed, to dwell under the puissant hand of our Sovereign, who warms us like the spring sun. . . .’ ”

“Put that on paper, grandee, and read it downstairs. Proceed.”

“Thus the throne acquires further support in the hearts of men.”

“Methinks you are right. But he is none the less dangerous, this soothsayer, if he be a kinsman. . . .”

“That danger is easily met, O King of the Age! First he is released, and the fact of it proclaimed abroad through the town criers. An Act of Mercy. And then, within two or three weeks, he is seized once more in the dead of night and promptly beheaded in my vault, whence no sound can escape. An Act of Precaution. The first act will be an overt one, the second a covert. Mercy and Precaution supplement each other, making for Grandeur and will scintillate like two incomparable gems in the crown of our Sun-like Sublimity. . . .”

“All that for the Master of Ceremonies, downstairs. Have you finished, grandee?”

“The jar of my paltry thoughts has shown its bottom, Sire.”

“Good, evening is drawing nigh already. Your words have convinced us, grandee. We approve your plan.”  {168} 

“The gracious glance of my royal master kindles the lamp of joy in my bosom! I shall prepare this moment a firman for the release of the soothsayer, and tomorrow at morn the town criers shall apprise the populace of the Khan's will.”

“So be it!”

Towards the evening Khoja Nasreddin quitted his place of captivity with a new robe, new boots, and a heavy purse in his girdle (all gifts of the grandee).

He came forth from the gates of the fortress into the square, over which the evening shadows already held sway.

The first person he beheld without the gates was the fat money-changer in a costly robe, with the brass plate of his guild upon his breast, and a bridle in his hand. He had long been loitering there in the hope of obtaining admittance into the palace and laying his complaint at the royal feet.

At the sight of Khoja Nasreddin his fat perspiring shiny face lit up with joy.

“They have released you, soothsayer! O, what a great joy! My horses shall be returned to me then. I had prepared a complaint, for which I paid the scribe twelve tangas. Here it is, you may read it if you like.”

“I read only Chinese.”

“There are some words here that you will find most flattering; I petition delay in parting your head from your body until you have discovered the horses. See how solicitous I am of your welfare.”

“I see it all too well—accept my gratitude, merchant.”

“Then let us go and continue the soothsaying; haply you may still have time to find the horses ere nightfall.”  {169} 

“Wherefore the hurry? I am an enemy of haste, the same as you are. If we have decided to postpone the parting of my head from my body, then why should we not postpone the search for your horses as well?”

“What mean you—postpone the search for my horses? Have you forgotten that in three days’ time the races will be held?”

“Try the Khan; haply you will find him a willing votary of postponement and he will put off the races for a week or two.”

And tarrying no longer at the gates, Khoja Na-sreddin turned towards the bazaar where the rolling drums were escorting the sun to its rest.

“In that case, beware, soothsayer!” hissed the merchant, his face becoming distorted with rage. “I know, you have been bribed, and I know by whom! But I have friends at the court, too, these gates will open before me, and then, O woe to you, soothsayer, woe to you and to him who has bribed you!”

But Khoja Nasreddin was out of earshot and heard not these threats.

All along his path lay slanting, projecting, jagged shadows, like the spines of fabulous ‘monsters crouching there to spring at him; but like an enchanted prince, protected by the higher powers, he stepped among them boldly and freely, his face raised to the flaming sun. It was sinking into a ridge of airy fleecy clouds, bathing them in a clear light, and promising the earth on the morrow a cool mountain-born wind—deliverance from the torrid heat.

That night, as he lay in the chaikhana, he held quiet speech with the one-eyed through the dais.

“More than anything I rejoice that my trust in you has not been deceived,” he said, cupping his hands  {170}  over his mouth to keep his voice from carrying away to the side. “Now tell me: why were not the horses in the cave, what has befallen them?”

“I could not leave them in the cave. Spies were nosing about everywhere and they had begun to pry in the quarry. I led the horses out before daybreak, under cover of the mist, and removed them to a different place—an empty suburban house. . . .”

The conversation ended late, when the night was far spent.

After receiving full directions for his future conduct, the one-eyed disappeared.

Khoja Nasreddin turned over from his belly to his back, gave a long yawn, and a minute later had raised the sail of slumber.

He went forth to the Bridge of the Beheaded the next morning to find that everyone there .already knew about his having been appointed chief soothsayer.

How changed everything was! In place of the former jeers he was met with slavish glances, flattering speeches, and fawning laughter.

The skinny old owner of the skull had moved to another niche, ,a dark and narrow one, whence he growled in low tones like a toothless decrepit old hound from its kennel.

His three most trusted favourites, who only yesterday had served him cringingly, had now forsaken him and changed sides. With besoms and wet rags in their hands they were fussing about round the chief niche, preparing the place for its new master. They bowed lower than anyone else to Khoja Nasreddin. One of them snatched the carpet from his hands and spread it in the niche, another dusted his boots with his turban, while the third blew upon the Chinese book  {171}  and scratched its cover lightly with his finger-nail, as if to remove some speck of dust.

Presently the grandee himself graced the bridge with his presence and entered into secret converse with Khoja Nasreddin. He hungered for reassurance, and he received it in full measure.

“Have you verified the merchant well, soothsayer? Have you plumbed the very lowest depths of his foul designs?”

“I have, O illustrious lord. So far there is no danger.”

“Watch carefully, soothsayer, be vigilant!”

Before the eyes of all on the bridge he gave his hand to the soothsayer to be kissed—a favour the like of which had never before been witnessed there.

“Now tell me—last time I forgot to ask you about it—what has become of the horses, why were they not in the cave?”

“The horses? Very simply—I removed them.”

“What do you mean ‘removed them'? You were on the bridge, and they were in the quarry.”

Khoja Nasreddin carelessly shrugged his shoulder as if this were a thing of no consequence.

“Very simple—I spirited them away through the air.”

“Through the air? So you can do that too?”

“That is a mere trifle. At the very last moment when the horsemen had galloped off to the quarry, I discovered through my book that the thieves had extracted the charmed nails from the horseshoes and pulled out the silken threads. Hence I decided to abstain for the time being from returning the horses, and to report the matter to my illustrious lord and receive his admonitions on my further conduct.”

“Very praiseworthy and sensible, soothsayer!”

“I had no choice but to spirit them away.”  {172} 

“Very curious indeed! So you removed them through the air, eh? Just like that? Tell me, could not the merchant be spirited away in a like manner? To some far-away place, say, Bagdad or Teheran, or better still to the lands of the infidel, where the Franks would take him into slavery?”

“Such deeds I cannot perform. My power extends only over animals. Haply, in time, when I probe deeper into the mysteries. . . .”

“A pity. A great pity! There are so many people at the court who—you know. . . .”

And his imagination, against his will, pictured a long train of undesirables travelling through the air. In front flew the merchant, flat upon his back, dishevelled of beard and bulging of eyes, trying to kick free from the clutch of Yadgorbek, who clung to him; next, hanging on to one another, came flying the Grand Vizier, the Chief Tax Vizier, the Chief Justice, the Keeper of the Royal Seal and a multitude of other officers of the court, while the last air-borne link in this extraordinary chain, to the grandee's astonishment and horror, was the lord of the khanate himself. He flew in a sitting posture, his body bent slightly forward, as if he had been whisked off his throne at the very moment of bending his weighty ears to some new informer; his robe, filled with air, billowed upwards, disclosing his meagre underparts draped in shalwars with red and green embroidery. All this flashed past and disappeared. His head reeling and his ears ringing from a vision so seductive and parlous, the grandee fell to coughing and mumbling, wondering in what manner such seditious feelings as those that had suddenly displayed themselves in the hindermost link of the air-borne could have slipped past the toll-gate of his reason and penetrated the innermost recesses of his soul. And he came to the  {173}  conclusion that sedition, like a subtle perfume, had the power of being conveyed without bodily agencies and without the aid of words. At this point his thoughts turned to the soothsayer. “To be sure, it was he with his spells who evoked that wicked and evil-minded vision before me! He is far too dangerous, he knows too much, he spirits things away through the air. As soon as he has done what is required of him I shall immediately perform the Act of Precaution upon him.”

Silence reigned upon the bridge long after the grandee had quitted it; then the soothsayers came forward to Khoja Nasreddin one after another with their gifts. One deposited on the carpet before him fifty pieces of silver, another seventy, another still more, each according to his income. Thus, on the very first day, Khoja Nasreddin came to know the two chief characteristics of his new position on the medium rung of the ladder of authority, namely, reassurances to those above and the receiving of gifts from those below.

The old skull-possessor came forward last and silently placed a hundred and fifty pieces of silver upon the carpet—more than anyone else. Wan and haggard, wounded to the very heart by his downfall, he was pitiful to look at, but he showed a proud and defiant mien; nevertheless the anguish that stood like dark water in his old eyes was visible to, all, and all understood him. That morning he had cleaned up his greatest treasure—the magic skull—with sand, polished it with oil, and set it in a conspicuous place. That skull now was his last hope, his last refuge.

Moved by pity, Khoja Nasreddin pushed the old man's money back.

“Take it. I need it not.”

The old man drew his breath in with a hiss and a green ugly light blazed in his eyes.  {174} 

“It is not enough for you? You have taken my all, and still it is not enough. Haply you would like me to give you my skull as well?”

“I need it not,” Khoja Nasreddin said gently. “Take your money, keep your skull without fear, I need nothing from you. Let me tell your fortune for you.”

The old man choked with fury.

“You would tell me my fortune? Me, who have been sitting upon this bridge for forty years! Me, the possessor of the skull! You, who but yesterday disgraced us all with your (mendacious soothsaying!”

“Nevertheless, listen,” said Khoja Nasreddin, opening His book. “Be comforted, your troubles will be short-lived and fleeting. Before this month is out all your honours and the income accruing therefrom shall be returned to you. The stealer of your prosperity will disappear, fade away like a spring morning mist, and naught save the memory of him will linger long here upon this bridge. When his name shall become known. . .but enough—the Chinese characters have become blurred in my sight and I cannot make them out.”

The old man drew back, glancing askance at Khoja Nasreddin and not knowing what to think—whether this new one was making mock of him or whether the sudden shock of great fortune had turned his brain. He hid himself in his niche and cowered there in sullen silence.

But further misfortune overtook him there—the sneers and jibes of his once servile underlings.

“Hey, you!” they shouted, laughing mockingly. “Why do you not collect your tithe?”

“He has postponed the affair till tomorrow.”

“He is waiting for the illustrious lord to grant him the right to half of our incomes!”

“Nay, he is simply tired of being the chief soothsayer,  {175}  and has relinquished that post of his own free will!”

Being themselves vile and contemptible men, they supposed all men to be the same and doubted not that their shouts and jeers were agreeable to Khoja Na-sreddin. They had heard his soothsaying by the Chinese book, and true to their base mould, had interpreted his soothsaying as malicious mockery of a fallen adversary.

“Put away that skull of yours, it has offended our sight too long!” they cried, each vying with the other in currying favour with the new chief. “You pass it off as a human skull, but anyone can see at a glance that it is that of an ape!”

“Aye, forsooth, an ape's!”

“And a rotten one at that!”

The old man could endure anything but not the debasement of his skull.

“May your hair grow inwards into your brain through the bone of your own skull, Hakim—O vile snake cherished in my bosom,” he snarled from out of his niche. “You have forgotten how I picked you up under this selfsame bridge a hungry, dirty, ragged brat, and befriended you, treated you as a son, fed you and clothed you, and taught you the art of soothsaying—and now, how do you requite me? And you, Adil, may you be turned inside out with your entrails dangling in the open and may a scorpion sting you in your exposed liver—have you forgotten how I saved you the year before last from the whips and the dungeons by paying your debt of seven hundred and forty tangas out of my own purse?”

From these words Khoja Nasreddin learnt with surprise that this old bag of bones, who presented such an odious aspect and engaged in such a nefarious occupation as soothsaying, which was unavoidably  {176}  connected with spying, had preserved intact beneath the silt of sordid living that clogged his soul the clear gushing spring of kindly feeling. He did not take his part, however, bearing in mind his speedy restoration to his former office and the condign retribution that awaited the ingrate.

Noon was drawing nigh, the sun blazed, and the heat flowed over the roofs with a shimmer as of molten glass. The flagstones on the bridge gave off a dry baking heat like a potter's oven, there was not a breath of wind, the leaves on the trees had wilted, and the birds had hidden themselves in the shade and were silent.

In the distance the sound of drums and trumpets arose, followed by the voices of the town criers; soon they appeared upon the bridge and announced the firman respecting the Khan's great mercy. The soothsayers exchanged looks of fearful wonderment: too great a stir had this new master of theirs created around himself. These thoughts of theirs were shared by Khoja Nasreddin himself. Indeed, there was too much noise to his liking, and behind the bright image of Mercy his inner sight warned him of the near presence of Precaution.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He had expected, these last few days preceding the races, that the merchant would be for ever hanging about the bridge, bothering him for news about his horses.

But it was not so. The merchant had not come once. Resentment had prevailed over vanity in his heart, and he now desired neither the first award at the races nor the royal praises—he thirsted only for revenge. To expose that crafty grandee, to crush his enemy,  {177}  make him bite the dust! And of course, while he was at it, to grind that knavish soothsayer into dust!

It need hardly be said that victory in the races went to the grandee's Tekin horses. They were magnificent, superb, when, with tails streaming in the wind, they sped like flying arrows, having behind them five hundred cubits of clear field ahead of all the others.

Amid the deafening blare of trumpets, the piercing screech of the bagpipes and the frenzied roll and crash of drums, large and small, the winners were led up to the decorated dais upon which the Khan sat in state. The Tekins arched their necks, champed furiously upon the bits, and pawed the ground, eager to be let out on to the horse course once more. They had made twelve rounds of the outer course, yet their breath was but slightly affected, their backs and flanks were dry, without a single spot of sweat upon them, and not a vein on their slender legs pulsed or throbbed.

The Khan smiled, admiring them.

A murmur of delight ran through the throng of courtiers clustering behind the throne.

The grandee was flushed with victory; he struck swaggering poses, hitched up his shoulders, twirled his moustache, bent his body to right and left, and showed his twinkling heels.

The Khan's chief crier came forward to the edge of the dais and raised his hand, commanding attention.

The trumpets and drums were silenced, and the crowd pressing closer to the dais, stood hushed and expectant.

“The All-Merciful and Sunlike Sovereign of Kokand and other flourishing lands,” the crier began in a deep thunderous voice, “the King whose fame eclipses that of all other earthly potentates, the chosen  {178}  favourite of Allah (whose name be exalted!) and the successor of Mohammed upon earth. . . .”

The Khan made a sign to the Master of Ceremonies, who advanced towards the crier, took the scroll from his hands and marked off with his finger-nail a good three-quarters of what was written thereon for subsequent private perusal in accordance with the extra remuneration paid out to him for the purpose; the crier, thus suddenly deprived of his customary running-start, began to mumble and fumble, then, running his confused eye down to the hindermost bottom lines, proceeded:

“. . . does hereby graciously bestow the first award of forty thousand tangas for matchless beauty of form and fleetness upon. . . .”

“Protection and justice!” suddenly rose a wail from out of the crowd. “I supplicate the great Khan to right a wrong!”

The Khan lifted his brows. A murmur of dismay passed over the lords of the court. At such an hour, on such a festive occasion! Unheard-of effrontery!

The crowd parted to let the merchant approach the dais. Unturbaned, barefooted, but wearing his costly robe with the burnished plate of his guild upon his breast, he scratched his face, tore out tufts of his beard and dropped upon his knees, sprinkling a handful of dust upon his head and shrieking, “Protection and justice!”

The black moustache of the grandee seemed to come away from his face and hang in mid air—so pale had he become.

“Raise him!” the Khan said angrily. “Raise that rascallion, who has dared to cast a gloom upon this day's festivity. Raise him up and bring him before me!”

The guards seized the merchant under the armpits and dragged him towards the dais. They hoisted him  {179}  up the steps with such celerity that his short dangling legs grazed not a single step.

The perturbation among the lords of the court increased: the merchant had been recognized. The Vizier for Trading Affairs leaned towards the Khan and spoke to him in an undertone.

“A wealthy merchant?” the Khan repeated in surprise. “And a most respected one? Then wherefore is he in such a sorry state? Let him be brought closer, let him speak.”

The guards dragged the merchant closer; he hung upon their arms like a sack of meal; he desired to speak, but he could not; his thick lips stirred soundlessly within the frame of his beard.

The Khan waited, the officers of the court waited. The grandee held his breath, and his eyes, fixed upon the merchant, were blazing.

Meantime the tidings about the Tekins having won the race had spread like wildfire throughout the bazaar, the chaikhanas and the caravanserais, and reached the Bridge of the Beheaded.

“The merchant will come now for certain,” reflected Khoja Nasreddin. “The first award at the races has been wrested from him, and he will hardly wish to increase his losses by abandoning horses worth many thousands.”

And once more Khoja Nasreddin was mistaken: the merchant did not come. In his stead mounted guards galloped up, leading a spare horse by the bridle, and laying hold of Khoja Nasreddin, they rushed him away without uttering a word. It all happened so quickly that he barely had time to stuff his soothsaying stock-in-trade—his book, the gourd, and so forth—into his bag.  {180} 

The niche of the Grand Soothsayer stood empty.

For a long time a silence of bewilderment reigned upon the bridge. Then the soothsayers fell to discussing and arguing about the affair among themselves. Whither had they taken him? To prison? To the scaffold? Or, haply, he would yet return in some new shape?

The majority, however, inclined to the opinion that his doom was now sealed. The three adulators, who had hastened to disown the old man and change sides, now bitterly regretted their precipitancy, and especially their sneering jibes at the magic skull.

The first to advance to the old man's niche was Hakim, the one who had long dwelt in his house where he had been received as a son.

“Is it not damp for you here, O wisest of protectors?” he asked in a voice of false filial solicitude. “If you desire I can give you my new rush mat softened with wadding.”

The two others, fearing lest they be forestalled in fawning adulation, advanced towards the niche too.

“O most erudite of teachers!” one said in a honeyed sticky voice. “An exceedingly rich widow came to me yesterday for advice. Her case is a difficult and intricate one, and I know not what to make of it. Permit me, therefore, when she comes today, to direct her to you in order that you may resolve her perplexities, and, incidentally, derive all the profits accruing therefrom. Your profound wisdom. . . .”

“And your incomparable learning!” interposed the other.

“And sublime notions!” the first hastened to put in.

“And this prophetic skull!” exclaimed the second.  {181} 

Meanwhile, the third one, Hakim, hopped about and squeaked behind, trying to ferret out a place where he could slip in a word of his own.

“And unutterable benignity!” he squealed. “What a kindly smile illumined yesterday your countenance, O clairvoyant seer, when you gave ear to my harmless jests, understanding that they were not prompted by aught save good nature and a sportive disposition.”

The old man raised not his eyes, but the ghost of a mirthless smile was born on his dry lips. That is when he came near to an understanding of that ancient truth that “Wisdom belongs not to the high but to the lowly.” However, the dread words that he uttered showed that his wisdom had turned its face towards the darkness. He said:

“For each of you, in its time, I performed a good deed, and now I have been punished for it. Such is the law of this sorrowful world: every good deed involves punishment to the doer.”

It is doubtful whether the speaker and his listeners fully grasped the dread import of those words, after which—if only had they proved to be true—life would have ceased; but praise be to Blessed Life, they were not true! They were merely an excuse for such as had lost faith or succumbed to despair, as this old man had done.

Khoja Nasreddin was hoisted up to the dais by the guards with still greater celerity than the merchant, and thrown down upon the carpet before the Khan.

Of the common people there was no one nearby now, the guards having driven away the last of the curious to the edge of the field with the aid of sticks and whips.  {182} 

Khoja Nasreddin perceived at a glance that a vehement altercation between the merchant and the grandee had just taken place. Both were red and perspiring, both stood with flashing eyes and shaking hands.

The Khan himself was red with anger, too.

“Never,” he said in a low smothered voice, ‘'never has anyone yet dared to outrage the royal ears with such indecent squabbling! And in public, too, before the eyes of thousands! Could you find no other hour and place for your base reckonings?” His breath came wheezily. “And why cannot the King ever ease his heart with the delights of pleasure or an hour's spectacle without being plagued by your sordid complaints, accusations, and scandal-mongering?”

Upon this his glance fell on Khoja Nasreddin.

“And who is this one?”

“A soothsayer, Your Majesty,” murmured the Trade Vizier. “The one who has been the cause. . . .”

“Whence comes he? What does he here?”

The vizier paled.

“I caused him to be conveyed hither in the belief that Your Gracious Majesty would desire to question . . . to hear . . . to discover . . . to contemplate . . . I thought. . . .”

He floundered in the morass of his words, and glanced round helplessly at the lords of the court.

No one hastened to his succour. All were silent.

“He believed!” cried the Khan, incensed with rage. “He thought! Soon you will believe some other absurdity and drag all the bazaar sweepers, dustmen, and scavengers to our throne to hold friendly converse and discussion with us! If you have ordered this knave of a soothsayer to be conveyed hither, then speak to him yourself, and spare us that honour. Let him either find those accursed horses—now, in our presence, this  {183}  very moment!—or let him confess to deceit and suffer the punishment he deserves, right here, before this dais!”

The Khan fell silent and lay back among the cushions, his mien expressing extreme displeasure.

Meanwhile, Khoja Nasreddin had exchanged glances with the merchant and given him a friendly wink; at which the latter had grunted furiously and torn out another tuft of his beard, but had not dared to raise his voice.

“Soothsayer!” said the Trade Vizier. “You have heard the will of our Sovereign—therefore answer all my questions openly, clearly and without evasion.”

And so did Khoja Nasreddin answer them—openly, clearly and without evasion. Of a truth, he undertook to find the ‘horses. Now, this very moment, in the presence of the Khan. He made bold to remind the merchant of the reward of ten thousand tangas which he had promised him.

“Was there such a bargain?” the Trade Vizier asked the money-changer.

The latter, by way of reply, drew a purse from under his robe and handed it to the vizier.

“See, soothsayer!” the vizier said, shaking the purse, from which came the shrill song of gold. “But before you receive this you must, in the first place, find the horses, and secondly, clear yourself of the accusation of bribery under which you lie. If you undertake to discover the horses today, then explain why you could not do so yesterday, the day before, and the day before that. Wherefore did you not discover them before the race and undertake now to discover them after the race?”

“The inauspicious disposal of the stars of Sad-ad-Zabih. . .” Khoja Nasreddin began the old tune of his Bokhara days.  {184} 

“And lurks there not here,” the vizier interrupted him, “lurks there not here a wicked design to scathe the King of the Age by depriving him of the pleasure of contemplating the Arab steeds, which are said by their owner to be not incapable of delighting the royal gaze? If such a mischievous design was really harboured by you, then who inspired it?”

This assumption of evil intent was directed against the grandee, his ancient rival.

“Confess, soothsayer!” he cried, the embers of hope fanning into flame within him. “Make an open-hearted confession—who has inspired in you the design against our refulgent and sunlike Khan, who is that vile perfidious villain who veils his snake sting beneath the guise of devotion? Speak, confess, and you shall be pardoned! And your reward shall be increased—I myself, animated by the zeal of exposing all the secret enemies of my Sovereign, shall add two—nay, three thousand tangas to this purse if you will but speak!”

Consumed with a desire to destroy his rival, he would willingly have given five and ten thousand.

But the man whom he was pitting himself against was no callow youth, but a strong officer of state in his prime, steeled in the jousts of court strife.

The grandee advanced towards the throne. His eyes flashed, and his bristling moustache stuck out formidably like the tusks of a fighting elephant.

“Does the King of the Age hear and see what is passing here? To extort a confession by money—is that not, in its turn, a heinous form of bribery?”

“By questioning the soothsayer I am executing the Khan's command,” snarled the vizier. “And no one can accuse me either of bribery or of horse-stealing like some people.”  {185} 

“Almighty Allah!” cried the grandee, giving a jump on his high-heeled boots and raising his hands skywards. “O heavenly powers! Why, O why am I forced to listen to such insults! And from whom! From men, who, although vested with the highest trust, make unworthy use of it for their selfish ends by undue exactions as in the case of the large trading row that was built last year. . . .”

“What exactions?” the vizier cried indignantly, but his eyes became shifty and dimly-dusty-dull, for he knew only too well what exactions his enemy was referring to. “Haply the most highly esteemed Chief of the Watch means the money that was allotted last year for the renovation of the watch-towers, of which not a single stone has yet been renovated, although the money has been expended to the last copper. . . .”

“Watch-towers!” the Chief of the Public Services interposed in a squeaky voice. “If we are going to talk about watch-towers we might as well talk about the cleaning and lining of the great cistern on the square of Saint Hazret! Who has seen there any cleaning, any lining? This affair is now in its fourth year, and money has been drawn from the treasury four times!”

At this the Supreme Mirab, who had charge of all the irrigation aryks and reservoirs in the kingdom, spoke up and mentioned bazaar squares that were still waiting to be paved; whereat the Head Overseer of Bazaars, a lank wiry old man with the round eyes of an owl in a pock-marked face, was stung into angry retort: sputtering and lisping he began to shout about caravans that had been robbed on the way to Kokand, and about three bags of gold sent to the Emir of Bokhara which never reached their destination; thereupon was heard the thunderous voice of the Chief Guardian of the Ways, who attributed the loss of the gold  {186}  to the impudence of the sons of wickedness, who had attacked the caravan; his grandiloquent speech was interrupted by the loud laughter of the grandee, who, through his spies, knew perfectly well who those “sons of wickedness” were; the Trade Vizier put another word in, and after him the Supreme Mirab, followed by the Overseer of Bazaars, the Treasurer, and all the rest.

Within a minute a conflagration of mutual recriminations and reproaches was raging upon the royal dais.

The merchant, the soothsayer, and the stolen horses were completely forgotten.

Purple of countenance, with blazing popping eyes and fiercely clenched fists, perspiring profusely in their heavy garments, the viziers and great officers of the state hurled accusations at one another, shouting furiously and all but seizing each other by the beards.

Someone mentioned the building of two bridges across the Sai—a sad old tale that was only too well known to the Khan.

Drawn into the squabble despite himself, his majesty stood up on his throne and yelled:

“Bridges! Bridges, you say, you knaves and thieves! And what about the contract for supplying hewn stones for those bridges? Aha, you are silent, Kadir! And the two hundred and sixty elm beams, which proved in fact to be poplar beams, and rotten ones at that! Whose handiwork was that, Yunus—speak!”

It was Khoja Nasreddin who put an end to this verbal battle. Waving his magic book in the air, he raised his voice:

“As to the matter of the missing horses my Book of Spells says. . . .”

His words were like a downpour of rain upon a raging steppe fire.  {187} 

The first to collect himself was the Khan; he passed a quelling eye over all the others.

The viziers, counsellors and lords fell silent, and returned to their places behind the throne, bitter rancour and hatred burning within their breasts.

“O scurrilous violators of decorum!” the Khan began, breathing heavily. “How long must we suffer your outrageous conduct? Think not that this day's disgrace will be forgiven you. Wait until we have returned to the palace! Through you we tremble to think what answer we shall have to give Allah for the disorders that are rife in our kingdom; no matter how we try and what we do, all our endeavours crumble to dust against the wall of your stupidity, arrogance, squabbling, lawlessness, and thieving! Blame me not if one day, when our patience is utterly exhausted, we drive you out, one and all, and seize everything that you have stolen for the benefit of the treasury!” He turned upon the Trade Vizier a countenance aflame with anger, and commanded, “Tell the soothsayer to continue! Let him expose himself as the knave and impostor that he is, and suffer the penalty of his guilt! Where are the horses?”

“Where are the horses, soothsayer?” the Trade Vizier echoed.

“The horses are in the stable of a suburban house on the Naimanchin road,” answered Khoja Nasreddin. “That house stands within a garden at the confluence of two great aryks, and has a gate with an ornamental painting by which it can be easily distinguished from all others.”

“A gate with ornamental painting!” exclaimed the money-changer. “At the confluence of two aryks? Why, that is my own summer country-house! But it stands empty now, it is boarded up—how could the horses have got there?”  {188} 

The royal attendants began whispering among themselves, nonplussed by the words of the moneychanger.

All doubts were dispelled by the Khan, who said:

“There are no horses there and there never have been. The soothsayer is trying to mislead us in the hope of twisting out of it and escaping punishment. Prepare the whips for him, and send men to that suburban house to prove that he lies.”

Horsemen dashed off along the great Naimanchin road.

“They will discover nothing there, of course! Absolutely nothing, no horses,” the Khan's courtiers buzzed behind his back.

Of those who stood there, however, three were otherwise-minded. They were Khoja Nasreddin, who beheld undismayed the flogging preparations that were being made before the royal dais, the money-changer, and the grandee, who had already had experience of the soothsayer's remarkable omniscience. “In my own house!” the money-changer mentally exclaimed, his reason utterly perplexed by all sorts of conjectures and surmises. “Verily, miraculous things are happening to those horses!” As for the grandee, he held his breath in silence, stupefied with joy, yet hardly daring to believe it. O, would that the soothsayer were not mistaken and the horses were really found in the house of the merchant! For then, then . . . he knew what to do and what to say then!

In a short while—the Naimanchin road being close by—the returning horsemen made their appearance on the outer edge of the horse course.

“They come, they come! My horses!” shouted the money-changer, and forgetful of all else, rushed towards the horsemen.  {189} 

At a sign from the grandee, however, the guards seized him before he could descend the steps, and flung him back upon the dais. “Our talk is not yet over, my worthy Rahimbai!” the grandee hissed to himself, all aquiver with malicious glee.

The horsemen approached. They were leading two unsaddled horses, one white as a shell, the other black as the wing of a swallow.

The like of them, in beauty of form, bearing and gait, had never yet been seen upon the horse course.

Exclamations of astonishment and admiration were heard among the courtiers.

The money-changer quivered and felt impelled towards the steps, but the guards held him in a strong-grip.

“Without exaggeration, these horses are a veritable adornment of the earth,” said the Khan.

“A veritable adornment! A veritable adornment!” the courtiers echoed in different keys.

The horses were led up to the dais. A hush fell upon the crowd; everyone forgot his grievances and quarrels, and was drowned in contemplation of the beautiful Arab horses.

Then suddenly the shrill wailing voice of the moneychanger rose once more:

“Protection and justice!”

There was a general stir. The Khan made a wry face.

“What more does he want, that importunate merchant? He has received his horses, let him go with them.”

“What about my reward, Your Majesty?” Khoja Na-sreddin hastened to remind him.

“As for the soothsayer,” the Khan added without even vouchsafing him a glance, “he is to receive the promised payment.”

The Trade Vizier raised aloft the money-changer's leathern bag containing the ten thousand tangas, held  {190}  it over his head awhile, shook it for all to hear and see, then tossed it at the feet of Khoja Nasreddin.

“Take it, soothsayer; the great Khan is just!”

But the money-changer flew up from the side like a hawk and laid hold of the bag with both hands.

“What about the bribery, O King of the Age!” he shouted, trying to pull the purse out of Khoja Nasreddin's hands, while his face was horribly distorted. “Infamous bribery, as a result of which my matchless horses were late for the race! Here they are, both of them—briber and bribed,” he cried, jerking his beard twice towards the grandee and Khoja Nasreddin, while still holding on to the purse. “Protection and justice! Let the soothsayer explain why he found my horses not yesterday, seeing how easily he found them today, and how much he was paid for doing so and by whom? Give me my money back, knave, do you hear!”

He pulled the purse with such frenzied violence that he lost his balance and fell upon his back; Khoja Nasreddin, holding on to the purse, was willy-nilly pulled down on top of him.

The dais creaked in protest.

An excited hum arose among the courtiers.

This was indecency unheard of—a fight in the royal presence!

The guards dragged the fighters apart.

The purse remained with Khoja Nasreddin.

The money-changer stood clutching his heart, panting.

This is when the grandee's hour came—his hour of vengeance, victory, triumph over his worsted enemy! Firm of purpose, he stepped forward boldly and stood before the Khan.

“May I be permitted now to say my word! This money-changer accuses me of bribery. But let him first explain how the stolen horses came to be in the stable of his own country-house?”  {191} 

Caught unawares, what could the money-changer answer? He answered nothing.

Thereupon the grandee cried out in a great voice:

“We hear no answer! Here, forsooth, is where real perfidy lies! First, to doubt in the victory of his Arabs, whose speed is far inferior to their outward beauty-then, to escape disgrace, he hides his horses away in his country-house and shouts all over the city that they have been stolen—what name can be given to such a deed! To raise the whole Watch upon its feet, to disturb the peace, to appear in this indecorous state, barefoot and unturbaned, at this solemn festivity, and by his tedious and mendacious wails to expel joy from the heart of our great Khan—and this, all this, for the sole purpose of blackening in the eyes of our Sovereign his most faithful and most devoted servant!”

The grandee's voice shook with emotion. Dashing away a tear with the sleeve of his robe and raising his eyes heavenwards, he resumed:

“Is this not an evil deed? And who should seek protection and justice of the great Khan—I, who have been innocently slandered and vilified, or this least of money-changers, whose malicious artfulness knows no bounds? Who can be sure that tomorrow he will not come to the palace with another complaint, will not accuse me of having robbed his shop, or, like as not, having committed adultery with his wife?”

It was a magnificent move, subtly conceived and well calculated. Pausing for a moment to let these life-redeeming words sink into the mind of his sovereign, the grandee concluded:

“It has been asked: Who stole the horses? Who was the impudent thief whom we have for so long and in vain been seeking? Now it is clear why we have not been able to find him, now there is no need to seek far for that thief, for he stands here before us! There he is!”  {192} 

And drawing himself up to his full unimpressive height with his head thrown back in a majestic pose, the grandee pointed a long accusing finger at the pale and shrinking money-changer.

“I am the thief? I? I stole my own horses?” the money-changer stammered incoherently.

His abject helpless mumbling was crushed, drowned by the voice of the grandee—thus does the babble of a brook in the vicinity of a roaring cataract fade away from before our hearing.

'There he stands!” roared the grandee. “Let him repudiate my words if he can!”

As is always the case in such circumstances the money-changer's confusion was taken by many as irrefutable evidence of his guilt, and the grandee's thunderous voice as conclusive proof of his innocence.

There were some however—those of the grandee's enemies, headed by the Trade Vizier—who took the side of the money-changer in this altercation. They raised their voices.

“Who would ever steal from himself?”

“It is unheard of!”

“Inconceivable!”

“Such a respectable man, known to all Kokand!”

They were actively opposed by the followers of the grandee; someone, by way of illustrating the queer way in which things sometimes have a habit of disappearing, dragged in once more the three bags of gold alleged to have been stolen by robbers on the way to Bokhara; at this the Chief Guardian of the Ways was reduced once more to a state of indescribable agitation, and began to shout about the unpaved squares of the bazaars; mention was made once more of the cistern at the Square of Saint Hazret, of the watch-towers, of the great trade rows, of exactions—in a word, a minute had not passed before the conflagration of mutual recrimination  {193}  and reproaches was raging once more around the throne. Once more all the great officers of the state, purple, perspiring, choking with rage, were at each other's throats amid a tumultuous uproar. The Khan said nothing. His thin lips twisted into a grimace of distaste, he slowly turned away and sat with drooping shoulders staring out into the empty field.

The merchant, the horses, and the soothsayer were all forgotten once more.

A slow-gaited elderly guard—one of senior rank—ascended the dais. He had grown grey in the service of the Khan, and had seen much in his day; being by disposition a not ill-natured man, burdened furthermore with the cares of a numerous family, he never displayed punching and kicking zeal beyond the limits of real necessity, save in those cases when men in authority happened to be near. Stepping softly on the precious carpets, he went up to the money-changer.

“Take your horses, merchant, and go home in peace; you have nothing to do here: they will have troubles enough of their own now.”

Prodding him gently in the back of his neck with his fist—very gently, and only as a matter of duty, seeing that his superiors were not looking on—the guard propelled him down the steps, handed his horses over to him, gave him two junior guards as an escort, and sent him home. Then he returned to the dais to deal in a like manner with the soothsayer.

But Khoja Nasreddin was there no longer. He always managed to slip away unobserved. At that moment he was on the outer edge of the horse course, in the light shade of young mulberry-trees on the bank of a small aryk, which ran cheerfully over the white pebbles and the golden sand. The foliage whispered, the birds sang, a mouse ran past, a little fish gave a splash, and fleecy clouds sailed through the blue serenity of  {194}  the evening sky. Khoja Nasreddin bent eagerly over the water, refreshed his parched lips, washed himself, and pulled up his shirt and wiped his face, revelling in the cool touch of the wind on his bared belly. Then he looked back towards the field. There, upon the dais, as in hell's boiling cauldron, the seething passions continued to rage amid a confused medley of coloured robes, gleaming medals, plates, and sabres, and the tumult of mutual recrimination, which sounded none the less furious for being muffled by distance. Khoja Nasreddin smiled, fingered the heavy purse in his girdle, and with a leisurely swinging stride, the wantoning wind and the twittering birds his companions, he pursued his way along the bank of the aryk, following in the wake of the merry babbling water.

The bag with his soothsaying stock-in-trade became burdensome. On the way he came across a small stagnant pool surrounded by old trees, from the rank depths of which there issued a heavy odour of decay. No sooner did Khoja Nasreddin enter its shade than the gnats began whining and humming around him, attacking his perspiring face, his neck and exposed chest in stinging swarms. Selecting an old mulberry-tree with gnarled twisted branches and a large hollow gaping darkly beneath its crown, Khoja Nasreddin thrust his bag into the hollow and kneaded it down with his fist to make doubly sure. With unencumbered hands and lightened heart, he sat down upon the moss-grown roots humped above the ground. Waving his arms to drive off the gnats, he said to the mulberry-tree, “Mind you do not talk, old man. You are the only one in this city who knows where the Grand Soothsayer from the Bridge of the Beheaded has disappeared to.” A more trustworthy guardian of his secret Khoja Nasreddin could scarcely have found; this was the gloomiest and most taciturn of all the oldsters who dwelt round the pool, and deep  {195}  down in his timbered soul he felt naught but utter contempt for humans, he who had been standing there long and secure on his own lawful place, his roots sunk deep into the earth, fearing neither cold nor tempest, and not chasing about the world as some people did, without sense or reason, finding heart's ease nowhere.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

This conversation with old mulberry closed yet another memorable page in Khoja Nasreddin's book of being. All that he had planned had fulfilled itself, the money-changer's leathern bag had been opened to him, the purse containing the ten thousand tangas lay in his girdle, a pleasantly heavy companion to the other and lesser purse given him by the grandee. Now, one would suppose, he had full right to think of rest—but new cares were already crowding down upon him.

We shall not describe in detail Khoja Nasreddin's next day—suffice it to say that he was buying. He bought everything that caught his eye of things dear to the heart of a child: silk little robes, boots with coloured tassels, shoes, dresses, toys, sweetmeats, strings of beads and silver little rings. He was accompanied through the bazaar by the one-eyed thief, who staggered under the weight of a big sack; when the sack was full to the top the thief carried it away to an empty house in a by-street adjoining the bazaar, and when he returned he found another sack, already half-full, awaiting him.

This buying continued till late in the evening. The one-eyed thief was utterly exhausted, dragging the sacks about. At length, the drums began to beat, a last flurry swept through the bazaar, and under the hot low-spreading beams of the setting sun, all over the vast dusty expanse of the market-place, from the Horse Fair  {196}  in the north to the Chinese suburb in the south, could be heard the clatter of the heavy shutters being lowered over the counters, and the multi-keyed ring of tuneful brass locks; the crowds thinned, the camels and arbas moved off to their resting places for the night, the caravanserais opened their gates wide before them, and the innumerable chaikhanas and cook-shops filled the air with trailing layers of acrid smoke, tinged with gold by the sun on top and reeking grey-blue underneath.

Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief shouldered the last two sacks and bent their steps towards the house. The bunch of little silver rings, which Khoja Nasreddin had bought at the last moment when the drums were already beating, he carried in his hands, shaking it from time to time to cheer the ear with the merry tinkle of silver, which was so refreshing after the noise of the bazaar.

It should be remembered that all this happened on the eve of Father Turakhon's Day. The street was agog with festive excitement and bustle. Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed kept meeting little dwellers of the earth aged eight, nine and ten, who dashed out of their gates with mysterious preoccupied faces and eyes bright with anxious animation, each bound on some urgent and important errand of his own—one to procure coloured threads with which to hang up the skullcaps, another to perform some good deed which he had missed doing that day. And deeply preoccupied though they all were, none forgot to salute our wayfarers in passing and to bid them in a ringing voice:

“Good evening, how do you do. May success attend all your affairs tomorrow! Could we help you to carry those bags?”

“Thank you!” Khoja Nasreddin answered. “May success attend your affairs this night, and may all your  {197}  hopes and expectations be fulfilled. As for these bags, how can you carry them when each one is big enough to hold three of you little fellows? However, you can accompany us, and in the eyes of Father Turakhon, I assure you, that will be just as good as your having carried them.”

The children greeted his words with delight and accompanied him. Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed arrived at the house amid a boisterous crowd of children, barefoot and booted, shaved of head and pig-tailed, snub-nosed and straight-nosed, freckled and smooth, black, fair, red-haired, and of every other kind. Here the bunch of silver little rings came in useful. There were enough to go round, and two were left dangling on the thread.

“Be sure and put those rings in the skull-caps that you are going to hang up this night,” Khoja Nasreddin admonished the children. “It will be a sign to Turakhon that you have helped in the carrying of the bags.”

Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief spent the rest of that day in the empty house among the goods—little boots and robes, sweetmeats and toys—which were piled up on the floor. Here they supped in the faint amber-pink glow of sunset.

Night descended. None save the moon, riding the sky with a broad hazy ring around it, saw aught of their subsequent doings. Bent ‘beneath the weight of their bags, they crept out into the quiet deserted street, which lay magically transformed in the moonlight with its soft-blue mistiness, its ripple of running water, and its deep shadows forming mysterious passages in the walls and fences, from which it seemed as if Turakhon himself would step out at any moment, or Caliph Harun-al-Rashid would come forth in his double-sided  {198}  cloak, ragged and beggarly outside, but with a regal lining sewn with gems underneath.

Many a time they returned to the house eased of their burdens, empty sacks in their hands, and went forth once more, bent beneath the weight of full ones.

Wickets, left unlocked that night according to the custom, creaked softly on their hinges.

Now and again the one-eyed could be heard whispering with annoyance:

“Where can they have hidden their skull-caps, those little devils who dwell beneath this roof? Wait, I shall have a look at the bottom of the vineyard.” , The skull-caps would be discovered in some snug secluded nook; some had silver little rings gleaming in their depths, and in these Khoja Nasreddin would add an extra lump of khalva to his presents as a reward for the sack-carrying.

May's nights are short, and the goods which they had prepared were many. They had to carry them without rest and to move fast.

By the time they got to the widow's little yard it was already daybreak—the mist was lifting.

The last few sacks were taken round at a run with ever and a while a backward glance at the enkindling east, whence—from beyond the mountains and seas—there came, in a crown of rubies and a cloak of sunshine, a new radiant day.

They managed it just in time. They finished their round in a clean-swept tidy garden, in an outlying little street, from which they had to flee by jumping over the wall, because some impatient little fellow, tumbling out of his bed before the proper time, had almost caught them at his skull-cap. Sitting with pounding hearts among the dew-drenched burdocks on the other side of the fence, they heard the rapturous cries of that early little bird, who, in a single minute, roused the quiet  {199}  sleepy little street to wakeful life. Before the fresh breath of dawn the haze melted from the lofty sky above them, and its blue depths stood out ever more clear and intense, while the burdocks stretched forth their palmate leaves with large dewdrops trembling upon them, like the rough hands of pearl-fishers showing the trophies of the sea.

They returned by the same streets, this time greeted by the sun's beams, which glided towards them lightly and coolly. From all the houses on their way they heard cries of joy. “O blessed night!” said the one-eyed. “O greatest night of my life!” As for Khoja Nasreddin, he swayed on his feet with fatigue.

The house which they had hired was a good distance away, and meanwhile some of the chaikhanas had already opened; their sleepy-eyed keepers, stretching and yawning, kindled the fires in the hearths, and shook out the carpets and mats.

“What need have we to return to that house when it is now empty?” said Khoja Nasreddin, turning off into one of the chaikhanas.

The keeper greeted them with a special salutation, as being the first and earliest visitors to make a handsel. He served them fragrant tea and spread two soft blankets for them in a dark corner.

Khoja Nasreddin reclined upon them, saying:

“If Father Turakhon gets so tired every time, it is no wonder that he sleeps a whole year after it!”

“And I was thinking of the cutting that I planted at the tomb,” said the one-eyed. “What think you—has it. taken root or not?”

Khoja Nasreddin returned no answer. He was fast asleep, was that merry wayfarer, who was able to make his home wherever he could lay his head. Within a minute the one-eyed, too, was asleep. Neither the long-drawn creaking noises of the arbas trundling towards  {200}  the bazaar nor the bells of the camel caravans passing the chaikhana, neither the deafening shouts of the sheep flock drivers nor the vociferous cries of the water-carriers and bread-cake vendors, multitudes of whom poured out upon the road from all corners, gates and bystreets—nothing could disturb their deep sleep. Meanwhile all round the chaikhana and above it the air was a blazing, sparkling, molten mass, and the earth sailed out of the cool backwaters of morning into the hot sunny ocean.

They slept long, oblivious of the tingling excitement which had seized both adults and children in the houses of the neighbourhood. People showed one another the gifts of Turakhon, marvelling and whispering. What explanation could they find for so wonderful and astonishing an event, which had touched not just one or two houses, but some hundreds at once? There could not be aught save one explanation, a touchingly simple one suggested to them by the faith of their fathers: it was all true, then, bismillah rahman rahim! Verily, good Father Turakhon was a man of God ‘and immortal was his name!

Vast and incalculable to the world were the consequences of that night. Haply the echo of it lives in the hearts of many people to this day unbeknown to them. That night many a man in Kokand recovered his faith in the existence of goodness upon earth, for what action could compare with this in sublimity?

Great were the whisperings and excitement in the city. Silent timid joy reigned in the little house of the widow. The three sons of the poor widow had each found a thousand pieces of gold in his skull-cap in addition to the rich presents laid out on the ground in three heaps and carefully covered with bits of cloth against the dew (the care of the one-eyed thief). What could the poor woman think, what could she say? She said nothing, she thought nothing—she only wept and  {201}  believed. Life seemed to have drawn from before her its dark heavy veil of despair, which was riven asunder by a broad dazzling beam of hope, help and kind sympathy. The grown-ups wondered at the night's events, but not so the children, who had not expected anything else from their old friend and protector. They had no need to strengthen within them their faith in goodness, for that faith, given to them together with the breath of life, had not yet been shaken within them, undermined by specious reasoning, and it shone in their hearts with pristine virginity. They gathered together in the gardens, dancing in a ring upon the soft silky grass, and singing in resonant young voices their song of thanksgiving:

To the accompaniment of this song, which sounded on every side, Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief departed from Kokand at a quiet evening hour.

They went forth in search of the mountain lake, of which Khoja Nasreddin had not been able to learn anything while in Kokand.

The ass stepped forth blithely—during all this time he had shared none of his master's cares. Sitting in the saddle, Khoja Nasreddin complained to the one-eyed:

“He has become as fat as a barrel again. Soon I shall not he able to ride him at all. I shall have to sell him to a Kirghiz with bandy legs.”  {202} 

The song behind them ceased not for a moment; it ran on without end from one singing chorus to another, from one little garden to another:

They passed the palace square with its underground prison, over whose three air-holes hung a reeking malodorous cloud, and passed also the Bridge of the Beheaded. Khoja Nasreddin raised himself in his saddle with his two hands to obtain a last glimpse of the soothsayers. The niche of the Grand Soothsayer was still empty, but around the niche of the skinny old man signs of great grovelling activities were in evidence. The famous greased skull gleamed bonily from afar.

Khoja Nasreddin, sitting in the saddle with his feet raised high, and the one-eyed, walking barefoot with his trousers tucked up, waded through the turbulent icy Sai, which was steeped in sunshine down to the very riverbed with its variegated litter of pebbles and round little boulders; coming out on the opposite bank they were greeted by the familiar tune:

“Are we to go past without visiting the tomb, without glancing at my plant?”

Truth to tell, Khoja Nasreddin had no great desire to visit the tomb; he feared lest the sight of the perished plant should act depressingly upon the one-eyed and weaken the shoots of faith that had just been strengthened in his soul. Unable for the moment to think of a plausible excuse, he was perforce obliged to go.

They turned off towards the elms, which grew darkly and thickly green on the right, and presently found themselves within their cool dense shade.

The one-eyed walked along in silence, sighing. His inner perturbation communicated itself to Khoja Nasreddin; although he knew that no miracles existed, he, too, felt within his bosom a strange heat that caused him to tremble.

Not for nothing had he felt that heat! The sight of a large sturdy bush covered with luxuriant vivid roses growing outside the tomb made him start.

With a great cry the one-eyed fell down almost insensible upon the stone steps of the tomb, weeping copious tears.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The keeper of the tomb was the same old man in the same indescribable robe, which seemed to have been sewn from the strips of stuff and ribbons which the worshippers brought to adorn the tomb of their beloved saint. He knew the wayfarers as soon as he saw them.

“How did you manage to get through—are there no barriers upon the roads? It is said that there is a tumult in the city in connection with the name of Turakhon.”

“He who has need can always pass. What barriers  {204}  can hold him?” said Khoja Nasreddin, pointing to his companion, who had prostrated himself before the entrance into the tomb.

The old man moved up closer and whispered, shaking with inward laughter:

“Do you remember my telling you that the plant would take root for certain this time? Was I not right?”

He seemed to have grown younger; bent, dark and aged though he was, a strange inner light shone through his eyes, which were so limpid that no dark thought, it seemed, could ever be concealed behind them.

“You old fox!” said Khoja Nasreddin. “I know all your artifices and cunning! Where did you get such a magnificent rose bush, and how did you manage to dig it out without damaging the roots?”

“It cost me no little labour. But what can I do with my old heart—it would have broken with compassion if that man had found his plant dried and withered once more. So I decided to perform a little miracle.”

“You have performed not a little miracle but a great one, for only by such miracles does the world exist,” answered Khoja Nasreddin.

The one-eyed rose and entered the tomb.

“Let them pray together,” said the old man.

“Together? Is there someone else there?”

“A woman, a widow, I believe. Mad. Says that Father Turakhon gave her children a present of three thousand pieces of gold, besides other odds and ends. So she has come to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving. Doubtlessly she dreamt it. . . .”

“Old man, blaspheme not! I have just arrived from the city and can solemnly swear that there is not a word of falsehood in her story. When will you learn to believe in miracles, you who daily contemplate them and even perform them yourself!”  {205} 

“If that is the case, then I believe!” muttered the old man, looking somewhat disconcerted under the steady gaze of Khoja Nasreddin. “Haply Turakhon does go abroad at night when I am asleep? Haply he has even looked into my own cell?”

“He has looked deeper—he has looked into your heart and left there for ever his beneficent mark.”

The old man became thoughtful and sat for a long time in utter silence, gazing with misted eyes into the soft cooling blue depths above the dome of the tomb where the busy turtle-doves, full of care for their nestlings, flew hither and thither with a silken rustle of wings.

“The widow, in her gratitude towards Turakhon, has taken a solemn vow to adopt an orphan, a fourth son.”

“Another miracle!” exclaimed Khoja Nasreddin. “Now you see with your own eyes how one good deed performed in this world begets a second, and the second begets a third, and so without end. Great is the power of goodness, and only goodness is destined to triumph upon earth!”

“That is so,” whispered the old man. “After meeting you I gave long thought to your words and have recognized their indisputable veracity. But hasten not to blame me for my past errors, for they were the fruit of a great pain. Allah has given me a compassionate heart: the sight of suffering causes me greater pain than anyone else. I can find no sanctuary from the tears of the unfortunate and the moans of the wronged. There was a time when I succeeded for several years in hiding myself from the ruthless evil of life in a quiet and secluded village, where I served as keeper of a mountain lake, whose waters irrigated the surrounding fields. Blessed years! My anguished old heart found surcease there for a while. But soon evil overtook me there; it  {206}  appeared in the shape of the new proprietor of the lake, a man by the name of Agabek. He was a monster, who combined within himself the ferocity of a dragon and the pitilessness of a spider, as though he were conceived not in the womb of a woman, but in the foulest depths of evil, like a poisonous fungus produced by wood damp. . . .”

“Stay, old man, stay!” cried Khoja Nasreddin, whose heart had jumped into his throat, stopping his breath. “Agabek did you say? The owner of a mountain lake? Is it not the one who imposed an extortionate tax on the villagers for the use of irrigation water?”

At that moment he resembled a huntsman, who had long been tracking the soft-footed spotted leopard in the rocky gorges and already despaired of finding him, when suddenly he perceived the beast's tracks in the wet sand by an icy turbulent stream—fresh tracks that had not dried yet in the air.

“The very same,” the old man said with a sigh. “So you have heard of him?”

“Do you know from whom he bought that lake and how?”

“They say he won it at dice.”

Khoja Nasreddin had found Agabek!

Continuing the comparison, we could say that the huntsman had espied the leopard. His eye had caught the long yellow shadow slipping noiselessly through the thickets, and, amid the dancing sunbeams spangling the wind-blown leaves, had obtained a fleeting glimpse of other moving spots.

Khoja Nasreddin seized the old man's arm and seated him on the rug next to the smoking bonfire.

“Sit down, father! Sit down and tell me all about it. I must ask you many questions. Where is that lake, in what mountains? What does Agabek look like in  {207}  appearance? How old is he? Be not surprised at my agitation. Believe me, it is not caused by mere idle curiosity. Where does he come from, that Agabek? Where did he live before and what did he do?”

“Your questions fly like bees from the hive, they overwhelm me,” pleaded the old man. “Curb the steed of your impatience, put your questions to me one by one, so that I may answer them thoughtfully, weightily and without haste, as befits men of my age.”

It was once believed that a person who was being ill-spoken of behind his back experienced a tickling in the nose and sneezed uninterruptedly, although the conversation may have taken place far away from him. If so, Agabek must surely have sneezed at least fifty times in succession, even though all the doors and windows in his house were shut tight against the cold wind that blew from the mountains.

He was mistaken, was that accursed Agabek, for the wind of ill omen, the wind of retribution and requital, blew for him not from the mountain heights, but from the valley!

“Today is a lucky day!” rejoiced Khoja Nasreddin, when he had exhausted all his questions. “We have all received presents from Father Turakhon—the widow, my one-eyed companion, and myself. You alone have received no present, old man. But that must not be. Here!”

He slipped off his shoulders the new robe which he had received on coming out of the prison and dropped it in the old man's lap.

The old man thanked him, but refused to take it. Khoja Nasreddin forced him to accept the present.

“What will I do now with this extra robe?” the old man said perplexed, as, after arraying himself in the new robe, he surveyed his old ragged one, which, now that it was divested from his shoulders, resembled no  {208}  human raiment. “I daresay it would make a bed cover, or haply a pillow.”

“Let it make smoke,” said Khoja Nasreddin.

“Smoke?”

“Yes. Look how it is done.”

He took the ragged old robe and threw it into the fire. The wind came to his help, and thick black smoke curled upwards.

“That is that,” said Khoja Nasreddin, coughing and bending his head to the ground. “Look, what splendour, what colour, what acridity. It is not often you have a chance of seeing such smoke, still less of smelling it!”

The old man groaned and grunted regretfully, but he could do nothing now—the rags were burnt.

The wind wafted up the far-away song of the children:

Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief met the first star when they were well out of Kokand. Their path lay west towards the mountains, which loomed ahead, the broken line of their towering ridge sharply dividing the earth from the sky. It seemed as if a placid luminous ocean, tinged lilac-pink, had spread over the world with light cloudlets standing in it like enchanted islets, with sand-bars, bays and headlands, and with a solitary glacial-green star, quite a young one still, burning brightly like the light of a distant ship sailing in a pale mist.  {209} 

Darkness fell quickly; the luminous sea with its enchanted islands disappeared; myriads of stars poured out, and that first early one was lost amid them. Then the dome of heaven caught fire: the moon appeared, a huge red moon that was already on the wane; it sailed out over the mountains, and in its reddish glow the broken line of the ridge loomed once more against the sky.

The air grew fresh, night had come. Left without his robe, Khoja Nasreddin felt none too warm, and rose ever more often in the saddle to peer at the road ahead in the hope of seeing the twinkling light of a cosy country tavern.

Thus did the three of them start upon their new-journey—the ass, the one-eyed thief, and Khoja Nasreddin. But had we met them that night upon the dimly glinting stony road we might have fancied we saw a fourth invisible presence accompanying them on their long journey—Father Turakhon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

KERIM-ABDALLAH, the renowned dervish of Samarkand, who probed into the inner essence of people, taught that there were people of the nocturnal mist and people of the bright daylight. The former were ruled over by the moon, the latter by the sun. According to this famous dervish this distinction was determined by the time of a person's birth, which was either lunar or solar, and whichsoever of these two mutually antagonistic and hostile planets would be the first to enter the blood of the new-born infant with its rays, to that would he remain true till the end of his days. From the moon the blood of a man receives coolness, from the sun—heat and liveliness; correspondingly, the spiritual eye with which he encompasses the world about him is either lunar or solar. In the first case, it is dimmed by a mistiness that imparts to everything a touch of repose and sadness, when all things, even those that happen to be before his gaze at the moment, seem to him an echo from the past, as if he were living a second life which copied his first as in a dream; in the second case it is filled to overflowing with vivid victorious light in which everything is visible and distinct, living a life eternal—here nothing vanishes without leaving a trace, everything moves and stirs and sparkles like rainbow-hued  {213}  gems; here Life holds undivided sway, ceding nothing to night, keeping everything for itself, demanding every minute sacrifices from its chosen one to repay him a thousandfold with princely generosity; here unremitting effort of mind and a burning fervour of soul are demanded of a man. To live in such a seething torrent of dazzling light, movement and tumult is not easy, but then it is of great benefit to the soul in respect of those high rewards which Life bestows upon her devoted and faithful votaries; here there is no Yesterday, but always and unchangeably Today, there is no word “was,” but only “is”; to Death, therefore, whose domain is nothingness, all doors here are closed!

Khoja Nasreddin must have been born at high noon, when the sun's beams were directly overhead. His blood, fired by those beams, must have burned in him with an unquenchable flame. Hence, never in all his life had there been an occasion when he had overslept the noonday hour. It was as though the sun at that hour struck a resounding shield of brass and woke him; all his flame-filled blood would respond tempestuously to that call, surging through his veins, smiting his heart, and causing him to jump up, wide awake in a moment.

It was noon when he awoke in the chaikhana at the last village on this side of the mountains—farther on towards the pass there was no human habitation.

After partaking of a hasty meal he and the one-eyed thief continued on their way.

There are no roads in the mountains—only narrow trails for pack-animals; there are no wheels here in this domain of the pedestrian and the horseman. The trail twists and winds its way upwards, here and there almost doubling back in its own tracks, so that very often wayfarers, two hours’ journey removed from one another, freely exchange words with each other—one from above, the other from below. The valley with its  {214}  orchards, fields and villages sinks back into the mist; ahead looms the same changeless ridge, seemingly within arm's reach yet always so far away, broodingly dark below and white-tinged with lilac above, with great jagged clefts roughly torn out of the heavenly blue.

Sunrise found the narrow trail clinging to the brink of a precipice, running along a perilous ledge three cubits wide hanging over a yawning abyss. Everything was shrouded in an impenetrable mist. It seemed as if the earth had suddenly slipped away from under the travellers’ feet and swung over sideways, so that one could now only hang on to it by clinging to that ledge.

Khoja Nasreddin walked in the lead, followed by the ass, whose left side sometimes scraped the sheer cliff, with the one-eyed bringing up the rear. Behind them could be heard the ominous hiss of loosened gravel slipping into the abyss in a ceaseless trickle.

They continued along the edge of the precipice for the space of hours, after which the trail gradually widened, and the deadly chasm fell back towards the right, its whitish luring mist no longer causing their heads to spin. The earth had returned to under their feet. An icy torrent rushed headlong down its narrow bed; a swirling chaos of foam and stones rolled over the bottom with a booming noise. Here there began a winding descent: they had reached the mountain pass. The mist had lifted, and the sky shone blue overhead in such pristine beauty that one was reminded of the enchanted bird Humai. It was intensely blue, shining with an ineffable light—and into that blue immensity all Khoja Nasreddin's thoughts and feelings were engulfed as he lay face upwards on his outspread robe, lost to the world, his chest bared to the caress of the cool breeze.

They descended quickly, then struck a shepherd's trail that made a sharp drop through the stunted brushwood. The air grew thicker and hotter, redolent with  {215}  sunshine and honey, filled with the hum of bees and the chirr of grasshoppers. The descent became steeper, and the ass at times was obliged to squat on his haunches and slide down the trail, while Khoja Nasreddin, clutching a bush with one hand and holding the ass by its bridle with the other said:

“Careful, careful, otherwise you will rub yourself away and nothing but your head will reach the valley.”

It was an extremely difficult and arduous descent, but a short one. By noon they were on the waggon road leading to the village of Chorak—their point of destination. The wild rocky brown slopes had given place to green ones, upon which Kirghiz yurtas could be descried here and there, looking like great white birds that had alighted for a rest, and, between them, sprinklings of sheep flocks like coloured shells scattered about in handfuls.

At another bend the village came into view, and a little to one side of it, the lake.

Here was to be the scene of that single combat for the sake of which Khoja Nasreddin had quitted his home. Like the noble knights of ancient legends, who went forth into the mountains to engage twelve-headed dragons in mortal combat, so had Khoja Nasreddin come to the mountains—but his dragon was in human form, and in place of the mighty charger Tulpar the knight had under him a fat-bellied little ass. But he whose inward eye is capable of penetrating below the surface of things will not smile scornfully nor lay aside this book, for he understands that in whatsoever outward aspect the conflict of good and evil may take place, their battle is always pregnant with great significance, moulding the ultimate destinies of the world. That most inspired and upright of men, Ibn-Hakim, said in this respect, “There is not a single evil deed, nor a single good one that does not influence succeeding generations wheresoever and  {216}  whensoever it may have been performed—in a palace or in a hovel, in the north or in the south, before witnesses or not; in like manner, no deeds, whether good or evil, are trivial or unimportant for it is from the totality of small causes that great effects arise.”

The village was a small one of about a hundred and fifty households, as Khoja Nasreddin estimated with a glance at the smiling green orchards and vineyards, and the yellow roofs with the curling wisps of smoke above them—it was the dinner hour. The white road—the same one upon which they were standing—plunged into this green sea and lost itself, but the winding ridge of tall poplars sentinelling the road on either side enabled one to follow all its turns as far as the other end of the village, where it reappeared and ran on again, first into the field, then, over the undulating slopes, into the valley. Beyond the poplars could be seen a low minaret. It was time for the call to midday prayers, but the muezzin must have been very old and impotent of voice, for his voice did not carry to where they were.

Khoja Nasreddin's gaze travelled to the lake; it lay in an oval-shaped hollow, that resembled the impress left by an egg in the sand; the far bank was stony and bare, while the near bank adjoining the orchards was covered with a rank green overgrowth above which towered the dark dense crowns of old elm-trees. Two living sparkling veins ran down to the lake from above—two mountain streams—and below only one vein ran out of it—the dark dried bed of an irrigation aryk that carried the water into the fields. Between the lake and the village, standing apart from the other gardens, was a large green orchard enclosed within a high wall, in the shady depths of which lay buried a house—the dragon's lair, Agabek's dwelling.  {217} 

“So here we are,” said the one-eyed thief.

“Let us sit,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “We must talk things over.”

A cold spring gushed from a fissure in the rocks near the roadside, and above it stood a solitary young poplar with fluttering leaves, which had grown here upon the rocks by a sort of miracle. It was surrounded below by tough clinging burdocks, while all around lay spread a bright green carpet of grass—there was not a chink or crevice in the rocks wherefrom it did not peep out, lush, vivid, emerald-tinted, a testimony to the indestructible power of Living Life, which everywhere and always triumphs over dead stones. The ass stood in the grass, flicking his tail, the tasseled tuft of which, thick with sticking burrs, had been turned into an ugly prickly lump.

“Whenever did you manage to collect them?” Khoja Nasreddin said reproachfully, catching the tail.

The one-eyed, who had taken upon himself the care of the ass during this journey, took forth from within his bosom a wooden currycomb and fell to dressing the tufted tassel and picking the burrs out of it.

“’Tis a pity that this is a lake and not a smaller thing that could be stolen,” he said wistfully when he had imparted to the ass's tail a semblance of decency. “After my last visit to the tomb I feel within me a great capacity for good deeds to the glory of merciful Turakhon, and am possessed by a violent zeal of performance.”

“Good deeds, forsooth,” said Khoja Nasreddin, “yet the thoughts of them all incline towards theft. Even a lake makes you think of stealing, nothing else.”

“Haply we should kneel before Agabek? Perchance he will graciously give it to us himself?”

“Precisely. He will give it to us himself. Look.”

Khoja Nasreddin pointed to the burdock thickets.  {218}  The thief bent down and saw a big spider gorging on a yellow butterfly. It was repulsive beyond words, was that spider, with its jointed legs covered with reddish hairs, the brown cross on its spine, and its round belly—smooth, taut, and whitish, as if filled with pus. The thing was all over already: all that remained on the web was an empty husk with dead dangling wings, while the bloated spider crawled away into its hiding-place beneath a burdock leaf, and there it lurked with the trap-line pressed between its short forepaws.

“Do you understand?” said Khoja Nasreddin.

“What is there to understand? A spider has devoured a butterfly, that is all.”

“Look now.”

Taking off his skull-cap and holding it ready in his hand, Khoja Nasreddin searched among the burdocks; several times he took aim, but nothing came of it, and he renewed his search; at last he found what he wanted. He pounced swiftly and covered his prey with his skullcap, from under which came a deep-toned angry buzz.

It was a hornet, a powerful magnificent hornet. Not one of your young and inexperienced hornets, but a full-grown specimen in the prime of life, well-stocked with poison, with a long yellow-black striped body, a veritable winged tiger! Using a bent twig as tweezers Khoja Nasreddin picked the brilliant hornet out of his skullcap and stood admiring it for a long time, turning it this way and that; the hornet buzzed furiously, beating its darkly transparent wings, gnawing viciously at the twig and twisting its body, now and then showing its terrible sting, the force of whose blow is comparable only to that of the scorpion.

“What do you want with it?” asked the thief. “Haply to drop into Agabek's trousers?”

Khoja Nasreddin returned him no answer. He took an old web, abandoned by its master, off a bush, and  {219}  swathed the hornet in it to fetter its wings; the buzzing ceased, whereupon he carefully laid his captive on the web belonging to the repulsive spider.

The web sagged and began to vibrate with the hornet's furious struggles to free itself. The trap-line shook. The spider darted out from under the burdock leaf. Such prey had probably never been caught in his web before. Belly upwards, like a mountain hunter crossing a gulf by a rope, the spider swiftly and dexterously climbed up to the web by means of the trap-line, and flew up to his captive. How he rejoiced, how he exulted as he fussed around the hornet, entangling it with his sticky threads! At last his victim was strongly secured, and he could now have his meal; thrusting out his predacious jaws, he crawled towards his prey, his smooth taut belly quivering in anticipation. “What a fat butterfly I have caught this time!” He straddled his victim and was about to sink his fangs into it, when the hornet, wriggling free, suddenly twisted over, and struck. A streak of black lightning seemed to shoot out of its longish body with a short hiss. It struck with deadly force, inevitable as doom! It broke away and pierced the spider from his quivering belly to the dark cross on his spine, leaving all its poison in his body.

Stunned by the blow, the spider hung limp upon the web, then one by one his feet detached themselves and he dropped to the ground. He squirmed feebly once or twice, twitched his hairy jointed limbs, then lay still for ever.

The web became desolate.

The hornet struggled free from its fetters, spread its wings and soared into sunny space with a trumpetlike jubilant song, leaving behind a valorous memento of itself in the shape of a rent web and the stiffening corpse of a foe.  {220} 

“Now I understand,” said the one-eyed, following the brave one's flight with his eyes.

They fell to discussing their further course of action. It was decided that they would enter the village separately, and if they chanced to meet in the chaikhana or some other place they were to pretend that they did not know each other. No further plans were made beyond this; circumstances themselves would determine their conduct.

Khoja Nasreddin tightened the girth of his saddle, mounted his ass, and started him off towards the green mass of gardens below by a customary flick between the ears.

The one-eyed thief remained by the spring.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The villagers of Chorak only too well remembered those blessed days when the lake—the sole source of life for their fields—had belonged not to Agabek, but to a notable Namanganian of ample wealth and as ample, frivolity, who had never once troubled to journey to the mountains to view his property. This rich man had chosen for himself upon earth the path of luxury, pleasure and diversion (he was still far-removed then from the sublime wisdom of the Silent and the Sapient); the lake was managed on his behalf by a stranger, a man grey with age, who beguiled his time by lying in the chaikhana ruefully discussing the imperfections of this world. He charged a very moderate fee for irrigation, and let the poorest have water on trust, merely admonishing them, “Now do not forget.” He did not like to overburden his memory with such vain trifles, and kept no records, and after the harvesting in the autumn, was content with whatsoever the villagers gave him, fully trusting to the conscience of his debtors. To his master  {221}  in Namangan he would send three hundred tangas one year, and still less or nothing at all another year, having expended the money partly on himself, partly on various widows, orphans and other unfortunates, who were for ever besieging him. In all fairness it should be said that he made all these donations in the name of his master, and always gave his name, and not his own, for the thanksgiving prayers that were offered up by the grateful. The rich man in Namangan, on receiving a letter from Chorak enclosing the paltry sum of three hundred tangas together with a long list of beneficiaries who were praying for him, would exclaim before his friends with a laugh, “Verily my lake keeper must think me an arrant sinner to show such unremitting solicitude for the salvation of my soul!”

And so life flowed on in Chorak, far removed from the world's storms and alarms, as if rolling over a smooth road without bumps or jolts; year after year passed over like airy cloudlets across the snow-capped heights; noisy weddings were celebrated, children were born, the aged moved out to the cemetery, and their places of honour in the chaikhana were taken by others, with beards just as long, which had whitened without their owners noticing it. Such is ever the case when life is quiet and monotonous—each separate day is endlessly long, but the months and the years fly past with incredible speed; before you can look round a year has gone, before you have time to cut down an old withered poplar that had long been an eyesore to you, three years have passed, and the poplar, as likely as not, will be knocked over by a wind, damaging the garden wall to boot, which will now have to be repaired—and that, too, is a long job that will take months to do. Meanwhile, the silver in your beard and at your temples is increasing day by day, and the cemetery-keeper now greets you with exquisite politeness, and has more than once, in a  {222}  roundabout fashion, intimated that he has an excellent place in his cemetery which not even such a personage as the headman would scorn, and that it was advisable to plant a young plane-tree there in good season, so that it could make itself at home at the cemetery and strengthen its roots in the ground.

It seemed as if the dark powers of evil had forgotten the way to Chorak; nothing disturbed the beneficent trend of village life. The hollow sheltered it from the winds, the destructive floods occasioned by torrential rains in the mountains did not damage its fields, pestilence of the cattle passed it by on the side, and locusts, if they did appear at all, passed high overhead to other places. Its gorgeous flaming sunsets filled the whole sky, and in fading, left a soft pink glow upon the snowy summits. In the peaceful hush of evening the call of the muezzin from the minaret, ever the same, ever sad and sweetly exalted, carried far through the spacious misty fields and the dew-laden gardens. Came night, with its blue lustre, throbbing with the ecstatic song of the nightingale, and filled with the murmurs of the nocturnal wind, which were echoed by the sighs of lovers in the sleeping gardens.

But all too true, albeit grievous to the heart, are the words of that long-suffering wanderer Shehid of Balkh: “Summer is followed by autumn, bright day by dark night, and him who reclines upon the couch of fortune there awaits the abyss of woe.” Woe had come to Chorak; it had come in the shape of Agabek, the new proprietor of the lake.

On that same serene noonday, when Khoja Nasreddin and the one-eyed thief were resting by the spring, admiring from above the peaceful loveliness of Chorak's gardens, an unheard-of tumult reigned in the village. All the men had gathered in the chaikhana, and the women clamoured in the yards.  {223} 

That morning Agabek had named the price of the second spring irrigation; it was not money he wanted now; he was set on marrying, and had demanded for his wife dark-eyed little Zulna, the daughter of that most esteemed and venerable farmer Mamed-Ali. Confounded by such a demand, the old men of Chorak had refused Agabek's condition, whereat he had smiled, saying, in that case let them pay the sum of four thousand tangas.

Four thousand! All Chorak's inhabitants together never possessed so much money. The old men had stood before Agabek pleading half the day; they had looked so pitiful, so woebegone in their old homespun robes and coarse rust-coloured boots, with their white beards and dark seamed faces, their bent backs, and gnarled hands folded upon their stomachs as a sign of humility. But Agabek was adamant: it was either Zulfia or four thousand tangas.

With this news the old men had returned to the chaikhana.

What a storm of indignation and wrath had arisen! It was as if a searing hot wind had suddenly blown into their faces, causing fists to clench, faces to darken, and eyes to gleam with an ugly light. It seemed as if, in another minute, they would all rise up, seize pitchforks, axes, and mattocks, and go forth to carry Agabek's lair by assault and raze it to the ground!

But that did not happen. The storm had raged and passed without causing Agabek the slightest injury. Every man had in his veins a drop of unheroic sanity, which got the better of him. To one it said, “But it is not thy sister that Agabek is demanding!” to another it whispered, “Allah be praised, my daughter is not in danger!” and to a third it counselled, “Take care of thine own bride-to-be and meddle not in things that do not concern thee.” Men's wrath quickly petered out, the fire  {224}  that was kindled in their hearts died out, fists unclenched, shoulders drooped, and backs bent. Had Agabek appeared near the chaikhana at that moment, they all would have made the same servile salaam to him as they had made yesterday.

Mamed-Ali, the father of Zulfia, was sitting on the dais of the chaikhana, staring at the ground with his brows drawn together in a sorrowful line.

All were waiting upon his word. Their very silence was a verdict of submission. But none broke the silence; each desired that word to come from someone else, while he would merely acquiesce with a compressing of the lips and a sorrowful sigh, as though yielding reluctantly to someone else's decision—a time-honoured method of deceiving one's conscience. Of Mamed-Ali it was required that he should both make the sacrifice and take upon himself the sin thereof. He had no choice but to submit.

In the far dark corner crouched Said, Zulfia's betrothed. He was quite young, of an age when men, even those possessed of inner strength, are not yet able to parry the blows of fate when those blows strike at the heart; he knew that five, ten or fifteen minutes might pass, but in the end old Mamed-Ali was bound to utter the fateful word; this youth was not one of those who, turning away faint-heartedly when life shows her fangs, prefer to be devoured from behind.

The silence dragged. No longer able to contain himself, the youth stepped forth from the shadows into the light.

“Why are you all silent? Who will be the first to kiss the boot of Agabek?” he cried, then turning to Mamed-Ali, “And you, old man! Not so long ago you promised to welcome me into your house as a son—where is your promise?”

“What can we do, what can we do, Said,” whispered  {225}  Mamed-Ali. “We are weak, and he is rich and powerful.”

“You are not weak, you are cowardly! Craven rabbits—that is what you are!”

There was such anguish in his voice that Mamed-Ali was not able to keep his eyes dry.

The other old men, however, were hurt and offended.

“Do you hear!” exclaimed Umar, the blacksmith, a tall gaunt man with a sallow face and shaggy eyebrows. “Do you hear how he shames us! Wretched waif, you, without kith or kin!”

Said was an orphan who had been adopted by Safar, the keeper of the chaikhana in Chorak—and it was this circumstance the blacksmith was reminding him of.

“Thank you, son, thank you—and this is your gratitude!” said Yarmat, the horse leech.

“So this is how you repay us for all the good we have done you, for having picked you up as an orphan and raised you in our village!” added Alim, the wool-beater.

In all justice it should be said that it was Safar, the chaikhana-keeper, who had found Said, it was Safar who had also fed him and raised him, while all the others had had nothing whatsoever to do with the affair and had not spared a brass farthing for the poor little orphan; but when he had grown up everyone hastened to declare himself the boy's saviour, and on those grounds demanded gratitude from him. He bore all this patiently and in silence, while inwardly cursing the circumstances that caused him thus to humble himself.

What answer could he now return these old men, by what arguments could he hope to shake their decision when one and all were faced with ruin, with the need for selling their horses, sheep or cows unless Zulfia entered the house of Agabek.

With a gesture of despair, looking at no one, Said  {226}  went out of the chaikhana through a small back door that led into an alley.

Here he was alone; the stony road glinted in the sunshine and his short noonday shadow rolled along it under his feet like a boy's woollen ball; the blank walls and fences were mute; Said drew a painful sigh, clenched his teeth and laughed such a queer, mirthless, blood-freezing laugh that had anyone heard it he would have paled and muttered a hurried prayer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

In the meantime Khoja Nasreddin had passed the gardens of Chorak upon his ass and entered the village. He rode in not by way of the main road, but through a by-lane, into which he had unthinkingly drifted in his search for shade against the torrid heat. Little did he think that he had chosen the one and only path by which he could enter Chorak if he were to come in time to avert a terrible affair and have an unexpected encounter that was to have an important influence upon the whole course of subsequent events.

As he rode past a half-ruined wall, he saw through a gap in it a neglected little garden. There, in the depths, praying aloud next to an old tree-stump knelt a fair youth, stripped to the waist. A long shepherd's knife secured in a crevice of the stump, stuck out point upwards behind him. The sunbeams struck a shower of blinding sparks from the broad blade. “O All-Mighty Merciful Allah, forgive Thy abject slave this sin of voluntary death!” the youth was saying. “May I be the dust of your veil in Paradise. To remain upon earth? Too great is my affliction, too overwhelming my grief. O Heavenly Father, punish me not too severely: scant of joys has my whole life been, and now I am losing my last and only joy.”  {227} 

Perceiving the state of affairs, Khoja Nasreddin reined in his ass, dismounted, crept noiselessly towards the youth, pulled the knife out of the crevice in which it was securely lodged, and sat down upon the tree-stump to await further events.

The youth, having finished his prayers, rose from his knees, shut his eyes tight, drew a deep breath, as though he were about to dive, and flung himself straight upon the stump.

He had calculated correctly, and but for Khoja Nasreddin, the deadly blade would have pierced his heart. Instead, he butted Khoja Nasreddin in the stomach, and lay still, believing himself already dead, with arms dangling and fingers touching the ground. A minute passed, then another. . . .

“How long are you going to lie like this?” inquired Khoja Nasreddin.

The sound of a human voice astonished the youth. He had been prepared to hear hereafter naught save the voices of angels. He started and looked up, and his astonishment increased at the sight of the anything but angelic face that bent over him—a sunburnt, dusty face with a black little beard and bright merry eyes.

“Where am I and who are you?” the youth asked in a faint voice.

“Where you are? In the everlasting abode, of course, whither you were so anxious to depart. And I am the chief executioner of the hereafter, into whose hands all such young madmen as you are delivered to be dealt with according to their deserts.”

The youth now comprehended everything; instead of gratitude, Khoja Nasreddin heard words of bitter reproach.

“Wherefore, O wherefore did you save my life! There is no room for me upon this earth, not a single paltry  {228}  crumb of happiness—nothing but afflictions, sufferings, and losses!”

“How do you know what life has in store for you?” Khoja Nasreddin checked him. “I am forty-five years old, and still do not know a single thing about it. To address reproaches to life at your age is sheer blasphemy. Tell me, what has befallen you? Haply I may be able to help you.”

“No one can help me.”

“That is untrue. So long as a man lives he can always be helped. Confide in me. Acquaint me with your story.”

“Are you Harun-el-Rashid to be able to give me four thousand tangas, without which I cannot save my happiness?”

“Have you diced it away?”

“Aggravate not my woes with your mockery, O stranger!”

“Mockery? Nay, youth, I may have laughed -at my own woes, but never at those of my fellow-creatures! I am simply perplexed in my mind as to what you want with four thousand tangas.”

“I love a damsel. . . .”

“I understand. She is from a rich family, and her cruel father desires of you the bride price.”

“Her father desires naught of me and wishes us mutual happiness with all his heart. But Agabek, the master of the lake, has interfered in this affair.”

“Agabek!” exclaimed Khoja Nasreddin in a voice of thunder such as startled the youth. “Agabek has interfered, say you! Then thank Allah for our encounter, youth, an encounter that will be the means of your deliverance. Tell me your story.”

His heart burned high within him, he was spoiling for a fight. Never having once seen Agabek, he was stirred to a fierce joy by the very name. And he was  {229}  rejoiced to feel his forty-five years no more than a word, and the silver threads in his hair and beard no more than an illusion.

Having heard out Said's story respecting the events already known to us, Khoja Nasreddin asked quickly:

“How many days remain until the irrigation?”

“Ten.”

“We still have time. Grieve not, your matchless damsel shall not belong to Agabek. If be has meddled in this affair, then so shall I!”

Said wondered greatly at this curious stranger, but at the same time he felt his heart go out towards him.

“Forgive me my unseemly doubts, but after this irrigation there will be another, and after that still another. And Agabek will demand my betrothed once more, or four thousand tangas, if not more.”

“Think you that I have come hither to pay this Agabek of yours four thousands tangas for each irrigation, if not more? Nay, I have come here with other intentions quite the opposite. All this is of the future, however, and meanwhile let us make a compact. The first condition is that no one shall know of our meeting and our conversation. As to your beauteous and ravishing Saadat or Fatima—whatever her name is. . . .”

“Zulfia,” whispered the youth.

“As to your beauteous Zulfia, seeing that you will tell her in any case, warn her that this is no trifling matter, and let her bite her pink, and, I am sure beforehand, sufficiently long tongue. The second condition. . . .”

At this point, however, he perceived through a gap in the wall behind Said's back, his one-eyed companion, who was making secret signs to him with his hands.

“The second condition I shall tell you anon, and now sit here and do not look round.”

The youth obeyed the command implicitly and did not look round once, although he was consumed with  {230}  curiosity. “With whom is that mysterious stranger conversing and what are they talking about?” he thought, seized with an inner trepidation compounded of hopes and doubts, fears and joys—but try as he would to catch the words, he heard naught behind him save a faint murmur.

Khoja Nasreddin's speech with the one-eyed thief concerned money, the need for which had so unexpectedly arisen.

“Four thousand!” exclaimed the thief. “Why, you could not find forty in all these mountains, even if you ransacked them from base to summit!”

“You must return to Kokand.”

“Merciful Allah!”

“In Kokand you will secure the necessary four thousand tangas and bring them hither. The journey both ways will take six days, with three days in Kokand; and so, on the ninth day from now you must be here.”

“Counting today? That means that I must set forth on my return journey immediately, without giving myself an hour's rest!”

“Yes, immediately.”

“O Prophet Mohammed! And another thing—if I procure that money in my usual way, I shall again be straying from the path of virtue and piety.”

“Do in such a manner that the money you procure shall be righteous money.”

“Righteous money? Four thousand! O Kaaba, O Mecca, O Sanctuary of the Faith! I know not even the look of righteous money. Am I to gather it in alms, begging at some mosque?”

“I have spoken and you have heard. ’Tis a deed to the glory of merciful Turakhon that awaits you in Kokand. Fare thee well!”  {231} 

“Rest thee well,” the one-eyed answered dismally, his vision of a cool chaikhana and sedate conversation with Khoja Nasreddin on the cardinal virtues vanishing as he turned away and retraced his steps down the road.

He was greatly chagrined and angry, but the thought of returning to Chorak no more and deceiving Khoja Nasreddin never even entered his head. Utterly sinful in small things, he was absolutely trustworthy in big ones, and in this respect he did not resemble those high-minded people who thrust their friendship upon you and then betray you through arrant cowardice to the first one who chooses to raise his voice at them.

Khoja Nasreddin returned to Said.

“Hear to my second condition: you must never try to discover who I am, what I have come here for, what I have been doing in the past, and what I intend doing in the future.”

The youth bit his tongue: this mysterious stranger had guessed exactly the very questions that had been ready to fly out of his mouth on the wasp's wings of curiosity.

“I am now going to the chaikhana'' said Khoja Nasreddin. “This evening we shall talk again at leisure. Put that knife away, cast despair from your heart, and remember that at your age one does not lose things, but only finds them in his passage over the earth.”

They parted. The youth followed his saviour with a lingering misted gaze, then sat down upon the tree-stump and became lost in thought. A ray of the sinking sun lit up one .side of his face with its broad clear forehead, straight nose, and the firm line of his lips and chin; he smiled gently at his own thoughts: despair had quitted his soul, he belonged to life, and the noble seal of Khoja Nasreddin was imprinted—for ever now—upon his passionate heart.

That night they continued their conversation in the chaikhana by the extinguished hearth. Safar, Said's  {232}  second father (he should in all fairness be considered his first, for he was a father through the goodness of his heart and not through the blind law of nature), was snoring peacefully under his blanket, taking his well-earned rest after a tiring day. There was no one else in the chaikhana, and so they spoke freely. The smouldering embers in the depths of the hearth still quivered with golden glowing life, while their edges were whitening with ash, cooling with a faint tinkle. The late moon had just risen, bringing in its wake a gust of wind and raising a silvery ripple on the slender poplar from base to crown. On a distant hill-side a lone shepherd's camp-fire glowed and shimmered like a big red star that had fallen to earth and was burning itself out there.

“He who loses courage loses life. You must believe in your fortune, O youth, Khoja Nasreddin—may his soul rest in peace—often used to say. . . .”

“Why, is he dead?”

“Alas, he died. I am not sure whether it was the Caliph of Bagdad who skinned him alive, or the Emir of Bokhara who drowned him—so I heard in Kokand.”

“But haply that is untrue?”

“Who knows—haply it is. . . . Well then, in those days when I used to meet him, he was fond of repeating, ‘Sunny spring comes always after cold winter; that is the only rule of life worth remembering, and the reverse order were best forgotten.’ But all my admonitions, I see, are wasted,” Khoja Nasreddin added with a searching look at Said. “You are fidgeting as if someone were pricking your seat with an awl. It is the dead of night now, whither would you go?”

The answering whisper was such a faint one that Khoja Nasreddin read it on the youth's lips rather than heard it. It was the single word—Zulfia.

“Forgive me, O noble youth!” he exclaimed. “Verily I have grown old and foolish to weary you with my stupid  {233}  wisdom. Zulfia is the higher wisdom, so go quickly. Believe me, all the learned books in the world are not worth a single word of those which you shall hear this night beneath the moon.”

Every age has its wisdom. For that of forty-five it consists, among other things, in not going to bed with an empty stomach. After Said had gone, Khoja Nasreddin stayed his spirit with a supper of dry cheese and a stale bread-cake from his travelling hoard, and prepared to go to sleep. His last wakeful thought was for the lovers, and he wished them from the bottom of his heart a happy tryst in the garden.

“We must flee, Said! My father says that he is going to give me away to Agabek.”

“Calm yourself, my swallow, he will not give you away.”

“Let us flee. Let us run away into the mountains, to the Gypsies or the Kirghizes. I have prepared a bundle for the way—bread-cakes, cheese and some dried melon.”

“Wait, haply we shall not have to run away.”

“O, Said, have they persuaded you, too, as they have my father?”

“Do not weep, I am not going to give you up to anybody. Listen—we now have a friend and protector.”

“A friend and protector? We? Who is he?”

“I cannot tell you who he is—truth to tell I do not know his name myself. All I know is that he will save us.”

“When did you meet him?”

“Today.”

“And you already believe him?”

“O Zulfia, if you but saw his glance and heard his voice, you, too, would believe. There emanates from him a mighty power that fortifies the spirit.”  {234} 

The nocturnal lizards tinkled, the silver coins of Zulfia's necklace tinkled, and something else tinkled too—the night was full of faint mysterious sounds. And Zulfia wished not for morning. Ah, if only the world could always remain steeped in this fragrant, languorous, bluish haze! But the first hesitant awakenings of light had begun in the east, and the mountains loomed out of the darkness with their towering peaks. Day was breaking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

In the morning Said told Khoja Nasreddin over the tea that Agabek had not had a keeper for his lake for a number of years and issued the water for the fields himself.

“At first he kept in his service the kind old man who had managed the lake before on behalf of the Namangan master. They did not keep company long, as you well may guess. The old man gave someone water free of charge, Agabek got to know of it and dismissed him. That kind old man has not been heard of since in these parts—he must be in his grave by now, peace to his ashes, and may the Almighty give him repose in the abode of the blessed.”

“He is alive!” said Khoja Nasreddin. “As fully alive as you and I. He has now become a wonder-worker and performs all kinds of minor miracles for nothing better to do. But wherefore did not Agabek appoint another keeper in his place?”

“He does not trust the local people, and strangers here are scarce.”

“Does he frequent this chaikhana?”

“He will come for certain at noon to drink tea and play chess with my foster-father. He is a great lover of chess, but apart from my father he has none other to play with in our village.”

“There is one now.”  {235} 

“Do you play chess?”

“I do and other amusing games as well, such as the ‘Spider and the Hornet.’ ”

“I never heard of it.”

“You shall hear of it and see it.”

The heat of day was advancing; the sun's beams fell from the blazing sky with stabbing directness. Work in the fields, at the potters’ ovens, or in the smoky forges was not to be thought of. The villagers—both farmers and artisans—flocked to the chaikhana from all sides. They entered, saluted Safar the host, then greeted Khoja Nasreddin. “On you be peace, honest toilers,” Khoja Na-sreddin returned their salutations, “and may Allah bless your well-earned rest!” To this he added a word for each individually: to the farmer—wishes for a good harvest, to the potter—a fine and even baking, to the miller—a milder milling, to the shepherd—an abundant increase in his flocks. He could tell at a single glance at hands, sunburnt faces, and stained robes, whether the man had come from the fields, from the potter's oven, from the forge, or from the tanner's trough.

Said went out to attend to his business. The visitors were served by Safar, a dried-up little old man, very poorly dressed, for the profits from his chaikhana never exceeded two, on rare occasions, three tangas a day. From time to time the old man glanced at Said's empty place by the fire-pots, and his wizened face would become clouded: he knew of his adopted son's love, and grieved for him.

Safar handed Khoja Nasreddin the teapot, and said gently:

“Wherefore, O traveller, do you raise in my Said false hopes. Better you had shown him a way by which he could tear love out of his young heart.”

“Why tear it out?” Khoja Nasreddin said in surprise. “Let it grow and bear fruits.”  {236} 

“But if those fruits are bitter and fraught with grievous woe?”

“’Tis a poor gardener, old man, who cannot do better.”

Safar was about to make some rejoinder, when he suddenly jumped up and began to dart hither and thither, now seizing a besom, now a towel, now the chessboard.

The visitors rose and took their departure, glancing down the road.

Khoja Nasreddin glanced down the road, too, and his heart caught fire within him. Advancing towards the chaikhana, preceded by his belly, came Agabek.

Safar hustled the last dilatory visitor out through the back door and removed Khoja Nasreddin's teapot to a far corner of the room, he was a traveller and had nowhere else to go.

Agabek entered and immediately filled the whole chaikhana with his hulk. He entered like a lord and master, barely acknowledging Safar's obsequious salaam, and not deigning even to notice the presence of Khoja Nasreddin. Agabek's mien and bearing, his sombre dull little eyes set deep under a low fleshy forehead and reflecting the workings of a dark evil soul, the thick black beard, the signet-ring on his finger—all this suggested to Khoja Nasreddin the conclusion: “This man held some office of authority in the past—not of the highest, but not of the lowest either. He had his seal—hence he was either a magistrate or a revenue officer. He lives in seclusion, and cannot resume his official duties; obviously guilty of some sin, and no little one at that. He lacks here the homage and servility of those beneath him, and there is none above him before whom he himself could cringe with reverential awe—this is his greatest sorrow, the hidden canker-worm of care.”

It was a good thing that Agabek was of the office-holding  {237}  class; Khoja Nasreddin had no fears now for his conscience: it would not come between his sword and the head of the offender, as had often been the case with him when his adversaries had been merchants, learned leeches, astrologers, or seers. Not infrequently he had been able to discern in them some estimate quality of mind and heart, including even kindness and the rudiments of conscience, at which his sword raised for a death-stroke, had banked and confined itself to a shave of such a degree of closeness as befitted the occasion; as for the men in office, he was implacable towards them.

Agabek had meanwhile seated himself, and leaning back against the cushions, had permitted his glance to glide over Khoja Nasreddin as if he were a mere fly, then, puffing and grunting, he poured himself out some tea.

Safar brought a chess-board and seated himself opposite. They began to play.

Khoja Nasreddin had a clear view of the board from where he sat, and was able to follow the game in all its details.

The nature of the two players was reflected upon the board as if in a clear mirror. Safar played in a humble and timid fashion, touching one piece then another, picking it up uncertainly, pondering, putting it back in its place, then suddenly—like a man taking a plunge into cold water over a precipice—making an incomprehensible move to his own detriment. More than anything else did he fear losing a pawn or some other figure, and evading battle, he scuttled panic-stricken over the board, like a mouse discovered in a corn bin. And naturally, he lost all the time.

Agabek, on the contrary, was for ever pouncing. Like a greedy pike, he pounced upon everything that came his way—pawns, bishops, knights, and castles. So fierce and  {238}  excessive was his pouncing zeal that he twice over looked a sure checkmate.

Safar was playing white; within half an hour he was left with one solitary pawn and three figures—the king, queen and a knight, scattered all over the board and powerless to come to each other's aid. All the others had been pounced on and seized by Agabek, who had surrendered only one pawn to the old man.

The white king, ousted from his corner, was besieged on all sides by the forces of the enemy, who was preparing to deliver the finishing stroke.

“Give in, old man, give in!” shouted Agabek, his great belly shaking with laughter and short-windedness. “Look what you have left! I have captured all your troops, and have lost only one pawn. Make your move, play your knight, play your queen, it matters not—nothing can save you. Your king is in the clutches of my queen; oho, she will hug him to death!”

His naked malicious glee stung Safar, as was evident from the angry gleam in his watery eyes. Resentfully, with lips pressed hard together, he still tried to put up a resistance; he picked up his pawn to move it forward, held it over the board a while, then replaced it, touched the knight, touched his queen, and then his king, but made no move.

“Why do you not play!” shouted Agabek. “By the beard of my father this is not a bad game!”

“Forsooth it is not, one could wager two tangas to one.”

This announcement came from Khoja Nasreddin out of the dark corner.

“Two to one!” exclaimed Agabek. “Why, any person who understands aught of chess would boldly wager five to one! ’Tis a pity we are not playing for money, old man,” he said to Safar. “You would be stripped naked today, lose your chaikhana and the very robe off your back.”  {239} 

“I am nothing loath to finish this game for money,” Khoja Nasreddin said, coming forth from his corner and standing boldly confronting the players. “I would stake two hundred tangas—all that I have.”

Agabek threw back his heavy head and eyed him loftily.

“It seems you are seeking simpletons upon the road, my man. I would stake five hundred myself on the black without getting up from where I sit, if I could find one foolish enough to stake one hundred on the white.”

“Such a fool is here: I stake two hundred tangas on the white. Your word now!”

The white? What did he reckon on, what did he hope for? Surely he did not think to win in face of such crushing odds?

No, it was not of winning that he thought; on the contrary, he considered his two hundred tangas as good as lost. It was not money that he was out to win, but a chance to improve his acquaintance with Agabek. He was sacrificing his purse to all-powerful Kismet—may she mercifully bestow her favours upon him in this venture!

“You stake on the white?” said Agabek, wondering. “Safar, whence comes this stranger—haply he is mad or has smoked himself stupid with hashish in your chaikhana?”

“Waste not time with mere words,” Khoja Nasreddin said, emptying his purse on the tray. “If you are not afraid, sir, then lay your wager!”

“Me afraid?” said Agabek, drawing forth from his girdle a fat weighty purse of yellow leather and tossing it upon the tray. “There is seven hundred and fifty there. Henceforth curb your tongue and do not speak nonsense, you who dare to presume that I fear you, O insignificant one!”

“The game begins!” announced Khoja Nasreddin.  {240} 

Safar moved aside to make room for him. He looked at Khoja Nasreddin with perplexity and compassion, wondering if indeed this strange visitor had not taken leave of his senses.

Then suddenly he bethought himself that the visitor had not paid for his night's lodging and his tea, and for fodder eaten by his ass. Overcome by these petty fears, he forgot all about the game. What was this game and the heap of silver on the tray to him compared to the danger of losing his six tangas!

“Stranger, what will you pay me with?” he asked.

Khoja Nasreddin looked at the old man with scorn—how hateful to him was this petty fear of a man for his paltry little purse, even though the world around him were perishing! On this occasion, however, he was wrong to blame the old man, for six tangas would keep him in food and drink for three days. Khoja Nasreddin apprehended this in good time, and felt ashamed of himself.

“Do not worry, old man—if I lose I shall give you my boots.”

“Nay,” interposed Agabek (he desired to show off his magnanimity), “you shall be paid by me, Safar.”

He picked up from the tray a coin of the value of ten tangas and handed it to the keeper of the chaikhana.

All of a sudden Khoja Nasreddin caught his breath and paled. A fire was kindled in his vitals. Haply it was a fit of anger?

Nay, it was something quite different. On the board before him he beheld the dazzling smile of fortune. As though appreciating the sacrifice he was about to make, fate was munificently returning him his two hundred tangas together with a princely gift from herself.

That which he beheld upon the chess-board was victory for the white—his own victory! At first he would not believe his eyes, then he judged the position once more. There was no room for doubt. Victory!  {241} 

“You are too hasty, worthy sir,” he said to Agabek. “It becomes not a Moslem to display generosity at someone else's expense.”

He could not have said anything more insulting.

“At someone else's expense!” Agabek croaked, his face livid. “Very well, I shall teach you respect, vagabond! Put the coin back on the tray, Safar. Put the coin back and take his boots as a pledge—let him quit our village barefoot. Your move—do you hear, a beast of ragamuffins! To think that I had a mind to give you twenty tangas out of my winnings to speed you on your way. But now, after your brazen impudence, I shall give you nothing.”

“I am not asking for anything!”

“Play! But first take off your boots and give them to the chaikhana-keeper.”

Khoja Nasreddin took off his boots and handed them to Safar, then boldly moved his queen down the whole board to the opposite corner.

“Check to the black king!”

“Bad, All-Merciful Allah!” Agabek sneered with mock terror. “Verily, I thought my heart would burst from fear. What a blow! But you must have gone blind, my man—see you not that my castle stands guard here? Where is your queen now?”

And so saying he captured the white queen with his castle and removed her from the board.

“And what will you do now?” he said to Khoja Nasreddin. “You impudent ragamuffin who has lost both his money and his boots! By losing your queen you have postponed your inevitable defeat by one more move!”

He was answered by a single brief word.

“Mate!” said Khoja Nasreddin, moving his knight from the black square to the white.

Agabek stared dully at the board. As the truth slowly dawned upon him, his fleshy face grew a deeper and deeper shade of blue.  {242} 

“The game is over!” said Khoja Nasreddin. “My winnings please.”

Safar moved the tray up to him with a shaky hand; his staring eyes filled with anguish and dread, he watched Khoja Nasreddin pour the money into his own purse and put on the boots which he had taken off only a minute before. The old man was speechless with terror, although he had only been a witness throughout. So timorous was the soul he bore within him that he was always afraid of everything, constantly expecting misfortune to himself from every new person that he met and from every event that happened in his proximity, “What will be, alas, what will be?” he said to himself, his heart heavy with premonitions of great storms to come; he feared that the full force of Agabek's fury would now descend upon his head and blast his prosperity. While prosperity, for which he trembled so abjectly, consisted of his chaikhana, a flimsy affair built of clay and rushes, which, to the most large-hearted buyer, was not worth more than two hundred tangas; Safar had nothing else—neither a house, nor a garden, nor a field, yet he trembled as one who has gold in bullion hidden away in his cellars. He possessed that other priceless treasure of the poor man—freedom, but was incapable of enjoying it; he held himself in leash, fettered the wings of his own soul. He took from poverty its carnal portion—deprivation, and from wealth its spiritual portion—perpetual fear; in either case he had chosen for himself the worst.

Agabek said not a word. He stared at the board pop-eyed. The livid blue of his face had turned to black.

“My host, is there a leech in this village?” Khoja Nasreddin asked the old man. “Haply he should be given a blood-letting to prevent an apoplectic stroke?”

No leech, however, was needed, for the danger had passed. Agabek drew a deep shuddering breath, his  {243}  burning nape began to cool, and the ominous blue black hue of his countenance faded away.

“Strange that I saw it not! Verily, traveller, you have cast a spellbinding mist in my eyes!”

“Let us play another game.”

“May the most foul-smelling of devils devour me if I ever sit down again to that board with you! Betake yourself quickly, be satisfied with the seven hundred and fifty tangas that you have eased me of!”

But Khoja Nasreddin had no intention of quitting the village so soon.

“Banishment again, eternal exile!” he cried in a voice of sorrow, hanging his head down. ” ‘Betake yourself,’ you say. Better had you said, ‘Flee, escape.’ O cruel fate, O wind of evil dispensations!”

The arrow of his plaint hit the mark.

“Does anyone pursue you then?” Agabek said, pricking up his ears.

“Affections, troubles, failures—such are my dogged unflagging pursuers!”

“If your failures always resemble those that have visited you today, you are to be envied.”

“That is a mere accident, one of a hundred opposites.”

“And whither are you bound?”

“I know not. I go whither my eyes lead me. I care not whether it be south or north, east or west.”

“But you must have some purpose for undertaking this journey. You are not a rich man or a lord to ride about for his own pleasure.”

In this wise they dropped into their first conversation—the first move in the great game of Spider and Hornet.

Agabek's questions were not without a definite purpose. Haply this wayfarer was guilty of some breach of the law? If so, the thing was to seize him and hand him  {244}  over to the guards, and thus recover his seven hundred and fifty tangas. Khoja Nasreddin smiled inwardly at his hopes, but did not hurry to blight them.

“Alas, there is but little pleasure! Know, O worthy sir, that not so long ago I possessed a house of my own and lived in easy circumstances, but it was the will of a malign fate that I should suddenly lose all and be reduced to this abject state you see me in, worse than a beggar.”

“What was the misfortune that befell you?”

“The story of my life is woven of a thousand woes! I lived in Herat, where I occupied the very lucrative post of head scribe to the overseer of the bazaar.”

“In Herat did you say? I lived there once. Proceed.”

“I swear by Allah that my chief was well pleased with me. I collected the place-dues for him, charging for poor places at the rate of medium, and for medium places at the rate of good ones. Every copper that I was able to wring from a despised farmer or artisan, I carried to the house of my chief and reverently placed upon the mihrab of my devotion. My chief, in receiving the money, always said, ‘O Uzakbai, if I had a thousand jars full of gold, I would trust to you without fear the key of my vaults!’ And he was not mistaken; his property was more sacred to me than my own; thus had I been taught by my father, who had served as steward to a grandee, and thus have I remained all my life. My chief rewarded my faithful service by allotting to me one-twentieth of the income.”

“Not much,” remarked Agabek.

“Enough nevertheless to enable me in the course of eight years to save up a considerable fortune. Another reason why I set store by this post was that it left me time for my learned pursuits, which I need not mention here. Then, all of a sudden, a storm burst over the head of my chief. . . .”  {245} 

Agabek was listening very attentively, by reason of which Khoja Nasreddin gathered that his words were not being wasted.

“My chief made a slip.”

“Aha!” said Agabek, making a grasping and pocketing motion with his hand.

“His enemies were quick to report it, and my chief lost both his post and all his property, which was seized as forfeited to the treasury.”

“I understand,” said Agabek, wagging his fat head sympathetically. “These slips sometimes cost very dear, very dear!”

Another page of his past life had been opened to Khoja Nasreddin.

“The lamentable fate of my chief was shared by this one, and now I roam the world, not knowing where to lay my wanderer's staff and weary head. Doubtless I would have wandered to the end of my days but for this providential encounter and unexpected gain.”

Agabek scowled and began to breathe hard. Khoja Nasreddin had touched a wound that still smarted.

“I shall endeavour to dispose of that money wisely.”

“By playing a game with someone else?” Agabek inquired venomously.

“The Prophet protect me from that temptation—such good fortune befalls not twice. Nay, I shall choose a pursuit to my liking.”

“Trade?”

“I feel not inclined towards trade. Service in some quiet secluded spot, where I could continue my learned studies—that is my heart's desire. But who would give such employment to a stranger without pledge money? Now that I am able to pay the full sum required, however. . . .”

“You are going to look for a situation then?”  {246} 

“I cannot very well remain here. My ass, by the way, is rested and it is time for me to continue on my way. I thank you, worthy sir, for the seven hundred and fifty tangas. Hey, keeper, how much do I owe you for my tea and night's lodging?”

Khoja Nasreddin took the saddle, which had done service as a pillow overnight, and advanced with it towards the ass. The noose of greed by which he had tethered Agabek to himself was tautly drawn.

“Stay! Tarry!” cried Agabek, seeing that his seven hundred and fifty tangas were about to disappear under shaitan's tail. “Return hither, I have an important word to tell you.”

The noose of greed tightened.

“You are travelling in search of a situation—that is just what I desire to talk with you about.”

“O worthy sir!” Khoja Nasreddin said, returning hastily into the chaikhana. “Haply you know of some such place—my gratitude would know no bounds!”

“That's just it.”

“O blessed word!”

“And nearby, too, right next door.”

Khoja Nasreddin's face expressed respectful puzzlement.

“My esteemed interlocutor chooses to speak in riddles, which my contemptible wit is powerless to interpret.”

“Answer me first to several questions, and then I shall disclose to you the meaning of my words,” said Agabek. He actually believed that he was speaking in riddles. “Answer me—did you ever have occasion to visit our village before?”

“I did not.”

“Have you any kinsmen here?”

“I have not. All my kinsfolk are in Herat.”

“What about friends? Haply there is someone in our  {247}  village with whom you are friendly or had been friendly in the past?”

“There is no such person here. My friends, too, are all in Herat.”

“But haply your kinsfolk, of those that have remained in Herat, have friends here, or, contrariwise, your friends in Herat have kinsfolk here?”

“By the beard of my father I swear that neither I nor my kinsfolk and friends, nor the kinsfolk of my friends and the friends of my kinsfolk, nor even the kinsfolk of the friends of my kinsfolk and the friends of the kinsfolk of my friends, have ever been in this village or have ever heard or known anyone here.”

“There remains one Last question—is your heart susceptible to attacks of foolish compassion towards strangers?”

Khoja Nasreddin bethought him of the old caretaker at the tomb of Turakhon, and answered:

“All the compassion of my heart I expend upon myself, and there remains not aught for strangers.”

“Wisely spoken! And now, prepare you to hear something wonderful, that will make your heart leap with joy. Saw you here the local lake, and know you who owns it?”

“I have seen the lake, but who owns it I know not.”

“I am the owner. You are seeking on surety a situation that will keep you in food—what think you of the post of keeper of the lake?”

At long last it was out—the word for which Khoja Nasreddin had been working so hard. “Keeper of the lake”—echoed like thunder in Safari ears; “Keeper of the lake”—repeated the turtle-dove under the eaves; “Keeper of the lake”—responded the caged quail, “Keeper of the lake”—hissed the cooking-pot, wrapping itself in a cloud of steam, “Keeper of the lake”—puffed the wind, “Keeper of the lake”—murmured the trees.  {248} 

And ten minutes had hardly elapsed when all the villagers, young and old, had heard the tidings, “Keeper of the lake”—was on everyone's lips everywhere—in the fields, and in the clean-swept tidy yards. It was spoken of among the men, gossipped of among the women, babbled of among the children.

When Agabek and Khoja Nasreddin went forth lake-wards from the chaikhana, everyone who met them made low and obsequious bows before them, and regarded the new keeper with timorous curiosity, while he passed by stern and haughty, without deigning to notice their salutations.

Old Safar did not remain alone in the chaikhana for long after they had quitted it. The villagers flocked in at once and drowned the old man in a flood of questions: what had Agabek been speaking about with the new keeper, what arrangements had they made, what payment was the keeper to receive? The dais of the chaikhana creaked ominously, the teapots hanging over the hearth swayed and clinked, and small rubbish dropped from the ceiling.

“You will pull my whole chaikhana down in a minute!” Safar shouted. “Some of you get off the dais and stand on the ground! If you do not, I shall tell you nothing!”

Several of the villagers stepped off the dais, leaving it in the possession of half a score of the most venerable worthies. Safar related his story. There is no need to repeat what we already know.

He finished his story with the ominous words:

“One was bad enough, Allah knows, and now we shall have two on our heads!”

Silence was his only answer, silence and heavy sighs. All those gathered in the chaikhana envisioned a dim but dread apparition of inescapable and impending woes.  {249} 

Safar hung down his grey old head and continued his oracular pronouncements, himself deriving therefrom a terrorsome relish.

“Big doings will soon begin here—very big doings! Alas, it bodes us naught but ill, I fear me!”

And like a muffled echo, someone answered:

“Aye, it bodes ill!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Agabek led Khoja Nasreddin to the conductor aryk, upon which was built a large wooden chute with a shutter that kept the water locked in.

“Look!” said Agabek, pointing to the mouldy shutter darkened with age, which sat firmly between two elm-wood posts with grooves in them to enable it to move up and down. “You shall guard this and open it to no one without my consent.”

Over the chute stood a windlass with a rusty chain; below hung a huge brass padlock on thick rings, and above it the water dripped through a crack in a clear trickle and rolled down the moss-grown boards in hurrying drops. “The shutter of tears,” Khoja Nasreddin said within himself, his thoughts turning to the unfortunate villagers.

“Give no one any water on trust, not even half a tanga's worth!” Agabek admonished his new keeper. “Here is the key of the lock—keep it always hidden. Some cunning knave may memorize the notches in the bit and make a second key.”

Khoja Nasreddin put the key away, then gave Agabek the purse that he had won, saying, “Let this be my pledge money.”

On a mound nearby stood a clay hut with a door overlooking the lake.

“You will live in yon hut,” said Agabek. “Every night  {250}  you shall approach the shutter and satisfy yourself that the lock has not been tampered with. Do you understand, will you remember?”

“I understand, and I shall remember, master.”

With these words the ceremony of initiation into his new office was completed.

Agabek hied him home, carrying away a grin in his beard and a purse in his girdle, and rejoicing at having so cleverly succeeded in catching his seven hundred and fifty tangas by the very tip of their tail. “In a month or a month and a half I shall find some excuse to dismiss him and keep his pledge money for myself—for what need have I of a keeper when I have managed excellently all this time with the simple aid of a strong and reliable padlock?” reflected Agabek. “I shall recover my money, and that is all that counts!”

He recovered his money indeed, but what he lost in the process he could not even imagine!

That evening found Khoja Nasreddin settled in his new home by the lake. The lighter half of the clay hut he took for himself, placing a bed of boards in the corner and mending the broken-down hearth; the second darker half he partitioned off with poplar poles for the ass.

“Is your new abode to your liking?” he asked, as he poured some barley into the ass's feeding-trough. “The question now is—how are we to understand this abiding together under a single roof? Is it I who am being reduced to an asinine condition, or is it you who are going to make believe that you are human?”

Not without purpose did he utter those words. In them lay a hidden meaning that was waiting to be translated into deeds. When and in what manner that would happen Khoja Nasreddin knew not yet.  {251} 

The evening dragged its melting length, one of those soft wistful evenings that restore harmony between earth and sky and flood the world with a serene light. Khoja Nasreddin was sitting on a boulder by the doorstep of his clay hut, gazing at the lake, which was already vanishing into the misty blue of twilight. When Khoja Nasreddin swam to the surf ace from the depths of his revery, night lay around him; the air, laden with dewy scents, had grown cool, and the hour of sleep had come; he stretched himself, yawned, and turned to go inside.

A low voice sounded from around the corner, “It is I—Said.”

The figure of the youth loomed dimly in the darkness.

“Wherefore are you here?” Khoja Nasreddin said, surprised.

“I have heard it said that you have accepted the post of keeper of the lake, and so I have come to find out whether it is true?”

“It is. It seems to trouble you—wherefore?”

The youth hesitated.

“Now that you have . . . this post, you may. . . for-get. . . .”

“About you and your matchless Zulfia?” Khoja Nasreddin took the words out of his mouth. “O unwise youth, lacking strength to trust a friend—whence these doubts? Learn to trust—for that is the greatest art which is needful to us in life; fate is like a noble Arab mare: she suffers not a timid rider, but submits to a brave one. Do you understand?”

“Yes, forgive me.”

“Seek not meetings with me. Come not until I call you. No one must see us together. Spoil not my game. I have spoken, and you have heard—now go!”

And once more—the sleeping garden, the silvery mist, the throaty song of the nightingale, the tinkling  {252}  rustle of the lizard, and an excited whispering in the shadows:

“I saw him yesterday through a crack in our wicket—he was going from the chaikhana together with Agabek. He was so stern and haughty. And I wondered about his promise to help us. . . .”

“O Zulfia, wherefore have you not the strength in your heart to trust a friend? Learn to trust—for that is the greatest art that is needful to us in life! Do you not know that fate is like a noble Arab mare: a timid rider she throws to the ground, a brave one she submits to!”

“How cleverly and beautifully you speak, Said—our old mullah could not have said it better!”

“You must always remember, Zulfia, that bleak winter is ever followed by sunny spring, and that is the only rule worth remembering; as for the reverse order, it were best forgotten.”

“It is poetry, Said. Did you compose it yourself, and for me?”

The nightingale broke off its song, the rustling lizard crawled into the hollow of a tree and went to sleep; the stars in the sky had noticeably changed their position, vapour hung over the darkened water—night was departing westward.

Two days later the keeper of the lake appeared at the chaikhana.

He came after midday, when Agabek had played his daily game of chess with the chaikhana-keeper and gone away, leaving the villagers to enjoy their rest in peace.

Without responding to the salutations addressed to him, the keeper of the lake went up to the bread-cake baker, who on seeing him, got busy laying out his wares to best advantage, putting the white browned ones  {253}  on top. The keeper of the lake bought not one, nor two, nor three cakes, but the whole basket! In like manner he bought from the seller of apricots his whole basket, then departed with his purchases.

As was to be expected, this occasioned a good deal of talk in the chaikhana. Wherefore did he buy such a lot at once? The bread-cakes would grow stale, the apricots would go bad. Haply he was a lazy one for walking and would now stay in his hut for a long time?

But the same thing happened the next day too. At the hour of noon the keeper of the lake appeared at the chaikhana with two empty baskets, which he refilled—one with bread-cakes, the other with apricots—and then departed, ignoring, as before, the salutations addressed to him.

The chaikhana buzzed with excitement. What had he done with the stuff that he had bought yesterday? Ate it? But there had been enough for five men there! Here was a riddle! In the timid humdrum life of Chorak's inhabitants the event assumed the magnitude of sinister mystery.

To make things worse a shepherd poured oil upon the flames of gossip. Coming in from the pasture to buy some barley meal in the village, this shepherd had looked in on his way at the little hut by the lake. He had beheld there that which confounded his reason. The new keeper of the lake had been feeding his ass with white bread-cakes and apricots, from which he had removed the stones and cut out the worm-holes with a knife. The shepherd, while buying the meal, had told the shopkeeper about it; the shopkeeper, dancing with impatience, had shut his shop immediately and run off to the chaikhana with the tongue-scorching gum-searing nut of hot news in his mouth.

Feeding his ass! Feeding it with white bread-cakes and apricots! Safar, the chaikhana-keeper, paled.  {254}  Rahmatullah, the foolish wool-beater, rolled on his back, convulsed with laughter. The miller and the butter-maker would not believe.

One intrepid man of the young ones undertook to go and see. He was lucky—he crept up to the hut unseen just when the ass was supping. He was eating white bread-cakes and apricots, just as the shepherd had said, and the new keeper of the lake was making salaams before him and feeding him out of his hand with cut halves of apricots from which the stones had been removed, and calling him “illustrious one,” “highborn” and “royal highness.”

The intrepid one returned to the chaikhana, and related what he had seen from first to last. The chaikhana became a buzzing hive once more. Then it was true! But what could it mean? Shirmat, the potter, tapped his forehead. That conjecture seemed the likeliest, but if so, how had it befallen that Agabek, that most cunning man of cunning., had failed to perceive that deficiency in the new keeper of the lake? And then that recent game of chess? Madmen played not in such a fashion! Or haply he and Agabek had secretly plotted mischief together, and all the rest was merely an artifice designed to. throw dust in people's eyes? But what mischief had they plotted, against whom was it aimed? It could only be one thing—they wanted to seize all the fields and all the orchards for themselves.

“And my chaikhana as well!” Safar added gloomily. “I should have taken the hundred and fifty-five tangas which I was offered for it last year.”

Everything fell out as Khoja Nasreddin had planned. Over a game of chess Safar told Agabek about the asinine feasts that were held in the clay hut by the lake.

In order to witness the purchase of bread-cakes and apricots with his own eyes, Agabek tarried in the chaikhana that day longer than usual.  {255} 

And witness it he did! Khoja Nasreddin purposely bought four baskets instead of two before his eyes, and had to have recourse to the aid of the baker in carrying them home. In doing all this Khoja Nasreddin pretended not to notice that Agabek was there, but to himself he thought: “He will come to my hut today for certain.”

Towards the evening he sprinkled the clay floor with water, fetched some fresh-cut rushes and made the ass his bed, then cut the apricots in halves and laid them out in becoming order on a painted clay platter which he had bought from Safar for eight tangas.

Through the half-open door he perceived Agabek coming towards the hut.

The sky was aflame and the sun was sinking into a sea of fire; Agabek stood heavily and lumpishly silhouetted against the glowing sky as ‘if hewn out of stone. But there is a hammer for every stone. Khoja Nasreddin moved up the basket with the bread-cakes and the platter with the apricots, and stood with his face towards the ass and his back to the door. The setting sun painted the wall in front of him with a warm amber light; at the smell of the bread-cakes the ass lifted his ears, and their tips, with shining little hairs stood sharply etched in radiance.

“Wait, can't you!” Khoja Nasreddin said angrily, pushing the ass's nose away from the basket.

The light on the wall was blotted out by a screening shadow. Agabek stood in the doorway.

“O Illustrious One, O Your Royal Highness,” Khoja Nasreddin began straight off, holding a bread-cake out to the ass, “I could find nothing better in this remote village. Indeed, what can one expect of bakers who have never even stood near the bakers of the royal court! The apricots, however, are excellent, and have not a  {256}  single worm-hole in them; I trust that they will merit your gracious approval.”

The apricots did merit approval, for they vanished off the platter in a twinkling. Thereat the illustrious one addressed himself to the bread-cakes, four of which he bolted down in a single breath. His appetite whetted, he demanded more and more, causing Khoja Nasreddin to twitch his brows and hiss in anger, the while his back preserved its worshipful curve.

The shadow screening the light of sundown stirred.

Like one who hears a rustle behind him, Khoja Nasreddin turned round and straightened up, dismay and confusion written upon his countenance. With deliberate clumsiness he tried to cover up the ass, who stood with a half-eaten bread-cake projecting from his mouth.

Agabek stepped through the door and stared at Khoja Nasreddin with a stern questioning look.

The ass went on chewing; the joggling bread-cake was drawn swiftly into his mouth.

“I see!” drawled Agabek, pretending by force of old magisterial habit that he knew everything, whereas in actual fact he did not understand a thing. “So this is what you do with the basketfuls of apricots and bread-cakes!”

“I. . . I do not do anything,” Khoja Nasreddin stammered. “I use them for food.”

“You use them for food!” sneered Agabek, rumpling his beard. “Two basketfuls of bread-cakes and two of apricots every day! Do not lie, tell me the truth!” he said, bearing down on Khoja Nasreddin, in whose confused behaviour he scented secret, perhaps felonious, motives. “Tell me the truth, I have seen—you feed apricots and bread-cakes to your ass.”

“Hush!” Khoja Nasreddin said, wincing and even drawing his head into his shoulders as if cold water had got on his bad tooth. “For God's sake, O estimable  {257}  master, utter not that coarse word; it Is unseemly here.”

“Unseemly?—pshaw! Here stands an ass, I see an ass, and I call it an ass!”

“Thrice repeated? O ye heavenly powers! Let us go outside, master, and speak in private behind the door.”

“Are we not in private here too?—Surely you do not count this ass a third?”

“Again, O Merciful Allah! Let us go out, my master, come!”

He jostled Agabek out of the hut and shut the door. And forthwith he was subjected to a rigorous interrogation.

“Ask me no questions, master. It is a tremendous secret, in which many of the great ones of this earth are involved.”

“The great ones? If that be the case, then you can let me into the secret, too, for I am one of them.”

“I have profound respect for you, master; verily here, in Chorak, you are great, but in comparison with them you are but a fly, nay an ant.”

“Me an ant! May your tongue tie itself up in three knots on that impudent word!”

“Forgive me, master, but mayhap that which I have said concerns royalty. . . .”

“Royalty?” said Agabek, the hookah of impatience kindling and smoking within his breast. “You are my servant—you must conceal naught from me.”

Khoja Nasreddin hung his head, as if torn in two between warring emotions.

“What shall I do? On the one hand, it would be wrong of me to have secrets from my benefactor—thus did my father, of blessed memory, admonish me. . . .”

“He admonished you well. Seemingly he was a very worthy man.”  {258} 

“On the other hand—the dead secret and the wrath of the powerful, a searing wrath capable of reducing us both to ashes.”

“I shall tell no one.”

“Deem it not impudence on my part, master, if I require your oath.”

“I swear by my salvation in the hereafter!”

Agabek moved close up to Khoja Nasreddin, preparing himself to receive the great secret.

According to the plans of Khoja Nasreddin, however, the time for this had not yet come, the fruit was not yet ripe; it would have to be left hanging yet awhile on the bough.

Do what Agabek would to persuade him, Khoja Nasreddin remained adamant. Not before another week; earlier than that he could not do it, not even if it meant quitting his place as keeper of the lake.

“Quitting this place? Wherefore? Oh no!” Agabek said in dismay, and forthwith let up. “If so be the case, then I can wait.”

Baited by the worm of mystery, he now sat fast upon the hook.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Everything passes, everything; the drums beat and the bazaar is hushed—the gay busy bazaar of our life. The marts of vain and petty desires close one by one, the trading rows of passions, the squares of hopes and the fairs of ambitions become empty; it grows still all (round, still and spacious, and the sky sheds its sad dying light over the land—evening draws nigh, the time for the reckoning up of loss and profit. Or rather, of loss alone, since we, the sorrow-laden narrator of this story, cannot, without dissembling, boast of having terminated the bazaar of our life with profit in our purse.  {259} 

Worlds roll upon their way; moments link with moments, minutes with minutes, and hours with hours, building up a chain of days, and months, and years—but we, the sorrow-laden narrator, can not hold back and retain for ourselves aught from this perpetual chain save memories—those faint imprints, engraved, as it were, upon thawing ice. And happy is he who, at the sunset of his life, finds them not entirely obliterated; for to him, in reward, as it were, for that which has gone, there is given a second youth, an unembodied reflection of his first. It is incapable of smoothing the wrinkles from his face, or of restoring strength to his muscles, lightness to his tread, and resonance to his voice; its domain is only the soul. Have you ever met an old man with clear shining eyes? This is youth, recaptured within the soul, gazing out at you from them; this is a kiss discarnate from the past, like the light of an extinguished star; this is the long-forgotten echo of a string that sounds no more, an echo that has returned to us at last from its far-off wanderings. May we, too, be granted such a boon for all our losses and afflictions; may the blessed imprint of youth never be effaced from our hearts, so that, when returning to us at sunset, it may recognize the house in which it once dwelt. There is a land called Ferghana upon this earth, the golden dreamland of the soul, for ever abandoned, and never to be forgotten! It is her memory, her imprint that is engraved upon the heart—her blazing sun, her cities with their clamorous multicoloured bazaars, her villages buried in orchard greenery, her mountains with their snow-capped cloud-wrapped summits and turbid icy torrents, her fields, her lakes and sands, her crystal-winged dawns and the flaming splendour of her passionate sunsets, her lustrous nights, her smoke-grimed chaikhanas, her roads, each of which once seemed to lead to Iram—the land of joyous wonders. . . .  {260}  All this was in the heart. Would I ever return and see it? Alas, never. But the future promised reconciliation—second youth. We shall ne'er return, but we shall recapture. . . .

But let us break off the sad thread of our reflections; wherefore should we twice experience old age—once in presentiment, then again in reality? Not so many days have been granted us that we can afford to squander them so improvidently by permitting the future to devour the present; noontide is past, but the drums of sunset are still a long way off; the bazaar is still busy and full-voiced, the shops are all plying their trade, the rows are drowned in a sea of people, the squares are full of hum and bustle; the cries of the water-carriers mingle with the snuffling wails of the beggars and the chanting of the dervishes, the air is filled with the sounds of creaking carts and roaring camels, with the ring of the chaser's hammer, the rattle of the dancing girls’ and jesters’ tambourines; the cook-shops spread their odorous smoke, the sun sparkles on gleaming silks, and rippling velvets, and patterned costly carpets—there is no end to the bazaar, no limit to its riches!

It is well for the seller who is confident of the good quality of his wares. He has no need to resort to cunning, to fawn upon his customers, or fool them by fine words, showing them the good end of his stuffs while he conceals the faulty one beneath the counter; and well for the buyer, who feels within his girdle the taut weight of a well-filled purse. But what is he to do in the noisy bazaar of life whose only stock-in-trade are lofty feelings and vague dreams, and whose purse, instead of gold and silver, contains nothing but doubts and foolish questionings, such as—what is the beginning of all beginnings and the end of all ends, what is the meaning of existence, what purpose on earth does evil serve, and  {261}  how, without it, would we be able to recognize good? Who has need of such wares and such coins here, where all are engaged in naught but trade—bargaining and buying, grabbing and grasping, selling and betraying, cheating and tricking, shouting and screaming, crowding and jostling, nothing loath, when opportunity offers, to throttle some luckless gaper. Such a man will not sell aught or buy aught with profit to himself at this bazaar—his place is among the beggars and the dervishes.

But we, it seems, are still sitting in the chaikhana of reflections upon life—in that melancholy chaikhana, where men drink from the teapot of blighted hopes and smoke the hookah of belated regrets. Come, hasten to the bazaar! Hey, keeper, receive your money for your bitter tea; better we had never entered your chaikhana and never tasted it; we would have fewer wrinkles on our face! Hurry to the bazaar, to the roar and the dust, the crush and the crowd, to that ever flowing cataract of colours, sounds, and smells, whose racing eddies drive the mill of merchantry. Let us seek out among the crowd the one-eyed thief, and discover how he had fared in the performance of the errand which Khoja Na-sreddin had entrusted to him.

Four thousand tangas of righteous money! Righteous money! The one-eyed thief had been loitering about the bazaar of Kokand for two days, sorely perplexed and troubled. All around him were hundreds, nay, thousands of purses. Hidden away in the pockets and girdles of Kokand's idle gapers, they teased his practised eye with their seductive bulges, producing in his fingers a voluptuous twitch, and seeming even to wriggle about a bit and supplicate in shrill little voices: ‘Take us, do! We conjure you by Allah—release us from our narrow prisons; let us be free to bask in the sun—O, how bright and cheerful will the sparkle of our gold  {262}  and silver be under its beneficent rays!” And he would have taken a purse, taken one quite easily, with such sleight-of-hand that the gaping victim in his festive silk robe and red-tasselled skull-cap would have mooned unsuspectingly through the bazaar for a long time, asking the price of the different wares, and not until he had struck a bargain and undid his girdle to pay for the goods would he have discovered with jaw-dropping and, eye-popping amazement that his beaded purse had suddenly turned into a round cobble-stone wrapped up in a dirty rag. This was an old and simple trick to the one-eyed thief, but what perplexed him was that the money had to be righteous money. One might as well be asked to fetch dry water or cold fire!

He lingered long near a Chinese merchant without discovering in his mind any solid reasons why Chinese money should be considered more righteous than any other. No better luck had he with an Indian grandee in an ornate turban with a high golden feather in it. From the grandee he passed to a black-bearded hillman—a seller of gold dust, which he had panned out in the gloomy gorges, the way to which lies through precipitous trails high above the clouds, through the ice and snow-dust of death-threatening avalanches; that gold was righteous to the mountaineer alone—so the thief passed him by without stopping.

His mind was bewildered and he could not put his hand to a single purse. Nor was Khoja Nasreddin there at his side to help him with a word of wisdom. The thief was well nigh fainting beneath the burden of his indecision, when suddenly he beheld in the distance the fat money-changer, who was sitting in his shop, counting out some silver change to an Arab merchant.

Righteous money—there it was! Khoja Nasreddin himself would not have scrupled to draw from that well. If it had been righteous money once, why could it not  {263}  be righteous money twice?” “I am going no farther,” the thief said to himself, entering a chaikhana that stood opposite and sitting down so that he could watch the money-changer.

He was lucky—the money-changer shut his shop that day long before drumbeat, and went home with a fat heavy bag at his side.

The thief crept after him.

The bazaar, being open to the sun, was filled with a dry breathless heat. The money-changer, puffing and perspiring profusely, turned down a by-street where only the rich dwelt as the carved walnut wickets in the blank walls bore witness. Here and there over the walls hung apricot boughs laden with golden fruits, or a grape vine draped in tender young leafage, shining greenly ‘in the sun. The hum and roar of the bazaar were muffled by the distance, and a deep peace reigned here, unbroken by the fussy cries of the women and the squalling of infants, which are such a necessary feature of the dwellings of the poor. Even the water here flowed down the fences with a timid murmur, and slid softly without the usual gurgling eddies, into the wooden troughs that carried it into the yards from the main aryk.

The one-eyed thief knew Kokand well, but had never been in this by-street before. He made a note of all the turnings and bends, just in case. They passed an old mosque and crossed a narrow hunchbacked foot-bridge; at the next turning the street came to an end; in the distance one could see the cemetery in a fringe of greenery. Here, directly facing a small pool with trees growing round it, stood the money-changer's house.

The money-changer knocked on the wicket with a ring-shaped iron knocker. The wicket was opened by an old man. “A servant,” the thief noted. “One or several? We shall wait and learn.”  {264} 

He retired to the pool, lay himself down in the shade, pulled his skull-cap over his face and feigned sleep.

He had to wait a long time. The sun had shifted in the sky and its low broad beam now struck the pool, lighting up the greenish depths, which were swarming with all kinds of water insects—myriads of tiny lives, palpitant solar dust that seemed to have been brought hither by this amber-hued sunbeam out of cosmic space.

The one-eyed waited. Patience was an essential attribute of his calling. He could, when need be, imitate the cat that will sometimes sit all night over the mouse-hole without twitching a whisker.

And his patience was rewarded. The wicket creaked and opened, and he beheld the money-changer. The latter was now without his bag, but the silken girdle around his robe slipped down to his thighs, weighted down on both sides by heavy purses.

Behind the money-changer's back the thief caught a glimpse of a woman's face uncovered by a yashmak—large black eyes, heavily blackened eyebrows, and long braids. The beautiful Arzi-bibi, wife of the money-changer, guessed the thief. He thought of the poor widow who had lost her jewels, thought of the grandee with his swaggering irresistible moustache, threaded upon the sharp twisted ends of which one could almost imagine scores of flaming female hearts.

The thief listened with bated breath.

“When shall you return?” Arzi-bibi asked crossly in her deep velvety voice. “Am I to weary myself again with waiting till late in the night, wondering whether aught has befallen you?”

“What can befall me?” retorted the money-changer. “I am going to the most worthy Vakhid to play a game of dice. Last time he won three hundred and seventy tangas from me and I desire to make good my loss.”  {265} 

“That means till night again!” she exclaimed. “By Allah, your dice will reduce us to the beggar's bag. Go, I have become used to being neglected and lonely. Not a single evening can you spare for me, not a single one!”

As future events will show, she had been thinking of nothing else the whole day long but of how to get rid of her fat tiresome husband, but who, in his place, catching the sound of tears and suppressed jealousy in her voice, would have dared to let such an unworthy suspicion taint his mind.

“Dice, horses, the bazaar—but for me . . . for me there is no room in your cruel heart!” she said in a tone of deep pain, which may even have been genuine, since women are capable of convincing themselves as well as their husbands of the sincerity of their lies, a circumstance that lends peculiar force to their perfidies.

She slammed the wicket and went indoors.

The money-changer pulled, mopped his face and the back of his fat neck with a handkerchief, moved his thick lips soundlessly, as if continuing in imagination the conversation with his wife, then, with an angry grunt he walked off to Vakhid's to win back his three hundred and seventy tangas.

All this time the thief had not stirred a limb nor interrupted for a second his feigned snore—but had anyone happened to peer up into his face under the skullcap at that moment, he would have recoiled, mazed with fear, exclaiming, “What do I see? Is it possible for any eye but shaitan's to glare with such a piercing yellow light?” The one-eyed was seized with a larcenous fever; thievish thoughts flickered in his mind, one after another, like flashes of July lightning in the mountains. The leathern bag, then, remained in the house! Where was it hidden? Was the house ever left empty for at least five minutes?  {266} 

The wicket opened once more. Two came forth into the road—the old door-keeper whom the thief had already seen, and after him, yawning, stretching and dragging his feet, a second servant of slightly younger age, sleepy-eyed and dishevelled, with a Chinese painted pitcher in his hands.

“Now she fancies fresh dates if you please!” grumbled the old man, taking out a pumpkin snuff-box and shaking into the palm of his hand a sizeable pinch of nas, a spicy stupefying mixture of tobacco, lime and sundry other potent drugs. “Go and get them, she says, wherever you will!” He opened his mouth and shot the dose of nas under his tongue with a deft movement, clapping his hand over his mouth. “May shaitan take her together with her dates! Where am I to find them?” He spoke now like a paralytic, with the use of his lips alone, his tongue being engaged in the business of pressing down the nas in his mouth.

“And me she has sent for Indian sherbet,” the younger servant said in a sleepy snuffling voice, rubbing his puffy eyes with his fist. “A man cannot get any sleep!”

Taking aim at a bumble-bee sitting on a bough, the old man squirted forth a long stream of juicy green spittle, but missed the mark. The bumble-bee took wing.

“I tell you what,” said the old man, “let us go and sit in some chaikhana, then go home separately and say that we found nothing.”

“You shall sit, and I shall take an hour's nap!” the other said, overjoyed.

So saying, they both departed.

Barely had the thief had time to digest their words ere the wicket opened again and two young servant girls, their faces uncovered, came tripping forth into the roadway. They flew out like birds from a cage, and at once fell to turning and twisting, preening themselves, twittering, babbling away with amazing rapidity, as if they  {267}  had ten tongues each instead of one behind the pearly teeth in those tiny coral mouths. The thief listened, albeit with a grimace of distaste.

“She has simply taken leave of her senses!” chirped the first. “She is sending me to Cornel Suburb for her embroideress! As if she cannot wait until tomorrow, when the embroideress will come herself!”

“And me she is sending to Arab's Square, to her lace-maker, ” chattered the second. “I cannot understand this sudden urgency for lace.”

“Can't you? Have you forgotten the illustrious Kamilbek?”

They both giggled, then burst out laughing in ringing voices, their young eyes flashing mirth.

“I believe we should not go anywhere,” the first servant girl said judiciously. “My aunt lives nearby—let us pay her a visit. We shall talk for an hour or two, and make up some excuse for the mistress. Let her sit alone.”

“In an empty house—serves her right!”

Alone! The word seared the thief from head to heels. Alone! If only she could somehow be lured from the house!

The voices of the servant girls died away in the distance.

Then, all of a sudden. . . . The thief held his breath.

Once more the wicket opened.

Verily this was a lucky day for the thief! The mistress herself, Arzi-bibi, came forth.

The thief was afraid to stir, afraid to breathe. He could scarcely believe that his most cherished desire was about to be achieved.

Arzi-bibi looked round. She did not notice the thief. Lowering the thick veil so that it completely concealed her face, she locked the wicket, and, her full hips swaying slightly, walked swiftly away in the direction of the bazaar.  {268} 

The thief rose on his elbow, and sent after her the shooting flame of his yellow eye.

Now was the time! The road was deserted, the house empty. Extolled be the perfection of Allah, the Almighty and All-Bountiful! I pray Thee to let down the veil of Thy protection over me—forward! And the thief made for the wall in a couple of huge bounds. O Prophet Mohammed, O Refuge of the Faith—forward! In a second the thief was on the wall. Another second, and he was in the yard.

He stood listening. No outcries. None had seen him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

According to the custom of the times, all the windows of the house and the door gave upon the garden. The windows were shuttered and bolted from within, and on the door hung a padlock. But where, in all the world, were there the locks and bolts that could defy that most expert of thieves? A knife, gleaming in his band, slipped easily into the opening of the end shutter, pushed upwards, then downwards, and with a click and clang the shutter opened.

The way to the cherished leathern bag lay free!

The thief stepped over the broad low window-sill, and closed the shutter after him, but did not bolt it; he left himself an easy avenue of escape in case of need.

He found himself in the guest-chamber. A strong beam of light falling directly from an aperture in the roof struck sharply upon the rear wall, into which it carved out the bright colourful pattern of a Turkish carpet. Piles of silk and satin coverlets lay spread around in deep niches, and one small niche in the centre contained a hookah mounted in silver.

The thief swiftly ransacked all the niches. He found no bag under the rugs and coverlets. He rushed over to  {269}  the chests, each of which took him no more than two minutes to unlock, ransack to the bottom and relock. The chests were packed with stuffs of velvet, satin and brocade, but the thief found not the bag in them.

He darted into the next room, then into the third. He went from chest to chest. Everywhere silks, brocades, morocco, velvets. But where was the bag?

One more room. The air in it was heavily perfumed with the odours of musk, ambergris, and attar, and the niches were filled with sprinkling bottles, small coffers, and caskets. Cluttered with all kinds of small objects, the room was as cramped as a bird's nest; in a corner, under a silk canopy, stood a wide low couch, over which a silver mirror shone dimly in the semi-darkness.

The chamber of Arzi-bibi—guessed the thief. He began to rummage about in the coffers. O joy!—his eye caught the gleam of gold, the sparkle of gems. He recognized them at once—the jewels of the poor widow. He exulted. What booty could be more righteous than this!

He should have been content with what he had found and taken his leave, but the haunting image of the leathern bag dangled temptingly before his inner eye. He looked under the couch and behind the cushions. In the opposite corner stood a large deep chest. Mayhap it was there? It was not even locked. The thief threw back the lid. Naught save a torn feather-bed at the bottom. A curse upon it! Where else could he look? In the chimneys? Indeed, he would have searched all the chimneys, and tapped all the walls until he had found the cherished bag—surely the money-changer, on leaving the house, had not made it invisible by some art of magic! He would have found that bag and seized it. . . .

From the yard came the clank of a padlock being opened, the creaking of the wicket. Arzi-bibi had returned! Once more a lock clanked—now quite near. The front door!  {270} 

Run! But whither? For all his featness the thief had not yet learned to pass out of a room through blank walls. The window which he had prepared for his likely escape was far removed at the far end of the house.

The chest—there lay his safety!

He dived into it, lowered the lid noiselessly over him and lay still.

He had sat in chests on many an occasion and was accustomed to regard them with a feeling of trust. He made himself comfortable in it and stretched his legs. He felt his pocket—the jewels were with him.

He sighed and prepared himself for a long chest-sitting.

Footfalls in the next chamber. Voices. The door opened. The mistress, the beautiful Arzi-bibi, came in, and with her—a man. The thief smiled a bitter mirthless smile—eh, women, women!

But hark, what was that strange clink that accompanied the man's footsteps? All became clear when the thief heard the low but distinct voice of the newcomer. It was the illustrious grandee, the handsome Kamilbek, the Chief of the Watch, it was his medals and his sabre that clinked.

“How cruelly you rend my heart with your unjust reproaches!” Kamilbek said, continuing a conversation started before. “Again and again I repeat—to you alone belongs my heart and all the fire of my soul!”

“Do not lie!” interrupted Arzi-bibi. There was a tremor in her deep velvety voice. “Be truthful at least once in your life at this our last meeting.”

“Our last? But why, O beautiful sultana of my heart?”

“You know yourself why.”

“Not so loud, O matchless Arzi-bibi! Someone may hear us.”

“We are alone in the house.”  {271} 

“Are you sure?”

“How frightened you are!” she laughed offensively. “Look yourself!” She swished across the room with quick steps. The brass rings of the curtains over the couch jangled. “See, there is no one. You may look in the chest.”

The thief shivered.

“Have a look in those jars, too,” Arzi-bibi sneered, coming to his rescue. “Verily I credited the illustrious Kamilbek with greater courage. But you are a timid hare, it seems.”

Touched to the quick, the grandee crossed the chamber from corner to corner with angry strides, filling it with the jingle of his medals.

“I am not timid but prudent. You know only too well what a horrible punishment awaits us both should we. . . .”

“When I love I think not of punishment!” Arzi-bibi returned haughtily. “Farkhad feared not danger when he wooed Shirin, and Mejnoun thought not of punishment when he sought his Leilah. However, far be it from me to compare the estimable, albeit overprudent Kamilbek with Farkhad or Mejnoun. I have invited you hither for other talks—I desire to know the truth!”

“The truth is that which I am endeavouring to reveal to you. I desire to warn you of the danger that threatens us both.”

The impetuous Arzi-bibi listened not to him. Irrepressibly the words of bitter rebuke poured from her lips, each heated in the flame of burning jealousy.

“I desire to know why you thought not of punishment ere this and were wont to come to me at the bidding of your heart? Why have you suddenly become so apprehensive that you have visited me not for two weeks—two whole weeks? Today, forgetting shame and decorum, I was obliged to go to the bazaar myself and call you from  {272}  the guard-room through an old beggar woman. Tell me—why have you begun to shun me and avoid the trysts which, if memory deceives me not, you once found pleasure in? Or, haply, I am mistaken in this, and you only condescended to me? You are silent? Very well, I shall answer you myself. You love me no more, and my place in your hard and fickle heart now belongs to another! That is the true reason. No, do not make excuses, do not try to lie—your .actions speak clearer than words!”

“O matchless Arzi-bibi, you are mistaken! O blossoming rose of my most cherished thoughts, am I blind not to see your perfections, am I crazed to bargain you for any other woman?”

“But you did!”

“I swear by my honour, by the shades of my noble ancestors!”

“Then why did you not come? What was the reason?”

“Your worthy husband.”

“My husband? But he existed before, yet that was no obstacle to you.”

“Momentous changes have taken place. Do you remember my quarrel with him on account of the stolen horses?”

“He was telling me something, but I was sleepy and paid no heed. Am I then to understand that in quarrelling with my husband you have hardened your heart against me?”

“Hear me out. He is suspicious. . . .”

“Suspicious? He?”

“Yes. He has got wind of our love. He is watching, That is why I came not since those races, although my heart yearned for you like a falcon for the sky!”

“But what have horses, races and suchlike stupid diversions of my husband got to do with it? How does all this concern our love?”

The grandee related to her in a few brief words the  {273}  gist of his conversation with the soothsayer in the vaults of the watch-tower.

“You remember, O delight of mine eye, how he uncovered your face before me? Think you he did that without hidden design? Nay he was testing us. We gazed at each other inflamed with mutual love, and he watched our every movement, counted our every heart-beat!”

“Impossible!” said Arzi-bibi. “That soothsayer of yours is a barefaced liar. I know my husband, I know all his wiles, and tricks, and thoughts. He watching me secretly? Why, if he only dared!”

“He is and he dares.”

“No, no, and no!” Arzi-bibi said with a low laugh. “No! You have been frightened by a shadow, O Kamilbek.” Her voice had a soft cooing quality; jealousy had drained from her heart. “And because of that lying soothsayer you have made me suffer so much?”

“Arzi-bibi, we stand mayhap on the brink of a deathly precipice.”

“Ah no, we recline in the blossoming garden of love! Sit beside me, Kamilbek, and I shall soon prove to you how absurd are your fears. Sit closer. Come, are you never going to take off that sabre and that prickly robe!”

“But what if someone comes?”

“No one will come. We are alone.”

“And your husband?”

“He has gone to Vakhid the money-lender to play dice. They will sit till late in the night.”

The thief heard the clink of buckles, the rustle of brocade. The grandee had divested himself of robe and sabre. Upon this the entrancing Arzi-bibi began to prove to him the groundlessness of his fears. We shall refrain from describing these proofs, and say merely that they were as diverse as they were protracted.

Meanwhile the stuffy heat within the chest had thickened to a painful degree. The thief sat drenched with  {274}  perspiration. The fluff and feathers clung stickily to his face, got into his nose, and tickled his throat. The lady's ardour gave him three opportunities to raise the lid and breathe deeply of the fresh air.

The fourth opportunity did not present itself for some time. He was suffocating. For all his abhorrence of women, he was ready to jump out of the chest and go to the grandee's aid. Not for the sake of Arzi-bibi's charms, but for the sake of air!

At last! He raised the lid slightly. Air, air, moments of bliss! He breathed deeply, freely, full-chestedly, without the slightest fear of being heard. But hark, what was that strange sound! Was it here in the chamber, or without?

The sound came from without, a sound presageful of calamitous storms! When the thief, lowering the lid, became submerged once more in the dark and stifling heat, and silence reigned once more in the chamber, a silence broken only by the spent sighs of love, the iron ring on the wicket was heard to clang again, and the voice of the money-changer cried out:

“Why does no one open! Have you all fallen asleep in there!”

With that voice there burst into the chamber the wind of consternation which began to spin and whirl about and turn everything topsy-turvy.

It flung the grandee off the couch, and sent chasing about the room in circles like a running hare.

“Your husband! Rahimhai!” the grandee exclaimed in a low whisper, pattering over the carpeted stone floor with bare heels. “There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! By Allah, he has caught us! I am lost! I am ruined!”

At that dread and fateful moment, he thought of none but himself, was concerned only for his own safety, and would as lief have betrayed his lady-love if by so doing  {275}  he could have saved his own skin! Such, with few exceptions, are all-voluptuaries.

Not so did Arzi-bibi face the danger. She displayed a strength of spirit and courage which would have been an adornment in the most battle-hardened of warriors. Indeed, was she not herself a gallant warrior on the battlefield of love?

She needed no more than two or three seconds to pass from a state of dismay to one of action.

In one moment all traces of amatory disarray on the couch were destroyed.

“Wait, do not knock so loudly—I have a terrible headache,” she called out in an agonized voice, addressing herself through the window to the money-changer, who was storming at the wicket. Her whisper aside was for the grandee: “Stop running about, smacking your heels. He will hear. Ah, put on your shalwars, this is indecent, really! No, no, not that—that is my yashmak. . . . Here they are—get them on! Oh, you are at the wrong end, turn them over!” Then again through the window to her husband: “In a minute! What have I done with my slippers. I cannot find them.” In a whisper to the grandee: “Hide in the chest! Quick! In half an hour I shall get rid of him.” Through the window: “I am coming, I am coming! By Allah, there is never a moment's peace in this house!”

His eyes pale with terror, the grandee crawled into the chest, seeing nothing, understanding nothing.

“There is something soft in here.”

“It is a feather bed. Get in!”

He lowered himself into the hot stuffy depths. The lid closed upon him.

Arzi-bibi left the chamber.

The grandee began to sniffle and wriggle about in the chest. He crouched with his chin on his knees, like an infant in its mother's womb. Some soft obstacle  {276}  prevented him from stretching out his legs—probably some lumpy part of the feather bed.

He braced his back against the wall of the chest and pressed his feet into the soft lump.

Suddenly the dark interior became alive.

“Careful, sir!” he heard a near indignant whisper. “Careful, or you will squash my belly!”

What words can describe the grandee's terror? He recoiled and jumped up, striking his head against the lid with a bang.

“Eh? What? Who is that? Eh?” he ejaculated, utterly mazed with fear, and prodding the darkness before him with outspread fingers.

“Careful!” repeated the same mysterious whispering voice. “You are poking your finger into my ear!”

Some invisible presence seized the grandee's wrists and gripped them hard.

“Eh? What?” cried the grandee, his teeth chattering and his body trembling as he tried to wrench himself free. “Who is it? Eh? Who is it?”

“Not a word! Not a sound! They are coming! Fear me not, illustrious Kamilbek—no harm shall come to you from me.”

Dazed with affright, the grandee's reason took nothing in.

There followed a smart blow upon the forehead by an invisible fist.

“Silence, or by Allah, I shall use a knife upon you!”

The grandee lay still, not daring to stir or even breathe.

The money-changer and Arzi-bibi entered the chamber.

“How good that you have returned early today,” she said.  {277} 

“Vakhid was not at home. Some urgent business or other,” the money-changer said, seating himself upon the chest and pressing the lid down with his fat bottom.

Not a breath of air now reached the grandee and the thief.

“I am quite ill,” moaned Arzi-bibi. “I wish you would go for Saidullah, the leech. His ‘house is quite near, only two minutes’ walk.”

“Where are all the servants?”

“I dismissed them. They wearied me with their idle chatter. I thought to have a little sleep. Alone, in the darkness. . . .”

“And I have spoilt it,” the money-changer smiled good-humouredly. “You were fast asleep—I could hardly wake you. I shall go for the leech.”

He rose and made for the door, but at that moment the unfortunate grandee, who was unused to sitting in chests, stirred.

The thief gripped his .arms with fierce intensity.

Too Late, the money-changer had heard.

“What was that noise?”

“Mice,” Arzi-bibi rejoined carelessly.

Verily, with her self-possession, she was born for royal courts, for intrigues, and secret plottings, and not for the strait confines of the money-changer's house.

“By the way, have you heard the news?” continued the money-changer, stopping in the doorway. “Do you remember Nigmatullah, the seller of hides? You know, that fat red-haired man who has his shop next door to the principal mosque of the bazaar. Well, he caught in his wife's room—whom would you think? The chief mirab from the Office of Town Aryks and Reservoirs!”

“What! a strange man!” Arzi-bibi cried, horrified.

“This is a case for the Khan, I fear. I envy not the mirab.”

“It serves him right, the libertine!”  {278} 

“And that profligate woman will be punished by whipping. Five hundred strokes—neither more nor less.”

“It is not enough. Such wives should be burnt in fires or thrown into boiling cauldrons!”

“You are too hard, Arzi-bibi. A hundred lashes would suffice for her. Nigmatullah is now sorry that ‘he has made such a fuss. He pities his wife and is trying his best to save her, but it is too late now.”

“Fancy pitying such a wanton!”

“In my opinion,” the money-changer said, lowering his voice for safety's sake, “the authorities ought not to meddle in domestic affairs. . . .”

The thief felt a sudden convulsive movement in the hands of the grandee whose wrists he was gripping—the reflection of an inner outburst, a natural impulse to seize the seditious wretch! Even here, within the chest, on the brink of his own ruin, that sturdy guardian of the pillars could not wholly suppress his seizing zeal.

“If you were ever unfaithful to me,” the money-changer proceeded in a jocular tone, “I still should not like to see you in the hands of the executioners. Poor Nigmatullah! Again that sound. It seems to come from the chest.”

“It is not in the chest, it is under the floor. It is mice again.”

“We must get us a cat. Haply the leech has one to spare—I shall bring it then. Do not get up, I shall lock the wicket myself from the outside so as not to bother you when I return.”

Then, all of a sudden, he broke off with an odd gurgling sound, as if he had choked with his own tongue.

Silence ensued.

Something had happened. But what—the thief in the chest could not make out.  {279} 

When the money-changer's voice sounded once more it was hoarse and suppressed, and anything but good-humoured.

“Whence comes this brocaded robe? This golden sabre?”

The thief's heart sank, his breath stopped. O fools! To forget the robe, forget the sabre! To leave them in full view!

Over the chest a storm burst.

'This? This. . .” stammered Arzi-bibi, and could say no more. She had been caught unawares. Even she, the fearless, was daunted, she, the strong, was shaken.

“Yes, this! Precisely this!” the merchant pressed on, his voice shrill with mounting passion.

“It is a present. I have prepared for you a present. . . .”

“A present? For me? A sabre? A brocade robe with medals? You lie!” roared the money-changer. “Speak—whose robe is that, whose sabre?”

“They are yours, yours!” Arzi-bibi said, trying to brazen it out. “Shout not so loud, the neighbours may hear.”

“Let them! Let them hear!” screamed the moneychanger. “Let them know! Profligate doings, I see, have penetrated not only the house of Nigmatullah! Who was here in my absence? Aha, you are silent! O vile wanton, O daughter of shaitan! Who? Who, I ask you?”

Disarmed and crushed, Arzi-bibi said nothing.

The grandee in the chest fainted from terror and dropped over the thief in a limp lifeless heap.

And the thief too—inured though he was to all kinds of trials—succumbed to soul-destructive fear. He was lost! In a moment the money-changer would call in people and begin to ransack the house. The dungeons, torture, the executioner, the gallows! He was lost!

“Who?” the money-changer roared, his voice hoarse and choked with fury, stamping his feet. “Speak!”  {280} 

Overcome with fear and dismay, the thief mentally invoked Khoja Nasreddin from within the chest, praying, O save me, let some miracle happen!

And happen it did! A saving thought, brilliant as lightning, thin and sharp as a needle, flashed through his stupefied head. It was not his own thought—it had come flying in from some other quarter; at first the thief hardly gathered its full import, and, of course, would not have been able to act upon it even if he had. However, simultaneously with the thought there had come to him a surge of mighty power.

All that happened thereafter, all the thief's words and actions were not his own, they proceeded from that mysterious source of power, obeying which, the thief, moving as though in a dream, hardly understanding what he was doing, raised the lid of the chest and presented himself before the astonished gaze of the merchant and his wife amid a cloud of flying fluff and feathers.

Arzi-bibi gave a little shriek, and turned deathly pale. All was dead in her face save her eyes—huge, black, staring eyes. . . . And no wonder! She had hidden in the chest her exquisite Kamilbek, and here there had crawled forth from it a one-eyed wretch with a flat broad face of such hideous aspect as would have inspired the evil jinee of Sakhr himself with loathing!

The mysterious force acting from without caused the thief to step from the chest and slam the lid shut, and thereupon placed upon his tongue the following words:

“Arzi-bibi, all has come to light! We must no longer deceive your estimable husband. It remains for us but to repent and crave his pardon with becoming humility.”

The money-changer leapt into the air, and gnashed his teeth, trembling.

Arzi-bibi cowered against the wall, stammering, “Who is that? Who is it?”

“Who?” the merchant croaked. “You know not who?”  {281} 

“I swear I have never seen him! Never! Never in my life until this day . . . this minute.”

The thief had no need to search for convincing words having the appearance of truth—they came of themselves.

“When I heard how lovingly and tenderly your husband spoke to you, my heart was filled with remorse and shame.”

“He lies!” screamed Arzi-bibi. “Believe him not! I have never seen him until this minute, never!”

“Infamous wanton!” hissed the enraged money-changer. “Faithless one! To deceive your benefactor, who took you as a beggar! To deceive him! And with whom? With such a filthy ugly kretch! Just look at him, look—is he any better than I?”

“Women sometimes have very strange and perverted tastes,” the thief inserted in a voice sweetly bland.

Arzi-bibi could do naught but groan in reply. She had recovered from the first shock and now comprehended everything. She was boiling with rage, searing the thief to ashes with the white-hot lightnings of her black eyes. But she was fettered, powerless, compelled to silence For there, in the chest, lay a second one.

“He lies,” she cried again, choking with fury.

“It is no use denying, Arzi-bibi,” said the thief. “Naught save a sincere confession can save us. Did you not invite me into this house yourself today, saying that your husband had gone till the night to the house of the money-lender Vakhid in order to win back at dice the three hundred and seventy tangas that he had lost?”

“You have even told him that, chattering woman!” the merchant wailed, rending his beard. “Even that!”

The mysterious force was still at work, suggesting to the thief the needful words.

“I swear never more to cross the threshold of this house and never to fill my eyes with the sight of that  {282}  woman, who though beautiful in body is black in soul, as is evidenced by her shameless denials. My heart turns away from her with disdain, and I depart hence.”

With a slow step and hanging head, as if utterly crushed with remorse and sorrow, he went forth from the house.

Indescribable was the scene that he left behind.

“No, no! I know him not! Never! Never!” Arzi-bibi screamed, all in tears.

“You lie!” roared her husband. “You lie, accursed! He has given you the lie in your throat!”

The sabre flew rattling after the thief, and was followed by the robe of brocade.

“Take them, defiler of other men's bedchambers! Begone, and let me never see you again!”

Of this the thief waited not to be asked twice.

No sooner had he fled the house than the mysterious strength left him. But now he had more than enough of his own, and he applied it to his feet—every ounce of it. He ran as he had never run in his life.The wind whistled in his ears, and his own shadow could barely keep pace with him. In a moment he had crossed a patch of wasteland and found himself in the cemetery, where he laid himself down in the dusty thistle growth between the old graves.

In the house of the money-changer, meanwhile, the storm, by little and little, had abated.

Wilted and limp, with a dishevelled beard to which clung tufts of fluff, and his turban askew, the merchant sat on the chest, exclaiming sorrowfully;

“And I always trusted you! How I trusted you!”

He clutched his head in his hands and shook it, swaying from side to side and moaning low with the pain of a broken heart.  {283} 

A final fit of anger flung him into the middle of the chamber. Rolling his eyes about wildly and tearing at his beard, he lifted up his voice:

“And with whom? With whom? Where did you find him—that hideous ape!”

This cry of an anguished heart drained his strength to the dregs. He spoke no more thereafter—not a single word.

What mode of punishment could he choose for his giddy wife? Hand her over to the whippers? But he loved her too much for that, and, besides, he did not want the publicity and the disgrace. Flog her himself by way of punishment? He could do that, availing himself of the absence of the servants, but “Contemptible is he who strikes a woman”—he remembered that.

Thereupon he decided to lock her in and deprive her of all the outward signs of his favour. With a grim determined look, puffing and grunting noisily, he took the silver-mounted mirror off the wall, tore down the carpet, then despoiled the niches by taking away all the sprinkling bottles, caskets, and various other gewgaws.

He did in like manner with the couch, leaving naught thereon save one cushion.

The chamber at once became cheerless with an untenanted look.

Arzi-bibi cowered in a corner, watching the vengeful performance of her husband with great staring eyes.

His glance travelled over the ceiling and the walls. What else could he tear down? Aha, the silk canopy over the couch! And down came the canopy, joining the rest of the spoils.

And a large and varied heap they made. What was he to do with it all? The glance of the money-changer fell upon the chest—the most suitable place!  {284} 

Arzi-bibi's blood ran cold. Another storm was about to burst.

Naught save the divine pen of a Nizami or a Firdausi could worthily describe all that which followed. Suffocating with the heat in the stuffy chest and reduced to an abject state of terror, the grandee, seeing that his turn had now come, became as one demented. With wild muffled howls resembling the ululation of an eagle-owl at night, all wet with perspiration arid covered with clinging fluff, he leapt from the chest, butted the merchant in his belly and bit his finger, then, without any sense or reason whatsoever hurled himself through the window, shattering the Chinese coloured panes.

The wicket was open, but he saw it not. He scrambled up the garden wall. Fell down. Scrambled up again. Howled. Rolled over the top, dropped into the roadway, sprang to his feet, covered in dust, and dashed off, he knew not whither, as fast as he could lay legs to the ground.

His misadventures, however, did not end here. Spurred on by fear, he rushed into the cemetery. Chance brought him to the very gravestone behind which the thief was crouching. Panting and wheezing, with a hammering heart that seemed ready to burst, the grandee flung himself down among the tall weeds within two paces of the thief, who lay on the other side of the gravestone. When he had somewhat recovered his breath he made bold to peep out.

All-Merciful Allah!—straight before him he saw a flat broad ugly face, wearing a friendly grin and winking a yellow eye at him.

The face was unfamiliar, but the whisper that he heard was all too painfully familiar.

“Well, how are things yonder in the house? I have your sabre and your medals, worthy sir. You can have  {285}  them. But the robe I am leaving for myself as a keepsake.”

Who thought of a sabre, who thought of medals at such a time! With a wild strangled cry, the grandee leapt to his feet and, swifter than an antelope, dashed off again into the depths of the cemetery, jumping over graves and forcing his way through the prickly blackthorn bushes. In vain did the thief wave his hands to him in token of his peaceful intentions—the grandee checked not his headlong flight and disappeared in the thick undergrowth.

No sooner had the grandee sprung out from the chest and made good his escape than the silence-compelling chains fell away from Arzi-bibi, and she rushed into the .attack with all the vehemence of her nature.

“You old fool!” she shrieked. “You fat old drivelling fool, instead of making these stupid jealous scenes and reviling me as the least of trollops, you had better look to your bag. Where is it? Have you not yet realized that these were thieves, thieves who broke into our house while I was asleep? Where is your bag?”

The mention of his bag had an instantaneous sobering effect upon the merchant. He darted to his hiding-place in the next room. Arzi-bibi rushed over to the casket in which she kept her jewels.

The bag was in its place, but the jewels were gone.

Arzi-bibi's words concerning the thieves had been borne out, and consequently, her complete innocence in regard to any suspicion of infidelity had been proved.

The jewels could not have disappeared more felicitously. Secretly she was glad of this loss, never for a moment doubting that she would, in the very near future, make the money-changer recompense it a hundredfold.

As to what happened afterwards scarcely needs relating, Naturally Arzi-bibi wept bitter tears, sobbing  {286}  with heaving shoulders; naturally the money-changer was filled with remorse and abjectly begged her forgiveness; naturally, he put all the caskets and bottles back in their places, crawled over the walls, wet with perspiration, hanging up the canopy and the carpet, and ended by fully admitting his wife's unquestionable superiority over himself as well as the fact that there was no greater bliss than that of being her slave—a confession, which, though graciously received, nevertheless averted not the shameful banishment of the jealous one from these ambrosial chambers of chastity.

Night fell, the moon rose and shed its pale lustre upon Kokand, the hushed bazaar, and the house of the money-changer, illumining the sleeping Arzi-bibi with her face of marmoreal beauty and dove-like purity, and, in the farthermost chamber of the house, the sleepless figure of the exiled merchant, tormented by remorse and compassion. Ever and anon he crept on tiptoes to the cell of sleeping innocence, and there, behind the door, with a look of adoration upon his face and with unshed tear-drops in the corners of his eyes, he listened to the light steady breathing within, then kissed the air with a silent kiss, and sorrowfully shaking his head and sighing, returned to his chamber.

And far beyond the town, on a deserted road, the moon shed its light upon the lone figure of the thief. With the jewels in his pocket and the brocade robe and the sabre put away in a sack, he hastened towards the mountains, where Khoja Nasreddin was waiting for him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mystery! Too well did Khoja Nasreddin know what a great drawing power that word possessed; his plans had been well laid; Agabek now became a daily visitor at the clay hut.  {287} 

“It is too early, master, have patience yet a few more days,” Khoja Nasreddin said in reply to his importunities.

Agabek grumbled but submitted.

The conversation touched on other matters, which seemed at first sight to have no bearing on the secret, but which actually tended in the same direction, albeit by roundabout and indirect ways.

“So, until your service in Herat, you travelled much about the world, Uzakbai. What did you seek?”

“Knowledge. The key to the world's mysteries.”

“According to your words, you visited Mecca too. Wherefore, then, do you not wear the green turban?”

“I have no right thereto, for I was so busy that I could find no time to perform all the needful rites around the Black Stone.”

“You were busy? What with?”

“With the search for an ancient book.”

“Found you it?”

“Yes.”

“What book is it?”

“Ask me not, master. It has to do with great things—with evil and good enchantments.”

“Then you are a magician?”

“Nay, on the contrary. I purpose to destroy an evil spell, not to create it.”

“What spell is that, tell me?”

“Not for a few more days. Have patience, master.”

The chain of questions, with slight variations, followed the same circle again and again. Naturally, Khoja Nasreddin would not have wasted his time with them had he not found them useful to his purpose. He studied Agabek by his own questions. Truly does the saying run, “A fool sows words at random, but the wise man reaps the harvest!”

Khoja Nasreddin carefully studied all the tortuous  {288}  twists of Agabek's nature, watched every slip of his tongue, every impulse and motive in his endeavour to find the key to his inner hidden essence. He was, as it were, drawing Agabek's soul from his fat body into the light of day, the way a drowned person is drawn forth from a pool of water for the purpose of identification; at first the pool is dark and impenetrable, but then the hook catches, the water becomes agitated, and something white can be dimly glimpsed in the depths; one more tug, and the body begins to rise to the surface, frightening the beholders with the ghastly livid aspect of its dead bloated face. By its unsightliness and utter insensibility to all that is good the soul of Agabek strongly resembled this drowned man, and if, furthermore, we were to assume that pool to be a malodorous receptacle of filth, our comparison would achieve the complete and perfect circle of aptitude and fitness.

Agabek was arrogant and boastful, a lover of fulsome flattery. Former magistrate, he maligned, accused, and condemned everyone, as though he had been ordained by God to be the supreme arbiter of the world. He spoke not of himself save in the most solemn terms, recalling the days of his judicial grandeur with profound sorrow—and not once did he laugh at himself or joke. From all this Khoja Nasreddin gathered, for one thing, that he was stupid, for another, that he was dull, for a third, that he was embittered, and for a fourth, that he still cherished the fond dream of being reinstated in the honourable and highly lucrative office of magistrate.

This latter circumstance was to Khoja Nasreddin the gaping cleft in the man's shield.

By gentle and imperceptible means he turned the conversation to royal courts, official posts, rewards, and promotions.  {289} 

“What a bright reason Allah has put into your head, O master!” he cried with mock admiration. “’Tis unbelievable that such a mind should have been overlooked in Khoresm and that you should have been allowed to withdraw from office.”

These words were balsam to the heart of Agabek—the more so that his exit from the official scene had been precipitated by a too zealous devotion to the art of extortion.

“Of course, I understand—the post of city magistrate was too mean for you,” Khoja Nasreddin proceeded. “Could they not have chosen something higher for you—for instance, that of Chief Court Treasurer? Any king with any sense should snatch at such a treasurer with both hands. The Court Treasury would always be full, and all taxes would be collected in time.”

“And many new ones introduced as well!” cried Agabek, giving the reins to his fancy. “A tax on tears, for instance. . . .”

“A great thought! A tax on tears would cause more tears, and more tears mean more money. And so without end. What infinite wisdom! Why, for that thought alone you should immediately be given the post of Grand Vizier!”

Agabek girded up his strength once more and delivered himself of another great thought:

“And I would introduce another one—a tax on laughter!

“On laughter! To think what a vizier the Khan of Khoresm has lost! He must be biting all the nails on his toes with chagrin, I am sure!”

A week passed in this wise. The torrid summer rose hither into the foothills from the valley flooding the world with a dry drowsy heat. The air was breathless,  {290}  as if the wind had dropped never to rise again; the lake gleamed like burnished steel, a barely perceptible fleeting shadow occasionally skimming across its silvery surface, like blown breath upon a mirror. And then everything stood becalmed again in the torrents of incandescent light. A solitary hawk hovered in the sky, and the lizards lay in close-eyed torpor on the white stones. The grass had withered and turned yellow. Glancing at the distant hills one morning, Khoja Nasreddin saw no sign of the nomads’ white tents upon the slopes—the Kirghizes had struck camp during the night and departed with their herds to the high mountain pastures.

The white snows and blue glaciers were melting in the mountains. The streams carrying the water down into the valley were overflowing. But the villagers of Chorak did not get a drop of this water. Agabek caught it all and stored it in his lake.

The Chorak fields were languishing in the heat.

The time came for watering.

Agabek boastfully told Khoja Nasreddin about the damsel whom he was expecting in his house.

“She is a simple village damsel, of course, but if you saw her, Uzakbai, you would compare her in your thoughts to a rose bud. And in a day or two I shall open that bud!”

“But is she not plighted?”

She? Plighted? The thought had never entered Agabek's mind, no more than had the damsel's own thoughts and desires. Were not all those villagers wretched despicable worms in comparison with him, had not destiny itself placed them all in his power in order that their weal and their desires should be sacrificed to his weal and his desires?

Khoja Nasreddin understood the meaning of his puzzled glance, and asked no more questions.  {291} 

A heavy rain-storm had passed in the mountains during the night. A gusty wind, laden with the moisture of the distant downpour, beat against the flimsy door of the hut with taut wings until at last it opened it; bursting within, it raised and eddied the ash in the hearth, blew into the face of the sleeping Khoja Na-sreddin with its damp breath, and disturbed the ass, who seemed to have been waiting for that gust in order to startle the echoes of the night with a hideous jumble of braying, sobbing, hiccupping, and gurgling sounds.

Khoja Nasreddin awoke, raised his head and listened to the distant rumble of the thunder. Through the open door he beheld the stormy sky. The black clouds seemed to be striking sparks from the towering crags, and fleeting visions of the brooding ridge with its snowy battlements, and its black clefts and gaps, leapt out of the darkness in the blue-white flashes of lightning. “I wonder where my one-eyed companion is now?” thought Khoja Nasreddin. “Haply he is on the mountain trail, exposed to the storm—may Almighty Allah preserve him!”

The thief had been constantly in his thoughts these last few days. A contact would seem to have been established between them across the mountain heights and passes, too feeble for thought transference, yet sufficient for conveying to each other their feelings, or rather the echo of feelings. “Can it be that I have formed such close bonds of affection with him?” reflected Khoja Nasreddin, recollecting that such contact at great distances had seldom occurred with him before, and then only with people who lay closest to his heart.

Yester-eve, that sense of contact had become almost tangible. Khoja Nasreddin had suddenly been seized with a vague disquiet mounting to alarm. “What has  {292}  befallen him in Kokand?” he asked himself, but he could not guess, of course.

It so happened that at that very moment the thief had been sitting in the chest with the grandee for company.

“He is in danger! He is in danger!” Khoja Nasreddin had mentally exclaimed, oppressed in his mind.

So violent had been his agitation, that a particle of his strength had transported itself to Kokand, to the closed chest in the house of the merchant. Hence the sudden saving inspiration that had caused the thief to throw back the lid of the chest and present himself before the confounded gaze of the merchant in a cloud of fluff. What happened thereafter in the house of the merchant, we know, so there is no need to repeat ourselves; at the other end of the contact—in the clay hut—naught of importance had occurred, unless we count the tranquillity of mind that had been suddenly restored to Khoja Nasreddin. He had breathed with relief, knowing now beyond any doubt that the danger which had hung over the thief in Kokand had passed him by without causing him any harm. His heart had become at ease, and he had laughed, feeling that the thief, upon his return, would relate to him a tale of a most diverting nature.

Khoja Nasreddin had remained in this cheerful frame of mind till the very night of the storm, and even when he had fallen asleep he continued to see cheerful dreams,

Awakened by the storm and thunderclaps, he lay for a long time, thinking of the thief, but not a single echo of disquiet could he discover in his heart. That signified that all was in order, and he would soon return.

Khoja Nasreddin rose to shut the banging door, and beheld Said.  {293} 

The youth slipped into the hut and whispered in a voice of pleading:

“Forgive me for having broken my pledge and coming to you, but my reason is squeezed between the pincers of anguish. Three days remain until the watering.”

“I remember, Said, I remember.”

“Zulfia has already cried her eyes out, and lost faith.”

“Lost faith? That is very bad.”

“Haply we should run away together while there is yet time?”

“If there is to be any running-away all three of us should run. Nay, all four of us—for how can I leave my ass behind? And not four but five—I have forgotten another who should appear in Chorak at any moment. That will be not flight, but a great going-out!” He laid his hand upon Said's shoulder. “Tell your Zulfia that all is well, just as it should be.”

“She will not believe.”

“Tell her in my name.”

“She knows you not.”

“But you yourself, Said—do you believe me still?”

He looked into Said's eyes with a hot glance that burns through darkness and penetrates to the heart—thus does a sunbeam, passing through closed eyelids, irradiate the scarlet blood. It was impossible to resist that glance.

“I believe,” Said said softly.

“Then she will believe too. Your faith will pass to her. Go! Remember—we stand always together. Whatever may happen, we stand together!”

Said salaamed and departed.

At the ebb of night he met with Zulfia.

His faith passed into her and her spirit was revived.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Another day passed, but the thief had not yet appeared.

Khoja Nasreddin counted his journey on his fingers: three days there, three back, two days in Kokand. “If tomorrow he appears not either, then verily we shall have to flee! Can it be that the eye of my mind has played me false? No, that is impossible! He is already near, he is pressing forward amain, he is already on this side of the pass!”

And the thief appeared. He appeared in the doorway of the hut as if materializing out of the air. But a minute before Khoja Nasreddin had gone out to look down the road and not a soul had he seen. And now suddenly the thief had appeared! He was noticeably fatigued and covered with dust, but his flat ugly face was beaming. It said better than words could have done—success!

This took place in the afternoon. While the thief was relating his Kokand adventures, the sun shifted westward and evening was approaching—the last evening before the irrigation. Time was precious.

“Let us make things clear,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “The jewels belonging to the poor widow must be returned to her. Do you agree?”

“I had the very same thought.”

“But first we shall use them for a brief turnover. For a righteous purpose, of course.”

“I understand!” the thief said, livening up. “I can tell you of a place where that can be done with convenience. Yonder, a little way out of Chorak down in the valley there is a caravanserai. I have been told about it. A large caravanserai wherein dice is played without interruption day and night. Big gambling. If we go to work on this together. . . .”  {295} 

“Nay, we shall not go to work on this. We shall make a turnover much nearer home. We shall play a different game, a winning game. Follow me, but take care that no one sees you.”

By way of the waste-plots and back lanes he brought the thief to the house of old Mamed-Ali. Concealing themselves in the thick bushes, they crept up to the wall and looked into the garden.

The old man was in the garden, digging the earth up around the apple-trees. Khoja Nasreddin recognized one of them as the tree which Mamed-Ali had planted on the day of his daughter's birth. That apple-tree, Said had told him, was decorated for adornment's sake with a coloured ribbon for every day: a red one for Saturday, a white one for Sunday, a yellow one for Monday, a blue one for Tuesday, a pink one for Wednesday, and a green one for Thursday. Friday being a holiday, all the six ribbons were hung out together. This rite had been devised by Zulfia ten years ago, and she had strictly observed it ever since, never forgetting to say good morning to her coeval and to adorn it.

Today was Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, when the apple-tree was supposed to have six different coloured ribbons. But where were they? Stare as he would, Khoja Nasreddin could not distinguish this one and only apple-tree from the many others. Had Zulfia forgotten?

No, Zulfia had not forgotten. Looking more closely, Khoja Nasreddin discerned on one of the trees nearby—the very tree around which the old man was digging up the earth—a narrow little ribbon—a black one.

Zulfia had not forgotten. That morning she had bidden  {296}  farewell to her favourite and left this sign of mourning in memory of herself.

Khoja Nasreddin's heart was moved with compassion. That black little ribbon told him more than a tome of sorrow would have done. Poor maid, how she must have suffered these days! Without having yet seen her or spoken to her, he felt her to be near and dear to him, a blood relation almost. With all his heart he shared her grief, and with all his heart he shared beforehand the unexpected joy that was soon to enter this garden through him.

“See you that black ribbon on the apple-tree?” he said to the one-eyed in a whisper. “Before a quarter of an hour shall have elapsed it will be replaced by the gay splendour of six coloured ribbons. Believe me, such minutes are worth living for!”

The one-eyed did not understand. To him that ribbon was dark in meaning as well as colour.

“What do you mean?”

“Look and guess.”

Zulfia, the young mistress, came forth into the garden. Alas!—she no longer regarded herself as the mistress there. Sorrow clouded her face. She cast a slow farewell glance around the garden, taking in the bushes, the trees, the paths, and the flowers. Khoja Nasreddin divined the tears in her eyes from afar.

“Look!” the thief whispered, nudging Khoja Nasreddin with his elbow. “There is another.”

It was Said. He had slipped in through the wicket unseen by the old man and approached Zulfia behind the bushes. She rushed forward to meet him.

“Well, what?” Khoja Nasreddin guessed her eager question.

“Everything will be decided today,” came the answer. “Either there will be money or we shall flee. Are you prepared?”  {297} 

Zulfia tossed her head bravely. Yes, she was prepared! She was not hasty in making up her mind, but when she did, she would be staunch to the end. Khoja Nasreddin was lost in admiration of her—that bold turn of the head, the flash of her eyes.

The old man pottering around the apple-tree looked round and beheld Said and Zulfia. He hung his head, thought awhile, then sticking his mattock into the ground, dragged his tottering feet towards them.

Said saluted him respectfully.

The old man returned his salutation in silence. It was difficult for him to speak. He felt ashamed. Mastering himself, he said:

“My son, hearken to me—go away. Cause not needless heartache to me, to Zulfia, and to yourself. She belongs to us no longer.”

Khoja Nasreddin had no time to listen to his further words.

“Quick!” he said to the thief. “Hide the jewels under the apple-tree. Cover them up with earth. Slip through like a serpent, like a shadow!”

The thief leapt over the wall into the garden, and forthwith disappeared as if the earth had cloven asunder and swallowed him. Only by the barely perceptible swaying of the grass over the dry overgrown ditch was Khoja Nasreddin able to follow his progress towards the apple-tree. So swift and soundless was it.

There was a brief gleam of something under the apple-tree, then the weeds over the dry ditch swayed again and bent in the opposite direction.

He took his mattock and struck the ground with it once and again, turning over the earth in smooth slices that shone darkly under the iron. He broke up each slice with the butt end, then crushed it thoroughly until there was not a clod left. Grief lay upon his old heart like an enormous stone, grief had extinguished the last dim light in his old eyes, but it could not impede the customary tenor of his labour. In labour lay the roots of his being, the very meaning of his existence upon earth. He swung his mattock as always with slow measured movements, leaving naught behind him that needed bettering or redoing.

The mattock struck against something hard. The old man bent down, but saw not the bag with the jewels there by reason of his poor sight. Khoja Nasreddin shouted out to him in thought: “Bend down lower, you old mole! Take them, pick them up!”

The old man espied at last the little bag. He picked it up and undid it, and stood petrified, dazzled by the gleam of gold and the sparkle of gems.

He shook the jewels out into his hand—a dark, toil-hardened, earthy hand. A bracelet dropped on the ground, and in bending down to pick it up Mamed-Ali dropped the rest. The ruby necklace slipped from his hands like a fiery snake, the gold, in falling, glowed with an oily melting lustre, the sapphires shone with an icy-blue starry glimmer, the emeralds with a green sparkle.  {299} 

“Zulfia! Zulfia!” the old man cried out in a tremulous voice.

She heard and came flying to him anxiously.

“What is the matter, Father? Do you feel bad?” she said, then broke off in amazement at the sight of the jewels. She had seen gold before only twice in her life, but gems never.

“What is this?”

The old man had recovered his senses and reason.

“I found them. Just now, under the apple-tree. Under your favourite tree. O Zulfia, the Almighty Allah has heard our prayers! An angel has brought us this, Zulfia, your guardian angel!”

Khoja Nasreddin tugged the thief's sleeve.

“Do you hear—you are an angel.”

Stricken down by a sudden fit of inner soundless laughter, the one-eyed rolled and writhed on the ground at the feet of Khoja Nasreddin.

Within the garden, meanwhile, a joyous hubbub had broken out. “Said! Said!” Zulfia cried out in a ringing voice. The youth heard her—he had not gone far—and came running back. He was the only one of the three who guessed whence those jewels had come, but how they came to be under the apple-tree—that he could not understand.

All that was wanting to crown that day was the decking of the tree with coloured ribbons. “You must remember, you must!” Khoja Nasreddin reiterated, mentally addressing Zulfia. She caught his entreaty with her inner hearing and ran into the house. A minute later she reappeared like a flying comet—impetuous, radiant, with a tail of coloured ribbons. The sun had already set, but the silk gleamed and rippled as if irradiating a light of its own. Zulfia decked the apple-tree, and amid the brilliant splendour of its gay garb the black ribbon was swallowed up in the gathering darkness.  {300} 

On the way back the thief said:

“I thought that damsel was of angelic beauty, but she is nothing much. A tar cry to Arzi-bibi, for example.”

“Remember what Saadi said, To appreciate the beauty of Leilah one must behold her with the eyes of Mejnoun,” said Khoja Nasreddin.

In the hut by the lake he gave the thief five bread-cakes, an old blanket, and a cooking-pot.

“You shall find yourself an abode somewhere nearby. No one must see you or even suspect your presence in Chorak. Food you will receive from me, and that only at night. Be always prepared to answer my first call. Saw you the pole that lies before the entrance? When I raise it with a white handkerchief it will be a sign that you must come without a moment's delay.”

“I hear and obey.”

And with these words the thief departed in search of a secluded spot wherein to spend the night.

He was an adept at concealment. It was not long before he had discovered a small and very snug cave nearby. The entrance to it was covered with thickets, which provided a reliable screen against prying eyes. That cave exists to this day, and is known locally as the “Abode of the Righteous Thief.” Of the villagers of today, however, there is none that can give any sensible explanation of the name, to wit: who was the thief in question, and what kind of thief was he to leave after himself such an ineradicable trace down the ages? Let this book, then, serve also to dispel the gloom of ignorance in this retired spot, for our knowledge of the world is gleaned in grains, and no single grain is redundant.

Before nightfall the thief managed to gather some dry ivy and make himself a bed. The building of a hearth land all the rest he left until the morrow. It was  {301}  night already; the thin clouds floating across the fact: of the moon sometimes turned its radiance into a shining mist; some small creature on padded paws scurried through the moon-silvered bushes with a faint rustle. An awakened baby bird gave a sleepy squawk.

The thief flung himself down upon his bed of leaves and stretched himself. Waves of fatigue flowed through his travel-weary limbs. Within a minute he was fast asleep, smiling peacefully and mayhap dreaming of Father Turakhon.

Khoja Nasreddin slept, too, in his little hut. He saw in his dreams a swaying apple-tree bedecked with six ribbons of different colours.

Agabek slept and smacked his thick lips in his sleep with voluptuous relish—he was dreaming of Zulfia, whom he was expecting in his web the next morning. Loathsome spider, in vain are thy dreams! Instead of a butterfly for his horrible and predatory repast a hornet was already prepared for him! As to the wakeful ones, there were not two that night, as usual, but three, for Mamed-Ali slept not either—he was guarding the jewels, which lay hidden deep away under his pillow.

Said and Zulfia were conversing in the garden at their usual trysting place—by the cistern in the shadow of the elm.

“Are you now convinced, Zulfia?”

“Said, my love, I understand naught! Who is he, this stranger, our protector, our friend?”

“I know not, Zulfia. He speaks not his name. O, how happy I am!”

“And I am happy too, Said!”

“For ever?”

“For ever! Sooner will this elm become a cane than I cease to love you!”

The elm listened and wondered not; he had seen many lovers on that bench, heard many tender words  {302}  repeated from generation to generation, and he knew how swiftly—by his century count—passionate lovers are transformed into decrepit old men and palsied toothless old women, who come to sit on that very same bench on their way to the grave; but they come only in the daytime, so that the sun may warm their cold sluggish blood that had once sparkled and frothed like young wine.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“This is just the time to begin the irrigation,” Agabek said cheerfully, appearing the next morning at the canal. “True, I shall now get something else instead of money, but there are other irrigations to come. I shall always make good my monetary losses. I have not miscalculated.”

The lake shone blue and placid, and above it, as blue and placid, shone the peaceful sky—deep, cool, moist with the nocturnal mists—the slumbrous breath of the earth.

“You will have to manage here yourself today, I shall be busy,” continued Agabek. “They will soon bring that damsel to me. Ah, they are already coming with her.”

Khoja Nasreddin glanced in the direction of the village.

A group of men were coming down the road in the direction of the lake.

“I see no damsel among them,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Agabek cast a look down the road, then shifted it in perplexity to Khoja Nasreddin.

“Take a closer look, Uzakbai, your eyes tare sharper than mine.”  {303} 

“All old men,” confirmed Khoja Nasreddin.

“I understand!” Agabek said grimly. “They come again to beg! But I am not of those fools who yield to blandishments and thaw from tears. You watch how I will deal with them!”

Arms akimbo, he puffed himself up, his eyes narrowed to a point, his beard thrust forward, his nape red and tensed, and his hairy neck drawn into his shoulders.

The old men approached.

In front of them walked Mamed-Ali. Only yesterday an abject frightened old man, he seemed to have been born anew overnight. He walked with a firm tread and looked Agabek squarely and boldly in the face as an equal.

Behind him came two farmers, the smith, the potter, and the horse doctor, with Safar the chaikhana-keeper bringing up the rear.

Mamed-Ali saluted without servility, bending his old back in decent moderation.

“Irrigation time has come and we desire to receive water.”

The others smoothed their beards out, calling upon the blessings of Allah for their crops.

“To receive water?” Agabek demanded threateningly. “But what think you to pay with? My condition you know, old man—your daughter.”

“My daughter is not a piece of merchandise to be traded,” Mamed-Ali returned with a firmness and dignity which none would have suspected in him the day before.

Khoja Nasreddin felt like running up and embracing him for that bold reply. The old man had confirmed a cherished thought of his: freedom from hunger and fear—that is what a man needs to eject from his blood that lowly slavish drop!  {304} 

Agabek looked at Mamed-Ali in surprise. Whence had this old man drawn such insolent courage?

“What are you going to pay with?”

“This!”

The old man pulled forth a frayed leathern bag from under his girdle.

“What is it?”

“Look.”

Agabek took the bag and pulled the strings.

Safar, standing behind all the others, craned his skinny neck. He remained true to himself, convinced even now that nothing good would come of it all, and that the jewels would prove to be imitation ones, as he had predicted only that morning in the chaikhana. That surprising man would contrive to hide himself from joy even when joy itself flew to him on wings!

The rest stood silent, equally prepared to rejoice in triumph or to flee in ignominy.

At the sight of the gold and the gems Agabek's countenance changed.

“Where did you get these?”

“I found them.”

“Found them? Where?”

“Under the roots of the apple-tree in my garden.”

“Mamed-Ali, you are telling me imagined tales!”

“I am too old for that. Besides, what difference does it make where I found them?”

“Strange. . . . Suspicious,” muttered Agabek, emptying the contents of the jewel bag into his hand. In the bright morning sunshine they sparkled with a still greater brilliance than they had the day before under the beams of the setting sun.

“Knowing men say that they are worth much more than four thousand,” began Mamed-Ali.

“Knowing men!” Agabek interrupted with a sneer. “Who are the knowing men here, when all are uncouth  {305}  louts like you!” He put the jewels away in his pocket. “Very well, I agree. Uzakbai, let the water on!”

The key grated in the lock. Khoja Nasreddin took the lock off. The old men—two on each side—gripped the handles of the windlass. The rusty chains grew taut, the shutter moved slowly upward, pressed tight between its water-sodden grooves. The water poured into the chute from under the shutter in a glassy curving jet with long swirling funnels at its edges. Its gurgle rose gradually to a steady roar; it ran down the dry bed of the aryk, driving before it a turbid foamy crest that swept away the dry leaves, twigs and bird's feathers and all else that lay in its path. It seemed as if a length of smooth gleaming silk were being swiftly unrolled along the bed of the ditch.

Water! The ring of mattock against mattock could be heard from afar, where the water had already reached the fields. A minute later the sound was repeated from all sides—the water had spread, bringing life to plants, to trees, and through them, to people. Mamed-Ali bent over the aryk and reverently wetted his grey temples and his beard. The old men prayed.

All that day Safar's chaikhana was empty—all the men were away in the fields. It was not until late in the afternoon, when dusk was already gathering, that they departed to their homes, leaving trusted old men, known for their honesty, to oversee the irrigation. These old men were enjoined to guard the ducts of the main aryk in turn throughout the night, to watch unremittingly that every field and every orchard received its full share of water and that not a single drop of it was wasted. Kamil, the water thief, who, since his youth, had been beaten times without number by his fellow-villagers for stealing water, was this time placed  {306}  under the surveillance of the mullah, who had wisely decided to lock him up within the minaret until the morning.

The ascendant moon looked down upon the same fields and gardens, but now a tangle of silver threads had been flung oyer them where the brimming aryks, gleaming, flowing, and running, crossed and recrossed in all directions. The stillness of that night, too, was of a special kind, filled with soft ripples, gurgles, and splashings; at times one could hear faint soughings, as if the earth herself, feeling the cool moisture upon her body, were stirring and sighing in her sleep.

Men were so fatigued after their day in the fields that when they got home they went straight to bed. In the chaikhana only four old men whiled away the nightly hours until their turn came to go forth and guard the water. The conversation, of course, turned upon yesterday's find by Mamed-Ali. He himself took no part in the conversation. He had repeated the story so many times that day to each of the villagers in turn that he was utterly exhausted and now confined himself to the utterance of wordless sounds—a mumble standing for confirmation, a tongue click for contradiction.

“Those jewels did not grow of themselves under the apple-tree, surely!” exclaimed Safar.

“Haply they had been lying there in the earth for many centuries?” said one old man.

Mamed-Ali clicked his tongue. Centuries indeed! Did he not dig up the earth around that apple-tree every year and yet he had never seen them before?

“You simply overlooked it. You took the bag for a clod of earth.”

This assumption offended Mamed-Ali's self-esteem. He was not of those gardeners who leave clods behind them when digging round the trees.  {307} 

“Why guess, why think!” he said, unable to contain himself. “Whence come those jewels? From God, of course! Is He not Almighty, is He not capable of performing a miracle?” Safar took fright.

“God? Come to your senses, Mamed-Ali! Do you mean to say that God Himself visited your garden yesterday?”

“Why Himself? He could have sent one of his saints—Father Turakhon, for example.”

Father Turakhon! As it happened, it had recently been his festival. The children of Chorak, like those of Kokand and other places, had hung up their skull-caps in the gardens and vineyards. Father Turakhon! Memories came surging back to the old men—an echo of those blessed years when they themselves, breathless with excitement, had sewn coloured threads to their skull-caps. In the cold memory of the mind that distant echo may have faded and died away, but in the memory of the heart—never!

Time rolled backwards in the smoke-blackened little chaikhana. The magic of recollection turned the old men into children again. Toothless, wizened, and decrepit, they had, it seemed, aged and entered upon the twilight of being in body alone, preserving un-dimmed in their hearts the golden lambent flame of a dawn which had greeted them in their cradles. He who is in the habit of regarding his fellow-creatures with attention will not be surprised at this, for he knows how much of the child we all carry within our bosoms.

“Haply it really was Father Turakhon?” one old man said musingly.

“But there are no children in the house of Mamed-Ali,” another said doubtfully.  {308} 

“What of it?” said Mamed-Ali, raising his voice. “If he loved my Zulfia when she was a little girl, wherefore should he cease to love her now?”

In the end the old men decided that Mamed-Ali was right—the jewels had been put there by Turakhon.

The coming of midnight put an end to the talk in the chaikhana. The old men went forth into the fields. Mamed-Ali, lost in thought, sighed deeply as he gazed at the nocturnal sky and the stars; through the mist of tender tears that blinded his eyes they seemed so close, so fluffy and warm.

The fields and orchards entrusted to his care were at the far end of the aryk. He walked along the bank with a mattock on his shoulder, carefully examining the small side outlets from the main aryk for any sand-drifts, checking the flow of the water. Sometimes he stopped to put things right with two or three strokes of his mattock, then proceeded on his way. The water flowed towards him, now hiding in the black shadows of the trees, now bursting into the open with a silver sparkle as of clustering stars.

The road crossed his path. He stopped at the sight of two night prowlers standing on the foot-bridge a little way off. He stood in the shadow, listening. He recognized one voice as that of Agabek. The other, he could but guess—the keeper of the lake.

“Tomorrow, then, Uzakbai, you will reveal to me the great secret?”

“Aye, master, tomorrow at midnight.”

“Remember your word.”

“I shall remember and keep it.”

They stepped off the foot-bridge and came straight towards Mamed-Ali. The old man was loath to meet them, but he could not avoid it.

“Who is there?” called Agabek.  {309} 

“I, Mamed-Ali. I am guarding the water.”

“Ah, Mamed-Ali! Well, well. Forget not to guard your daughter, too, while you are at it. After this irrigation there will be another.”

The old man's countenance flamed. He threw his head up to make a worthy retort, but held his peace. The poisoned drop in his blood dozed not. That morning it had given way, and now was seeking requital for the morning's arrogant deed. That drop was the chief ally of Agabek and of all the other Agabeks in the world—the mainstay of their iniquitous power. “Each for himself,” it Whispered to people. ’Tis a lie! Those who live by that rule will never be able to stand up for themselves in big things!

The old man seated himself upon a boulder and fell to brooding. He had no sooner seen one trouble upon its way than he was oppressed by a painful premonition of the next.

To be sure, he will refuse if Agabek should again demand Zulfia. And with full right, too, for had he not already paid once for everybody. Now it was other men's turn. But what if Agabek should refuse to take money? It was either giving up Zulfia or remaining waterless. And once more the old men would gather in the chaikhana, saying, “Mamed-Ali, you alone can save us.” What to do, what to do?

“There is a way out of this, and a very simple way,” he suddenly heard a voice quite close to him.

The old man started.

Before him stood the keeper of the lake. Alone, without Agabek.

“What way out? Out of what?”

“Out of what you were just thinking.”

“I was not thinking, I was dozing.”

“Be it as you say—the way out of what you were just dozing about. Marry your Zulfia quickly to Said— {310}  that is all. When they shall be man and wife, who can part them?”

The old man was taken aback. By what manner of means had this keeper of the lake penetrated his thoughts?

“Be not surprised,” continued the keeper. “I am no magician, nor wizard. You were so deeply withdrawn within yourself that you began to think aloud.”

To think aloud—what imprudence. The old man groaned inwardly and fidgeted about on the stone. How careless! Tomorrow it would all be reported to Agabek.

“I was thinking of nothing—leave me alone! What concern have you with my affairs and my children?”

“Aha! ‘My children’—you said. Hence, in thought, you have long since married them. All that remains now is to call in the mullah.”

Another blunder! He was a dangerous man, this keeper of the lake. One must go warily with him. Best to keep away from him altogether.

The old man feigned a yawn and swung his mattock on to his shoulder.

“I shall go and see to the water.”

But it was no easy matter to shake off the keeper. He walked along at his side.

“Tell me honestly, Mamed-Ali—where did you take those jewels? I swear that your secret will die with me.

Agabek's spy! Trying to worm out information!

“I found the jewels under the roots of an apple-tree in my garden,” the old man retorted angrily, almost rudely.

“But who put them there?”

The old man's patience was exhausted. He looked straight into the keeper's eyes with a stern glance.

“Who put them there? Someone who resembles  {311}  neither you nor your master, someone benevolent of heart, whose name is blessed always, everywhere and in all ages. Do you understand?”

Upon this he turned away, believing that he had said more than enough to cut short all further conversation between himself and this keeper.

But the keeper did not depart. He stood barring the way.

Mamed-Ali shoved him aside with a calm imperious gesture.

“Suffer me to go. . .” he said.

Thereat a most astonishing thing happened: the keeper suddenly gripped the old man's shoulder and gave him three good shakes, exclaiming:

“Why, of course, Father Turakhon! Fancy me not guessing that!”

Just as suddenly he removed his hands from the shoulders of Mamed-Ali and walked off swiftly down the road, almost at a run.

A madman! The old man could find no other explanation. Strange that Agabek had not seen it. Had he gone blind?

Well, if he saw it not, that was no concern of his, Mamed-Ali's. It was not his skull that would one day be split open by a mattock in the hands of the keeper, who would steal up to his victim from behind! It was best to keep away from both of them—let them settle matters between them in their own way. At this the old man. broke off the thread of his reflections and slowly wended his way back along the bank of the aryk in the wake of the water. .

As for Khoja Nasreddin, he did not walk, he. flew to his clay hut.

The thief was waiting for him there, crouching among the burdock thickets outside.

This was a special meeting. The thief was drowned  {312}  in tears of gratitude, while Khoja Nasreddin was saying to him:

“Yes, you are forgiven, and even marked with the seal of special grace. Are you prepared to perform further deeds of valour to the glory of Turakhon?”

The thief gave a moist protracted sob and struck himself on the chest with his fist, crying:

“I am possessed now of such a zeal for deeds of charity that I could steal the money-changer himself together with his profligate wife and even her lover! Command me!”

“What say you to becoming transformed into an ass?”

“An ass?” The thief swallowed his sobs and glanced at Khoja Nasreddin with apprehension. “Is it for long?”

“No, for a short period. Listen carefully.”

They held converse until the morning. At first it was but a glimmer; for a long time the night resisted the morning light, refusing to yield; at last the light triumphed and detached itself from the darkness, which retreated to the west and sank there crouching amid the brooding mountains. Let there be light! The sun rose and splashed its rays over the whole boundless world. The birds sang louder.

The thief quitted the hut, carrying away in his joy-filled heart the blessed burden of new hopes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The day flew by on the wings of care, and night once more succeeded it in its close-drawn cloak bejewelled with stars.

Khoja Nasreddin was sitting on a boulder at the door of his hut, mentally verifying whether everything  {313}  was ready, everything completed for the day's decisive affair.

Heavy footsteps could be heard crunching the gravel on the footpath. It was Agabek, hastening to the hut to receive the great secret.

Khoja Nasreddin met him with the grave solemnity befitting such an important event as that which was destined to take place that night. His salutation was full of restrained dignity, his movements unhurried, his speech short-spoken and impressive.

Seating his visitor on his bed, he squatted down before the burning hearth with a spoon and began to stir a pungent infusion of herbs that was boiling in a small pot.

“What is it?” asked Agabek.

“A magic brew,” answered Khoja Nasreddin, turning to him a face of which one side was bathed in glowing light and the other deep in shadow.

The flames in the hearth were dying down in fitful flickers; it grew dark within the hut; the ass in the corner was swallowed up in the black shadow as if in an impenetrable pool, and the only signs of his presence were the rumbling noises in his belly and his snuffling sighs.

Khoja Nasreddin took the pot off the fire and covered it with a piece of board.

“Let it cool slowly, while we converse,” he said. “I must prepare you lest fear and excessive astonishment break the thread of your life, master.”

“Why, is it dangerous?”

“For the uninitiated—yes.”

He blew up the embers and lit an oil lamp, which he fastened to the wall. In its dim light the ass swam out of the dark shadows in the corner—first his fiery eye shot with green, then his long ears, and lastly his tufted tail.  {314} 

He had received only half a basketful of bread-cakes that day, the rest having been removed to the opposite corner where their tantalizing smell teased his nostrils. Me shuffled restlessly, sighed, and pawed the earthen floor. Khoja Nasreddin, however, was unyielding and did not even glance in his direction.

Khoja Nasreddin was completely engrossed in other cares.

“Alif! Lam! Mim!” he suddenly cried out in a harsh voice that made Agabek jump. “Alif! Lam! Ra! Kabahas, chinoza, toonzoohoo choonzoohooi”

He walked round the hut with uplifted hands, stopping in each corner, then carefully shut the door and resumed his seat.

“Now no one can overhear us.”

“Who could have overheard us?” asked Agabek. “Naught but the two of us were here, not counting the ass.”

“Hush, master! How many times have I asked you not to utter aloud that obscene market-place word!”

Saying which he rose and made a respectful salaam to the ass. The latter livened up at once, twitching his ears and wagging his tail in anticipatory delight.

No bread-cakes, however, were forthcoming.

“Nay, master, we were three here, not two,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “Know you not that besides visible creatures, the world is filled with a multitude of invisibles, who are nonetheless able to understand human speech?”

“Invisibles? Who understand human speech? Who are they?” Agabek said sneeringly, wishing thereby, to show the independence and boldness of his mind.

“They are the souls of men who have died an impious death, chiefly the souls of hanged men,” explained Khoja Nasreddin. “For a certain period of time before  {315}  appearing before their Great Judge in heaven they wander about the earth in search of a prayer of repose. They always cling to the living and become extremely troublesome until it occurs to the living to say a prayer for them. To you, master, they should be particularly troublesome,” he added in a casual way.

“Why to me?” Agabek said, frowning.

“Tell me—during your office as chief magistrate of the city in Khoresm, did you not have occasion to sentence anyone to be hanged?”

The words dropped upon Agabek's head like a stout cudgel wrapped round with rags—softly, but stunningly. The incredulous sneer was wiped off his face, and he looked round fearfully into the darkness, which had all at once become alive, mysterious, deep, and sinister.

“Well, yes. . . . As a matter of duty.”

“There, you see! But did you not, at least, order a prayer to be said for the repose of their souls?”

“A prayer? Such services would have been ruinous to me, considering the number of different malefactors that are apprehended in Khoresm.”

“That is why the invisibles have become such a nuisance to you.”

“How know you that they are a nuisance to me?”

“Because they are sometimes slightly visible to the practised eye—a barely perceptible trace, something like glassy worms floating about in the air. I have long perceived them around your head. You must have seen them yourself more than once, only you knew not what they were.”

Since Agabek was extremely corpulent of body, he had often seen glassy worms floating about in the air before his eyes, particularly when he had had occasion to bend down and then straighten up his back.  {316} 

“Yes, I have seen them. But I thought they came from too much blood.”

“If they came from too much blood you would have seen them red, whereas you see them colourless, as if bodiless,” Khoja Nasreddin remarked judicially.

Against such an obviously sound reason Agabek could say nothing. Khoja Nasreddin's words confounded his meaty imagination.

He looked up to see whether the glassy worms had departed from his vicinity. His fat nape grew tensed and the blood being retarded he saw them before him in a great multitude. He was -horrified.

“Look, Uzakbai!” he cried piteously. “There they are! They are here, they have not gone!”

“Calm yourself, be of good cheer, master!” said Khoja Nasreddin. To frighten Agabek too much was not part of his plan. “These are different ones. Mere nothings. Those dangerous ones have gone, and these are quite harmless,”

“Very well, but what when they return—those dangerous ones? I cannot very well sit in this hut till the end of my days, trying to escape them! O Uzakbai, O unwise one—wherefore did you tell me? I was happier, knowing naught. . . .”

“You can easily get rid of them, master. Order services to be held for the dead by the local mullah. A year ahead. And pay for them at once. That will suffice.”

In giving this counsel, Khoja Nasreddin pursued the aim of using Agabek's pocket to renovate the mosque of Chorak, whose shabby walls, faded paintings, and rotting posts had long been crying out to the generosity of the congregation. Agabek was its richest member, but also its most niggardly—and he deserved to be punished.  {317} 

“Yes, I shall!” he exclaimed with a sigh of relief. “Even if it costs me a thousand tangas. Fancy, how deep-seated is these men's criminality if even after death they cease not in their outrageous conduct! Unfortunately. . . .”

“Unfortunately they cannot be hanged a second time,” Khoja Nasreddin finished the sentence for him.

“Well, not necessarily hanged. Allah could punish them in some other way.”

That was all that his wretched mind, warped by prison-sentencing and stick-punishing judgements, was capable of rising to, even when it came in contact with that mysterious world which lay beyond the gulf of earthly existence.

Now that Agabek was suitably prepared, Khoja Nasreddin decided to come down to business, that is, to initiate him into the great secret for the sake of which they had met that night.

The secret verily proved to be an astonishing one, such as was capable of confounding the mind of wisdom. It consisted in the fact that the ass, standing there in the corner, was really not an ass at all, but the heir apparent to the throne of Egypt, the only son of the reigning Sultan of Egypt, Hussein-Ali, transformed by evil spells into an ass.

In relating all this to Agabek, Khoja Nasreddin was surprised himself at the ease with which these extravagancies rolled off his tongue.

“That is why I feed him with apricots and white bread-cakes, in the absence of more dainty dishes, which are unfortunately not to be obtained in this remote village. O, if I could but serve him daily a basketful of rose petals dipped in nectar!”  {318} 

Agabek's head, dazed already as it was, began to reel. He had believed the glassy worms, but in this he could not believe.

“Come to your senses, Uzakbai! What prince is he? He is just a real plain simple ass!”

“Sh! Can you not express yourself otherwise, master? Cannot you say, ‘That quadruped,’ or ‘That tailed one,’ or ‘That long-eared one,’ or even ‘That hair-coated one,’ ”

“That quadruped, tailed, long-eared, hide-bound ass!” Agabek corrected himself.

Khoja Nasreddin hung his head in despair. “If you cannot refrain, master, then you had better keep silent.”

“Keep silent?” snorted Agabek. “I? On my own estate? And all because of a wretched. . . .”

“Refrain, master, I beg you, refrain!”

“Ass!” Agabek finished relentlessly, as if driving home a blunt nail.

The silence that ensued lasted a full minute. Khoja Nasreddin took oil his robe and stretched it on the poplar stakes, thus curtaining off the ass's stall. “'Now we can speak more freely, provided that you moderate somewhat the power of your trumpet-like voice, master. When you come to that obscene word again in conversation, please try to utter it in a whisper.”

“Very well,” snorted Agabek. “'I shall try. Truth to tell, though, I do not understand. . . .”

“You will soon understand. You are surprised? Your reason cannot grasp the thought that a grey hide in a tailed and long-eared form can contain a man,’ and a man of royal rank at that? Have you never heard the stories about transformations?”

Let it be said here that in those days many such stories were current throughout the Moslem world.  {319}  There were some men of wisdom even who wrote fat books about it, while in Bagdad there appeared one by the name of Al-Farukh-ibn-Abdallah, who would have us believe that he had experienced a number of transformations upon himself—first into a bee, then from a bee into a crocodile, from a crocodile into a tiger, and finally back into himself. One transformation Al-Farukh did not undergo—from a knave into an honest man—but that is another story and out of place here. Let us return to the hut.

“I have heard about it, but always thought them idle tales,” said Agabek.

“Now you see with your own eyes.”

“But where is the proof thereof? What is there in that”—lowering his voice—“in that ass that bespeaks his royal origin?”

“What about his tail? The white hairs on the tufted tip?”

“White hairs? Is that all? Why, I could find you a hundred on any ass!”

“Hush, master, hush—speak in a whisper. You desire more definite proofs?”

“I do! If that ass be a prince, then turn him into a man before my eyes, or contrariwise, turn some other man into an ass. Then I shall believe you.”

“That is what I intend to undertake this day—to restore him for a short period to his original royal shape. As for the transformation of some other man into an ass, that, too, by the aid of Allah, may possibly be effected.”

“Then begin. ’Tis midnight already.”

“Yes, ’tis midnight. I begin.”

And he began. Knowing that Agabek's thick tanned hide was not easy to get under, he spared neither effort nor zeal. He dashed around the hut, shouting out incantations in a hoarse voice, he hurled himself at the  {320}  walls and bounced off them like a ball, he stamped his feet, and fell on the floor writhing, squirming and foaming at the mouth. Then, panting and sweating, he fell to work on the ass, upon whom, by way of preliminaries, he poured the magic brew, greatly to that animal's disgust, who showed it by snorting and tossing his head.

“Kabahas!” Khoja Nasreddin cried in a strangled voice, entering the stall. “Suf! Chimoza! Dochimoza, kalamai, zamnihoz!”

At the same time, unobserved by Agabek, he drew forth from under his shirt a toothsome sweet-smelling bread-cake and stuck it under the ass's nose without letting him get at it with his teeth. By this simple device he soon had the ass worked up to a pitch of frenzy. The beast brayed, lifted up its tail, and began to kick at the posts.

“Tsootsoogoo! Limchezoo!” Khoja Nasreddin howled for the last time, and ran up to Agabek with the sweat pouring from him.

“Come, master. Come now! No one must see this miracle of transformation. The penalty is blindness! Incurable, lifelong blindness!”

He hustled Agabek out of the hut and went out himself, shutting the door carefully behind him.

“Follow me, master. Let us move farther away. It is dangerous to stay here.”

Somewhat dazed by the incantational ritual, Agabek complied without resistance.

They turned off on to the path that led to the conductor aryk. Khoja Nasreddin was here seized with a sudden fit of coughing. The night answered him with the cry of a quail. This was a signal, meaning, “I am ready!” Everything was going well.

At the water-trough they seated themselves side by side on the end of the log that supported the shutter.  {321}  Still a little breathless after his incantatory exertions, Khoja Nasreddin drank in the fresh night air greedily. By little and little his heart steadied and his breath became even.

The coolness of the night had a beneficial effect upon Agabek too, dispelling the fumes of witchery that had gathered under the thick bones of his skull. Mistrustful by nature, and prone to regard all human actions as motivated by knavery, he had not been entirely free of suspicion in the hut, and now here, in the fresh air, released from the oppressive influence of the incantations, he had been brought back to sobriety. Anger mingled with annoyance at being made a fool of rose within his dark soul.

He laughed mockingly.

“Well, Uzakbai, where is your miracle?”

“It has not happened yet, master. Let us wait a bit.”

“Waiting will not help. Your knavish tricks have failed. The ass will remain an ass, but I doubt whether you will remain keeper of the lake.”

Within himself he thought: “This is an excellent opportunity to get rid of him without returning his pledge money. He wanted to fool me, but has succeeded only in fooling himself.”

These treacherous thoughts of Agabek's, of course, were an open book to Khoja Nasreddin, as if he had read them. He smiled inwardly, but held his peace.

The water foamed and seethed before them, rushing down into the trough and shaking the dais, which communicated its tremor to the log on which they were sitting.

Khoja Nasreddin's silence was interpreted by Agabek in the peculiar fashion of the one-time judge.

“You have nothing to answer, have you? Tell me now, what need have you to work for me for one tanga  {322}  a day if you are really a magician? You could earn thousands by your magic. You are silent. You have doubtlessly forgotten, Uzakbai, that you are dealing with the former chief magistrate of Khoresm, who has unravelled artifices far more cunning than this!”

In Agabek's voice could distinctly be heard that note of noble indignation so peculiar to that whole class of unrighteous judges, who pass their judgements not according to the criminal's actual guilt, but in order to please those above them or for the sake of personal gain. Had not those judges possessed this spontaneous faculty of kindling indignation in their own souls, how could they have pretended to themselves that they were judging sincerely and honestly, how could they abide in gratifying concord with their shifty consciences?

“Aha, you are caught!” continued Agabek, waxing more and more indignant. “You think I saw riot the deception from your very first word? You cannot deceive me! I saw at once that it was sheer knavery. I let you go on because I wanted to verify my guess and catch you. And now your tricks are exposed! It is clear now that you are a shameless liar! And those glassy worms of yours. . . .”

But here, upon this very word, he was seized by the tongue! Seized by the tongue and compelled to silence. Struck with terror!

For the scented silence of the night was suddenly broken by a hideous inhuman scream that froze all the blood in one's veins.

That scream issued from the hut.

Khoja Nasreddin went down on his knees, saying, “Thank you, Almighty Allah, for your merciful aid!” Then rising, he said to Agabek, “It has happened! Come, master!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Agabek beheld in the hut that which caused him to tremble with violent fear. In place of the ass there stood a man! A man in a costly robe of brocade adorned with numerous plates and medals!! A man with a bridle on his head!!! Belted with a sabre!!!! A costly sabre with a hilt of pure gold!!!

Khoja Nasreddin advanced towards him bent up double, almost crawling.

“O refulgent Prince, how happy I am to perceive your today's so fortunate transformation.”

The man returned no answer. He was shaking from head to foot, twitching with the writhes as if in a fit of epilepsy. He gnashed his teeth, his one eye fixed upon Agabek, rolled wildly and blazed with a yellow piercing gleam, and his mouth spouted foam.

He stretched forth a trembling hand as a preliminary to speech, but from his lips, instead of human speech, there broke an ear-splitting bray.

Agabek clutched the door, quaking with terror. He would have dropped it all and fled, but his legs gave way under him and wobbled as if the bones in them had melted.

Khoja Nasreddin was bustling around the transformed one, sprinkling him with his magic elixir.

By little and little the tremor and writhes that shook the frame of the transformed one subsided, and the foam disappeared from his lips. Khoja Nasreddin hastily gave him some water. He drank it eagerly, spilling some of it on his chin and the robe of brocade. Whereupon he began to speak in a grating querulous old woman's voice that kept breaking into squeaks:

“O remiss and lazy slave, how long more will you torture me with these temporary transformations?  {324}  Know you not what sufferings each such transformation causes me?”

Khoja Nasreddin bowed ever lower and lower.

“Forgive me, this least of slaves, O refulgent Prince and future Sultan, but I have not been able yet to cook a sufficiently strong brew of the magic potion.”

“This has been going on for four years already!”

“Now at last I have discovered a herb in the neighbourhood of this village which will give to my brew the necessary degree of potency. Now, O refulgent Prince, my task is completed and your ultimate transformation will take place before the autumn—as soon as we arrive in Egypt at the court of your sunlike parent, the sublime and invincible Sultan Hussein-Ali.”

“And till then I must abide in this vile ass's skin?”

“Alas, O Prince of the Age, there I am powerless! Your ultimate transformation may not come about save in Egypt, and save in the presence of your royal parent. His kiss alone can seal the power of my magic art, and thereafter you shall remain for ever in the royal shape of your original birth.”

“It cannot be helped, I shall have to wait,” sighed the Prince. “Do not stand there like a wooden post! Take this bridle off me, take the sabre off! And hide the sabre away somewhere, for when I am transformed back it enters my body and causes me needless suffering.”

Khoja Nasreddin took off the bridle and unfastened the sabre.

“You have been serving me now these four years and have not learnt anything yet!” the Prince continued. “You do not know at all how to conduct yourself with royal personages. I fear that you will have a very hard time when you assume the office of Vizier and Chief Guardian of the Egyptian Treasury. My father, Sultan  {325}  Hussein-Ali, is very strict with the officers of his court in regard to the proprieties. There is a special secret chamber within the palace for the flogging of viziers and other lords of the empire guilty of violating the proprieties. I fear that you may have occasion to enter it!”

“O refulgent Prince!”

“You cannot even stand properly. Now who stands like that before a royal person? Where is the light of devotion in your eyes, base-born one? Where is the servile back curve, where the rapture?”

“O merciful Prince!”

“Silence!” the Prince shouted in a shrill cantankerous voice. “How dare you interrupt me! Why was one of the bread-cakes today baked too dry? Why were some of the apricots green, while others, on the contrary, were overripe? And where are the dates that I spoke to you about at my last transformation? Where? I desire dates—do you hear, remiss and lazy slave! I reject your excuses, one and all. Can you not understand a simple truth—if I, the heir apparent to the Egyptian throne, desire dates, then they must be secured even if you had to fit out a whole caravan to Egypt, my homeland, for that purpose!”

Here the glance of the thief—for that prince, of course, was none other than our old friend, the one-eyed thief—fell upon Agabek.

“And who is that yonder? What man is that? Whence comes he? What is he doing here?”

“He is one of the local dwellers,” Khoja Nasreddin respectfully explained. “He has given me no little assistance in my search for the magic herb, and consequently he has been of some indirect service to my royal master. That is why he has been admitted to the royal presence.”

“Name?” the thief demanded of Agabek, who, more  {326}  dead than alive, still stood in the doorway holding on to the lintel to keep himself from falling.

“Ta. . .ta. . .ba. . .ba. . .da. . .bek,” the wretched man mumbled, numb of tongue.

“Eh? What? I hear not?” the thief demanded sharply and impatiently in the abusive tone of a lord speaking to low-born wretches. “Tatabek? Tarabek?”

“Sa. . .va. . .ka. . .bek. . .”

“What? Eh? Fidabek? Magobek?”

“Agabek,” Khoja Nasreddin murmured in silken tones.

“Agabek? Now I hear clearly. Well, well!” the thief said with an air of importance. “So it is Agabek. Well, if Agabek then Agabek let it be. Come closer, fear not.”

Agabek advanced and fell upon his knees.

“There, look!” the thief admonished Khoja Nasreddin. “This man is a rural dweller, yet he is quite skilled in the art of dealing with royal persons. Look at the curve of his spine, look at the zeal with which, despite his corpulence, he grovels at the royal feet. And you?”

“Occupied elevated posts? That is obvious. You should learn from him, and thus avoid too frequent visits to the secret chamber when you become a Vizier of Egypt. Rise!” the Prince said kindly to Agabek. “Your countenance inspires trust. Teach this ignoramus the rules of court wisdom in your leisure time, and I shall send you as a reward from Egypt. . . . Ai! Oh! Ou-u-u! O-o-o-o!”

The thief gnashed his teeth and fell into a writhing fit, and from his foaming mouth there burst a harsh trumpet-like bray. To Agabek's utter amazement, he  {327}  began to move his ears swiftly—a trick which he had mastered in childhood—the while he rolled his flame-yellow orb.

“It has begun!” cried Khoja Nasreddin, pushing the stupefied Agabek towards the door. “The backward transformation has begun. Quick, let us get out before we both go blind.”

Agabek's legs refused to obey him, and he shook all over as though he were preparing to become transformed into an ass himself. The perspiration streamed down his fat face and his breath burst from his chest in wheezy gasps.

Khoja Nasreddin dragged him out of the hut like a sack of meal and dumped him on a boulder before the entrance with his back against the wall.

The fresh air, rubbings, the application of cold water, and tickling of the nostrils by aid of a straw had the desired effect upon Agabek at last. He came into possession of his reason.

“How is the Prince?” was his first question. “Has he . . . already?”

“I think he has. Let us have a look.”

Agabek hesitated. Fear struggled with curiosity, but curiosity prevailed.

“Only you go first.”

Khoja Nasreddin opened the door and looked in.

“Yes, it is over,” he said.

Agabek looked in too. All was quiet and peaceful in the hut, and there, where only a few minutes ago, he had seen the Crown Prince of Egypt with his own eyes and even dusted his boots with his beard, now stood the same grey ass as before, differing not the least in outward appearance from the many thousands of his long-eared ilk.

But that was in outward appearance only. In inner essence he was so distinguished and resplendent that  {328}  Agabek was seized with trembling and bowed down to the ground once more before him.

While Khoja Nasreddin was feeding bread-cakes and apricots to the ass, Agabek fully recovered from the agitation of mind under which he had been labouring. He lost no time in putting his shrewd magisterial wits to work. What direction his thoughts took it is not difficult to guess. Here was a royal person from whom, in the near future, great favours would pour; by a happy coincidence he had drawn upon himself that person's kindly attention and had even been entrusted by him with a charge. It would be foolish to miss such an opportunity without attempting to make the most of it for himself. He must act without a moment's delay.

Like all great personages, he was distinguished for his swift transitions from abject fear to shameless presumption. He boldly entered the hut and threw himself upon his knees before the ass.

“Forgive me, illustrious Prince, for daring to disturb your royal repast, but the conduct of this man inspires me with genuine sorrow on account of its excessive unseemliness. Is this a manner in which to treat and serve a royal person?” he demanded, turning to Khoja Nasreddin. “Give me those bread-cakes! Let this be your first lesson according to the wishes of the great Prince. Hand me the apricots. Look and learn!”

And well he might! How Agabek's body curved as he served the bread-cakes, how carefully he washed the apricots and cut them in halves to remove the stones! How honeyed, how flattering and fulsome were his speeches! Verily such honours had never been paid to any ass in the world, not even the one upon which Isaiah, the Prophet of Judah, once made his entry into Jerusalem.

When both baskets had been emptied, Agabek demanded a towel and reverentially wiped the ass's  {329}  muzzle. Thinking this to be some new dish served to him, the ass drew the towel into his mouth and began chewing it, until, his hopes deceived, he spat it out in disgust.

“The illustrious Prince has finished his repast!” announced Agabek, glancing at Khoja Nasreddin with an air of triumph and even lofty superiority. Such is ever the case at royal courts—those who have enthroned the king withdraw, while the flatterers move to the fore.

Afterwards they sat on the boulder outside the hut for a long time. Flushed with his first success, Agabek pestered Khoja Nasreddin with the tenacity of a burr sticking to an ass's tail. He had grasped the important fact that this was no small matter and that the way from this wretched hovel led straight to Egypt and the foot of the throne. All the feelings of which his soul was compounded, namely unquenchable ambition, greed and love of power, were roused to a state of indescribable perturbation. Forgetting fatigue and the late hour, he persistently questioned Khoja Nasreddin about all that concerned the Prince: when and under what circumstances the Prince had been turned into an ass, where Khoja Nasreddin had been at the time, and from whom he had heard of the great calamity that had befallen the Egyptian throne, where he had met the Prince, and how he had distinguished him from all the other asses. It would have gone ill with Khoja Nasreddin had he not prepared himself beforehand for these questions. In reply he related to Agabek a long and intricate but for those days quite verisimilar story, which we shall not repeat here on the assumption that anyone can make it up for himself to suit his own taste.

“Ever since that moment when I met him, bent beneath the weight of a bundle of firewood upon a  {330}  mountain trail in the Punjab, I have had four full years of trouble with him,” Khoja Nasreddin concluded with a sigh. “But now, praise be to Allah, my troubles will soon be over—the magic potion has been prepared. I shall tarry in this village another week or two to collect a supply of this magic herb—for it grows not anywhere but here—and then I shall repair to Egypt. The day when I shall have completed my task before the face of the great Sultan and returned to him his heir, shall be the happiest day of my life.”

“Forsooth!” said Agabek. “To be rewarded with the office of Vizier and Chief Guardian of the Treasury!”

“Who told you that I purpose to receive such an office? The Sultan may keep his favours, for I shall not avail myself of them.”

“You shall not? How is one to understand you? That you are going to refuse the office of Vizier?”

“Of course I am. I yearn not for aught but freedom and seclusion. I presume that anyone else in my place would refuse too, if he but knew the Prince as well as I do.”

He peeped into the hut and shut the door closer.

“The Prince is sleeping, so we may talk without fear. Believe me, master, he is the most insufferable creature of all the quadruped-bipeds that inhabit the world. For sheer obstinacy he truly resembles the ass. Were he not a prince I would never trouble to return to him his human shape, as his present one is more befitting. He is spiteful, quarrelsome, cross-grained, loud-mouthed, and captious—in a word, he bears within him all the worst vices of asininity and humanity blended together. His illustrious parent is said to be still worse. Now judge for yourself—how can I, unskilled in court craft and intrigue, accept the post of Vizier? Today Vizier, and tomorrow headless?”  {331} 

Agabek hearkened to his speech with bated breath, hardly daring to believe his ears. Fortune was swimming to him, pushing itself into his hands!

“I am no courtier,” Khoja Nasreddin continued. “I was born not for power but for seclusion and contemplation, my business is to probe the mysteries. I have devoted twenty years of my life to the study of magic, and that it has not been in vain you have seen today. And must I drop this all now? Wherefore? To be ushered daily into the secret chamber?”

Had these words proceeded from anyone but a man who devoted himself to lore and contemplation, Agabek may possibly have hesitated in giving them a credulous ear. But in this case he believed, for all such men as these—astrologers, scholars, poets, seekers of the elixir of life and the philosophers’ stone that was capable of turning lead into gold—all such men, already in those days, were looked upon as great fools who understood naught in the affairs of ordinary life and therefore offered themselves for unlimited cozenage on the part of the sensible ones, whose reason, instead of parlous wings, was fitted with four-score nimble little legs eminently suited for the profitable and perfectly safe exercise of scuttling over the ground.

“You are right,” said Agabek with an air of profound gravity. He already considered Khoja Nasreddin his lawful prey, and began to bustle around him and let out his sticky web. “Believe me, the post of Vizier is beyond your powers.”

“I know that myself. I have decided therefore to do this: to restore to the Sultan his first-born, to refuse all posts and honours, and ask as a reward a secluded little house and a life income sufficient to keep me in food.”

Perceiving the avaricious fever that had seized Agabek, Khoja Nasreddin threw caution to the winds and  {332}  went straight towards his aim, deliberately entangling his wings and feet in the web.

“I have not yet by far investigated all the secrets of nature,” said he. “It is for that reason that I need seclusion for my contemplations. I have studied the transformation of humans into small creatures, such as ants, bees, flees, bugs, and flies; I have studied also the domain of large animals, of which you were today a witness, but the transformation of people into frogs, fishes, and water-beetles has not yet been studied by me.”

“Then a man may be transformed into a fly, or a bee, or an ant?”

“Nothing simpler! Here let me try it on you.”

“Nay, there is no need!”

“You will feel no pain whatsoever. You will become a flea before you are aware of it. Just for one day, and tomorrow I shall restore you to your human shape.” Khoja Nasreddin was sleepy and he was trying by this means to get rid of his visitor. “Wait, I shall fetch the magic brew.”

“Nay, some other time, perhaps,” Agabek said hastily, getting up. He had no desire to be turned into a flea, especially now when the misty image of that distant Egyptian palace hung seductively before his eyes. “We are both tired, good-bye for today.”

Khoja Nasreddin walked with him as far as the aryk. Dawn was already glimmering in the east.

“Again they are swarming around you, those glassy worms,” he said.

Agabek anxiously began to twist his head on its short neck. The sleepless night was telling—those worms were swimming around in vast numbers. There was no sense at all in taking these satellites with him on his far journey, all the more that, as he knew beforehand, others would inevitably appear when he was settled in Egypt.  {333} 

“I shall go to the mullah this very day and arrange for services for the dead to be held a year in advance.”

“Let him use that money to renovate the mosque.”

“I shall tell him.”

Thus were the people of Chorak relieved of the expense of renovating the mosque. That, however, was the least of the benefactions conferred upon them by Khoja Nasreddin—there were many more truly good and great deeds to follow. To speak of them now were premature; the perspicacious may guess, the others can wait. Having taken his leave of Agabek, Khoja Nasreddin followed him with his eyes for a long time, his broad black brows raised in a merry arch, then he returned to his hut. He could hardly keep his eyes open, and he threw off his robe and his boots while half asleep. The door behind him remained ajar; he thought about having to shut it, but could not find the strength in him to do it.

He shut his eyes, and within the very portals of sleep heard from without the cry of the muezzin calling to the morning prayer of thanksgiving for the new day and the new light bestowed upon the world. The voice of the muezzin, clear and bell-toned, floated upon the air side by side with a cloud; as if on widespread wings, it soared towards the sun, which rose slowly and solemnly from behind the mountains in all its eternal and fadeless splendour. “Boundless are Thy mercies, boundless Thy power!”—sang the muezzin, and everything in the world lifted up its heart—men, beasts, birds, and even the voiceless trees, which, quivering and murmuring in the wind, hastened eagerly to warm their every little leaf in the sun's rays.

From end to end of the widespread earth day had begun. The winds sang—the souther, the norther, the easterly and westerly—the snowy caps of the mountains gleamed white, the seas shone with a clear blue light,  {334}  waters flowed down the mountain-side and through the valleys, crops were ripening in the fields, fruits were growing heavy in the orchards, and the grapes grew in golden translucent clusters, storing up within themselves the sweet sunny juice.

But Khoja Nasreddin slept, having as often happened with him, forgot to perform the morning prayer. That sin, apparently, was easily forgiven him, for his dreams were bright and rainbow-hued by reason of the sunbeam which fell upon his face through the open door, shining through his closed eyelids into his very soul, or rather into that part of it, which, according to the investigations of the most wise Al-Kadir, governs our presentiments and dreams.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THERE are rivers in Arabia of which only the mid-current is revealed to the human gaze, the beginning and the end of them being hidden within the bowels of the earth. The life of Khoja Nasreddin could be likened to such a river: all that we know about him refers to his middle years, from the age of twenty to fifty, whereas his childhood and his old age lie hidden from our ken.

Eight tombs in various parts of the world bear his noble name, but which, among them, is the one and only? Haply it is not among these eight at all? Haply he found a worthy tomb at sea or in some misty mountain gorge, and the dirge for him was sung by the blustering gale or by the slow, threatening, never-ending roar of the avalanche?

As to the source of his existence, it is known that he was born and grew up in Bokhara, but where he dwelt in childhood, what mighty smiths had tempered his heart, what masters had set the edge of his reason, and which of the sages had revealed to him the nature of his own indomitable spirit—all this had so far remained unknown.

But it is written in the books: “That which is hidden today shall be revealed tomorrow.” Wandering  {339}  about the places where Khoja Nasreddin had left his tracks, we became convinced of the truth of those words. Among the legends of him which we have collected there are several grains which throw light upon the earliest days of his life. They are too scant for a separate book on his childhood, but sufficient, even amply so, for leaving us no justification for passing it over in silence. Let this story of his childhood years, then, find a place here and open this third part of our book.

To those who may reproach us for having turned aside from the straight path of our narrative, we would answer in the words of the poet: “Small is the reason of that man who can only walk straight and picks not up the gold if it lies a little to one side.” Others may say that we have unskilfully woven into our book a story that were more appropriate elsewhere. With these we shall not dispute, following the saying that “A tanga does not become a dinar by being replaced from the right pocket into the left.”

And so for the story of his childhood.

We must repudiate at the very outset the rooted opinion that Khoja Nasreddin was born and grew up in the home of a poor Bokhara saddler named Shir-Mamed. Here are two errors: in the first place, Shir-Mamed was not a saddler but a potter; secondly, Khoja Nasreddin was not born in his home but only grew up in it. The fact of the matter is that Shir-Mamed, till now considered Khoja Nasreddin's father, was really his foster-father.

It is this circumstance that our story will be built upon.

Shir-Mamed the potter was a fairly skilful craftsman, especially in the making of tanours—large earthenware jars the size of a man for keeping water in. The craftsman's skill was judged by whether his jars preserved  {340}  the water always fresh and cool—all the cooler the hotter the weather. Shir-Mamed had mastered the secret of mixing clay, sand, powdered stone and the ash of burnt saksaul in suitable proportions, the secret of baking and of the subsequent gradual cooling. His jars came out of the oven sonorous and porous, and sweated well in the hot weather, becoming misted over as with watery silk. These jars yielded him a comfortable income and even enabled him in his old age to provide himself with a house, an orchard, and a vineyard, and two chests full of stuffs and other goods. For all that he considered himself an unhappy man, whom life had treated cruelly—his home was childless.

Prayers, endless donations to the mosque, sorcerers, charms—everything had been tried by Shir-Mamed, but in vain. His wife blessed him not with children. And so the two of them passed into old age. Perfect order and peace always reigned in the house; the crockery stood in its niches, unrenewed for years, as not a cup was ever broken; the silk coverlets looked as if they had been bought yesterday. Such orderliness, however, pleases none save the hardened self-lover, and that Shir-Mamed was not. O, how he would have rejoiced to find all that crockery one day smashed to pieces down to the very last cup by a ball thrown incautiously, and the silk coverlets holed and ruined by burning embers which had been extracted from the hearth for the purpose of closer study!

At one time he and his wife had talked about children and sorrowed together over their misfortune; with the approach of old age, when hope had been abandoned, they ceased to talk about it, feeling guilty one before the other, and sorrowed in silence, each on his own.

One day, towards the end of April, when the peaches, apricots, and apple blossoms had shed their petals in  {341}  the little orchard and only the squat dumpy quince still carried its coarse pink beauty upon its branches, Shir-Mamed rose from his after-dinner sleep and unwittingly violated the tacit understanding between them that the subject of children was to be avoided.

“Do you know what I dreamt of?” he said. “I dreamt that a son was born to us—a sturdy little squaller.”

The old woman shrank, and glanced at him with eyes of pleading, which seemed to say, “Forgive me!” He sighed and turned away. Haply it was he who should plead forgiveness?

The whole evening passed in wistful silence.

The old woman began to make preparations for supper, while Shir-Mamed examined the six new jars, which stood in a row against the garden wall in readiness for the market where they were to be taken on the morrow. These tanours were larger than usual. “I am afraid there will be room only for two at a time, instead of three, in the waggon,” he mused, figuring how much it would cost him to convey the jars to the bazaar.

Then they had their supper and went to bed.

Shir-Mamed woke up in the middle of the night to find the old woman kneeling before the open window. A flood of moonlight illumined the whole of her, even to the smallest wrinkle on her face. She was praying. Shir-Mamed lay listening to her prayer. She was praying to God for a child—that mad woman, at sixty! Her whispered pleadings, too, were mad—she knew not what she was saying and addressed God with reproaches. The anguish of a lifetime, the ungratified yearning of motherhood, loneliness, the misery of frustration—all were in that whisper. And yet, despite of all, in defiance of reason, there was faith in that whisper. “Almighty Allah!” she murmured, tearing the grey tufts of her tumbled hair and dropping down upon  {342}  her face with a low moan. Words failed her. Shir-Mamed's heart was wrung with pity and tenderness for the old woman, and he lay in his bed biting his pillow to keep back the tears that choked him.

Presently the old woman returned to his side in the bed. Shir-Mamed did not stir; neither did she; each knew that the other was not sleeping, but they tried to spare each other's feelings, feigning sleep, and pretending that they believed in this innocent deception. Not a word was uttered between them until daybreak, but much was said in thought without words, and they forgave each other, understanding that they lived a single life together—he for her, and she for him—and that the time when they had lived separate lives, each on his own, had long since passed for them.

It was a painful night for Shir-Mamed, and it was with relief that he greeted the dawn, hoping to drown his sorrowful and compassionate thoughts in the day's customary round of cares.

It was very early, the morning light had not yet lost its blue tinge, daybreak was still a glimmer in the sky, and it wanted at least two hours before Shir-Mamed would ride forth to the bazaar. He thought he would examine his jars once more and tap them over. They responded to the tap of his little stick with a clear full sound without that dull deadened note that betokens the presence of cracks or other flaws. In this manner he examined five jars, and approached the sixth, the last one.

Wonder of wonders! This sixth jar responded to his tap not with a ring but with a squeak. Unutterably amazed, Shir-Mamed struck the jar once more. And again he heard a squeak. But now it was clear that it was not the jar squeaking, but something else, some living thing within the jar.  {343} 

Who could have got in there? A kitten? A pup? A nestling? In what manner? Whatever it was, it was there. It was squeaking.

Shir-Mamed peered into the jar, but beheld there naught save darkness. He put his hand into it. The jar was a deep one, and Shir-Mamed lay on it in order to reach the bottom. At last his hand came in touch with some padded clothing, then. . . . He jerked his hand back hastily and carefully examined it.

The marks of teeth! The one within the jar had snapped at the old man's finger. He could not only squeak, he could bite as well!

It was clear by now who sat within that jar, but Shir-Mamed still refused to believe it. Frightened and shaken, he brought a chisel and a mallet and began to hew out an opening in the jar in order to get him out. The old man's hands trembled, the chisel slipped and wobbled, and the blows that he struck glided off it. He in the jar sat still and quiet. But when the chiselled piece fell away and a flood of light and air streamed into the opening—what an ear-splitting wail then assailed the ears of the old man! Shir-Mamed seized the living bundle of rags and drew it forth, struggling and wriggling in his hands, squalling lustily in an angry voice.

The old woman came running out, alarmed, anxious.

“What is it? Whence comes it? Almighty Allah, look how you are holding him—give him to me!”

She snatched the bundle of rags out of Shir-Mamed's hands, at which, as if by magic, it instantly fell silent.

“Where did you find him? Why do you not speak?”

Pale and shaken, bereft of speech by all these doings, Shir-Mamed could only point at the jar.

Meanwhile, the next-door neighbour, awakened by the screams, was already looking over the low garden wall. The other neighbour, who had slept on the roof,  {344}  called down in a hoarse sleepy voice, “What is the matter there? Thieves? A fire?”

The old woman cast a jealous look round, and hugging the living find close to her withered breast, she walked swiftly indoors.

The prying ranks of neighbours had swelled—two others were now looking over the wall from the other side, asking what had happened.

“I found him in the jar. . .” Shir-Mamed kept repeating. “He was lying in the jar. I had to break the jar open. . . .”

Beyond that he could say no more, for the gift of inventive speech was not his. On the other hand the occurrence was so extraordinary that it called for immediate interpretations, explanations, and conjectures, a task which the neighbours took in hand with gladsome alacrity, filling the quiet of the morning with the hum of excited voices.

And but a minute had elapsed when two more neighbours came running up to look, announcing their impatience by a loud banging at the wicket. Then two more came, then another one. . . . The little yard was crowded with people. They examined the jar, the ground, and the wicket, but no trace of anything could they find. It was astonishing! One would think he had dropped into the jar straight from the sky!

The voice of the old woman could be heard within, calling Shir-Mamed. He hurried indoors, escaping from the insatiable curiosity of the neighbours.

In the house he saw him, lying among cushions on a silk coverlet spread on a chest. And he recognized him at once, instantaneously, as the boy of his dream.

“Look,” the old woman said in a melting voice, “look, Shir-Mamed—he has teeth!”

Shir-Mamed approached the chest. The boy kicked his legs up at his approach, waved his arms, and began  {345}  to scream with his mouth wide open—and the astonished Shir-Mamed beheld in his mouth two rows of dazzling white, strong, sharp teeth. Forsooth, here was something to confound the reason and daze the mind—teeth in a sucking infant! Shir-Mamed felt a weakness in his legs and a contraction of the heart at the memory of his dream, for that other one, too, had had a mouthful of teeth.

A miracle had entered their house. That much was clear to Shir-Mamed and the old woman. She dropped her head upon her husband's shoulder and whispered through her tears, “I knew it would happen. I had always known. But I knew not when and how.”

According to the laws of Bokhara, a foundling could not be adopted until three months had elapsed, provided his parents were not heard from in the course of that period.

For three months the town crier proclaimed on the bazaar square the firman informing all the populace of Bokhara and all strangers that a male infant approximately five months old, having as its distinguishing mark a mouthful of teeth premature for its age, had been discovered in an earthenware jar in the house of the potter Shir-Mamed residing in the potters’ quarter of the city. This firman was shouted out by the crier three times a day—morning, noon, and evening. Verily not everyone succeeds in entering this world with so much noise. All this noise around little Nasreddin was a presage, as it were, of his whole future life.

Those three endless months were torture to Shir-Mamed, and still more so to the poor old woman, who ate her heart out. She greeted each morn with the fearful question—would they come, would they take him away? The creaking of the wicket made her go hot and cold, and she bristled like a she-wolf who is prepared to defend her young to her last dying breath. On the  {346}  advice of her neighbours she took her gold earrings—a wedding present—to a market scrivener for him to draw up a captious question list designed to expose those lying tricksters who would try to pass themselves off as the parents of little Nasreddin. The old woman conceived towards them in advance a bitter hatred, and did not for a moment entertain the thought that they could be anything but tricksters. The scrivener, a wizened pettifogger with a yellow pock-marked foxy face, proved to be an adept at his job: he drew up eighty-six questions and arranged them with great cunning; if put, in that given order, to any person, they made of that person a robber, a perpetrator of villainies innumerable, of which robbery upon the high road and infanticide were by no means the least.

Their fears, however, proved groundless. The last, ninetieth, day passed and no one came to claim the foundling, and on the ninety-first day the mullah, in the presence of the needful number of witnesses, performed in the mosque the rite of adoption.

Such were the circumstances under which Khoja Nasreddin made his appearance in the house of the potter Shir-Mamed. It is also known that he was nursed in turn by all the women of the potters’ quarter who had infants at the breast. We know not how many blood brothers and sisters he had, but of foster-brothers and foster-sisters he had a multitude. This again can be regarded as a presage: already in his cradle he had contrived to make the whole potters’ quarter his kin, as he was later to make the whole world his kin. It is said that although he had a strong tooth itch in infancy, during which he gnawed everything that he could get into his mouth, he never once bit the breast of his wet-nurse.

He grew very rapidly. At three he looked five, and in intelligence, still more. At three he knew a great number  {347}  of words, had mastered their different combinations, and astonished all grown-ups with the correctness of his speech. He divined the properties and purpose of the objects around him, such as distaffs, axes, saws, pincers, pruning-shears, bores, press irons, and so forth, with amazing intelligence. At four he first sat down to the potter's wheel and made, to Shir-Mamed's indescribable astonishment, a pot of such flawless perfection that it could be taken to the market at once! All things readily yielded up to him their secrets, and it seemed as if he was not making his acquaintance with the world, but recognizing it all over again, as though he had not come into the world but had returned to it, the way people return home from a long journey to things that are familiar, albeit slightly forgotten.

Of the other peculiar traits of his childhood mention is made of the strange reflective moods that visited him of an evening. At such times he would seek the silence of seclusion and his glance would acquire a transparency, as though he could see nothing nearer than the constellation of The Seven Diamonds. With the passing of the years this singularity, so odd in a child of four, vanished without a trace—mayhap to return to him in old age, when men's thoughts naturally aspire to starry heights. He is also said to have been extraordinarily fond of the sun—a fondness that verged on adoration; while still an infant in arms he could look at the sun without blinking, with an open glance undazzled by its beams—an ability possessed, of all earthlings, by the eagle alone.

With the lesser creatures of the earth, that is, the beasts, the birds and all the various beetles and insects, he was on terms of steadfast friendship. Shir-Mamed marvelled to see the little boy calmly pick a bumble-bee off a bough and carefully examine it, while the fat shaggy insect calmly waited to be let go and did not  {348}  even try to defend itself with its terrible sting. The birds were quite unafraid of him, and on one occasion, when he leaned a ladder against the wall and climbed up it to help the swallows build their nests under the eaves, those birds readily accepted his aid. Those who know how jealously these blithe little birds guard their nests will appreciate this wondrous affair at its full worth. When the baby birds were hatched in the nest and the time came for them to learn how to fly, little Nasreddin was a great help to the winged parents in the flying lessons which they gave their children; he picked up the inapt, who had fallen to the ground, and tossed them into the air. A great friend of his—a hedgehog—lived under the roots of an old apricot-tree in a corner of the garden, and to him a little crock of milk the boy carried every morning. He had friends also among the mice. One day, while passing through the old cemetery with Shir-Mamed, little Nasreddin stepped off the path into the thick weeds and trod on a snake with his bare foot; with a hiss it instantly coiled itself round his leg up to the knee; Shir-Mamed's blood ran cold in his veins with horror, but the boy calmly lifted his leg and the snake unwound its slippery coils and crawled away without having stung him, although it continued to hiss angrily, because its tail, after all, had been painfully trodden on. He lived on equally good terms with all the other four-legged, crawling and flying creatures, all, that is, except the mosquitoes; those vile insects, begotten by the putrid breath of the swamp devils, refused to accept him as their own and tormented him cruelly to-the point of tears.

He lived in kinship with the whole vast world around him, for ever aware of his oneness with it, as if conscious that the ether, of which everything in this world consists, is a single entity, flowing uninterruptedly, and no single particle of it belongs permanently to  {349}  anyone: from the sun it passes to the bumble-bee, from the bumble-bee to the cloud, from the cloud to the wind or the water, from the water to the bird, from the bird to man, in order thence to rush on further upon its eternal round. That is why it was so easy for little Nasreddin to understand the bumble-bee and the wind, the sun and the swallow, for he was himself a bit of them all. That great blessing of oneness with the world, which is given only to sages, and only in their old age at that, as the crowning reward for their labours and efforts, was given to him, the chosen son of Life, at his birth.

As to his coevals—his foster-brothers of the potters’ quarter—his feelings towards them were friendly, albeit he had begun to perceive the imperfections of human nature at a very early age. Khoja Nasreddin, however, could be indulgent to people without demanding of them angelic qualities, for he knew that that was impossible. Years later, as a grown-up man, he had discovered in the book of the most wise Ibrahim-ibn-Hattab the following comment: “The very imperfection of human nature, however, is such as to bear definite testimony to man's highest place among all the other creatures, for only to him, of all living creatures, is given the possibility of perfecting himself. The very word ‘imperfect’ as applied to him already implies an admission of his ability and capacity towards elevation. . . .” Upon reading this, Khoja Nasreddin had exclaimed, “The veritable truth, I always thought thus!”

But let us return to the story of his childhood. He displayed great gifts for trade. At eight he was selling pots unaided. Shir-Mamed fully relied upon him, and during the torrid hours of the bazaar he gave himself up to peaceful relaxation in some chaikhana. Nasreddin  {350}  plied a brisk trade, and never once did the old man have cause to rue the trust he placed in him.

One day, when the boy was alone in the shop, a merchant came in and selected a small pot for buying honey in. Glancing at the huge tanours standing in a row, each of which was twice the size of its seller, the merchant remarked, “The pots are big, the seller is a mite.”

Nasreddin instantly turned these words into the first line of a couplet and supplied the second with his answer:

“The buyer is big, but he buys slight.”

Amazed and delighted at such a display of sprightly wit, the merchant, who himself composed verses in his leisure hours and was a good judge in these matters, bought five more pots from the boy and paid for them generously without haggling.

Nasreddin bid the merchant good day with another couplet:

Whereat the merchant fairly shook with delight, and he even went to the pains of writing down both couplets, thanks to which they have survived to this day.

He was a true son of the bazaar. The hubbub, the bustle and the crush never wearied him; he could swim in this unending noisy torrent for days on end. It was at the bazaar that there occurred to him an incident which had no little effect in revealing to him his own mind and heart.

One afternoon he strayed into Old Camel Square. It was a slack hour, when both sellers and buyers were waiting for the heat to pass. All around lay camels, saturating the hot motionless air with the acrid odour of their sweat; little Nasreddin fearlessly crossed the  {351}  square, disappearing at one moment amid the smelly yellow petrified waves of camel-humps, to bob up the next with his red-tasselled velvet skull-cap. The somnolent square held no attraction for him; he tried to tease a baby camel, but it was so drowsy with the heat that it merely looked at him apathetically and turned away, refusing to spit.

After a moment's reflection little Nasreddin bent his steps towards Tamerlane Bridge where newly-arrived rope-walkers were said to have made their pitch. As he was passing a large caravanserai, he stopped at the sound of shouting, squeals, and laughter. His heart rejoicing within him, he hastened thither.

He saw a crowd of bazaar boys of his own age giving themselves up enthusiastically to a cruel sport. An old beggar woman—a Gypsy of the Luli tribe, the most despised of all the Gypsy tribes—was sitting in the hot sun by the roadside, leaning against the wall of the caravanserai. The boys, laughing and making faces, were teasing her, shouting out all kinds of insulting names and throwing clods of dry earth at her.

The old hag was very ugly and repellent. White bald patches showed through her uncovered hair, yellow fangs stuck out in her mouth behind blue flabby lips, her nose was hooked and livid, her eyelids inflamed, red and bare of eyelashes, her eyes were round and wicked; moreover, she held in her lap a cat as repulsive as she was herself, a black scabby cat almost hairless with age; in a word, she was a real witch, one of those frightful witches who steal little children in order to drink their blood.

Little Nasreddin lost no time joining in the general sport. He yelled and squealed, he growled and barked like a dog, he hopped about on one foot with his tongue sticking out, vying with the rest of them. The old hag cursed and shook her bony fist, the cat spat and arched  {352}  its back—and altogether it was so funny that the boys went into fits of laughter.

At last, they wearied of the old woman, and, besides, other diversions awaited them at Tamerlane Bridge. And so off they scampered at breakneck speed, arriving there safely and just in time for the rope-walking spectacle. The old hag and her cat were instantly forgotten—indeed, who could remember them when one's ears were filled to aching with the deafening din of drums, large and small, with the piercing whistle of the pipes and the blare of trumpets, while one's eyes were filled with the blissful sight of the rope-walkers strolling about under the sky with their long poles. Only once, like a dim fleeting shadow, did the thought of the old woman pass before little Nasreddin to vanish immediately, catching oddly at the heart in passing, as if leaving a scratch in it.

This bliss continued all day. Nasreddin returned home a different way and did not see the old hag. But in relating to Shir-Mamed the events of the day, he recollected her and faltered.

“Well, why do you stop?” said Shir-Mamed.

“I saw an old woman of the Luli, a beggar woman,” answered Nasreddin. “She had a black cat. . . . And then we went to Tamerlane Bridge.”

He did not tell a direct lie, but neither did he tell the truth—it was a half-truth, which is really the worst kind of lie. Once more something scratched at his heart.

With this he went to bed. Fatigued by his busy day, he quickly fell asleep. He awoke in the middle of the night from a terrifying dream. The old hag, with an evil leer, chased him, seized him, and dragged him off to a pit wherein a huge black cat with fiery eyes prowled about snarling and spitting. This dream haunted the boy and filled him with a strange yearning; listening to Shir-Mamed's sighs and snores, he felt twinges of  {353}  increasing pain within him, as if that old woman's cat had got into his breast and was sharpening its claws upon his heart.

Thus, for the first time, he heard the voice of conscience, and learned that he carried within him invisible scales upon which was weighed every grain of evil done by him, and the dipping of those scales caused him acute distress.

To rid himself of that scratching at the heart, he tried to divert his thoughts to games, to the hedgehog, the swallows. But in vain! Wishing not to think of the old woman, he could not think of aught else.

And then a strange thing happened: the deeper he became engrossed in thoughts of the old woman, the less did he remain himself and the more did he become the old woman, as if he were emptying himself into her, so that by dawn he was three-quarters her and only one-quarter his old self. And when he had become three-quarters her, he felt as unhappy and lonely as she did, while the quarter that was still him was filled with such poignant pity for her that he shed hot tears.

He understood all now—the infinite loneliness, the infinite misery of her who had not a soul in the world to befriend her. Was it her fault that she had been born in the Luli tribe, was it she who had made herself ugly? Then why must she suffer lifelong punishment for it? The multitudinous bazaar all round was a desert to her—nay worse, for it was filled for her with scorn and enmity. Wherefore? She was always bent and she always looked round fearfully, because she always expected a blow—by whip, by word, or by laughter. The black cat was all that she had in the world; and so they lived together, both old, infirm, for ever hungry, destitute, having naught but each other in the whole wide world.

With what eyes, now that he understood this, did he look upon himself, upon his shameful mocking grimaces,  {354}  his disgraceful shouted insults, and his hopping about on one foot with his tongue stuck out. He was horrified. He found the sight of himself so shameful and disgusting that he could not bear it, and hid his head deep under his pillow with a loud groan.

Morning found him sad and thoughtful. Hastily eating a bread-cake and drinking some milk, he ran off to the bazaar. In his girdle lay a purse filled with small coppers, making up two and a half tangas all together. The fruit of wise thrift, some might think? Nay, gambling luck!

He hastened to the old woman. How many bazaar temptations lay in his path—airan, honey snow, sugar candy, khalva! He manfully conquered them all and did not untie his purse-strings. Neither did he stop in the street where the boys were rapturously playing a Chinese game by the name of lianga for stakes amounting to a quarter of a farthing per nose. Little Nasreddin had no equal in this game, and yet he passed by with a quickened step, glancing aside.

He found the old woman in her old place by the caravanserai. The cat was lying in her lap. The earthenware crock for alms was empty, like the day before. The old woman was stroking the cat and speaking to it, and the cat answered with a piteous mewing—no doubt it was hungry.

Little Nasreddin concealed himself behind the gap of a broken wall. He suddenly felt timorous. How was he to approach the old woman, what was he to say? An idea occurred to him to toss her the purse and run away. But that did not befit the solemnity of the moment.

All kinds of people passed the old woman along the road but none gave her a copper, not even a crust of stale bread. Nasreddin looked and wondered how unjust and hard-hearted people were.  {355} 

His wonder waxed into indignation. People kept passing by and passing by, but still the old woman's crock remained empty. The blood rushed to the face of little Nasreddin—why could they not understand what he with his child's mind had grasped with such certitude. Today he had no eye either for the old woman's livid nose or her yellow fangs, for his mental vision had risen above such irrelevant and inconsequential details, and probed below the surface to the underlying essential core of helplessness, loneliness, and suffering.

Moved by anger and compassion, he overcame his timidity and, purse in hand, advanced towards her.

The nearer he came the more difficult was the going. His feet seemed to be sticking to the ground.

She had recognized him—he could tell by the strained guarded look in her eyes. She shrank and drew her head into her shoulders, expecting from him stones or verbal insults, as yesterday.

“Here, grandma, take this,” he mumbled with faltering tongue, emptying his purse straight into her lap and showering copper coins over the spitting cat.

Here his courage failed him, he had passed the bounds of his spirit's bravery. Turning, he fled, and ceased not his retreat until he reached the Hardware Row far from the caravanserai.

Having performed his deed of penance, he pondered the whole day thereafter. He pondered in seclusion. His thoughts ran in two rows—one concerned the old woman, the other the hard-hearted people who refused her aid. He pitied the one and was indignant with the others. But he would have proved unworthy of his great destiny had he confined himself to pity and indignation alone. Action was called for, but what kind of action?

It was here for the first time that he discovered the true capacities of his mind. To begin with, he detached  {356}  his thoughts from his feelings, in order that the latter should not hurry the former, then he brought the tangled skein of his thoughts into orderly array by simplifying them to the greatest possible degree and disposing them by right of seniority, in the order in which they were born. He learnt this method of cogitation on his little chess-board by studying the puzzles which he often saw in the chaikhanas at the bazaar. There are forced moves in chess which one is obliged to make against one's will because one is impelled thereto by one's opponent. This is what little Nasreddin decided upon. If the populace of Bokhara were not charitable of their own accord, they would have to be made so.

In thus defining his task, he also defined the channel in which his further reflections would flow. The drift of them was this—to discover a game in which he would have the ascendancy over the men of Bokhara. To avoid bothering his mind with the thousands of hard-hearted Bokhara inhabitants, he deemed it wise to merge them all together in his mind into one Big Bokhara Man. Things were thus simplified. To think of one Bokhara Man, albeit a very Big One, proved a much easier task. Nasreddin applied himself to studying the nature of that so heartless Big One for the purpose of discovering a crack in the shield with which the aforesaid Big Bokhara Man covers his mind and his heart against the penetrations of charity and compassion.

The inner essence of the Big Bokhara Man proved to fall far short of the abysmal. It did not take the boy more than two or three hours of cogitation to plumb its depths, and there, at the bottom, to discover the evil-smelling slime of avarice, the shells of stinginess, and the rotting weeds of ineradicable self-love. The Big Bokhara Man was now so clear to him that he could envisage him even with his inward eye in all his foul and hideous aspect. In stature he could have vied with  {357}  a minaret, except that he was much thicker—the girdle round his waist could barely meet; he was fat and ruddy, with plump cheeks and deep-set little eyes that looked out upon the world dully and listlessly; a smug vacuous smile wandered sleepily over his face, and when he opened his lips one divined rather than saw behind them a thick, awkward, lisping tongue; he was continually puffing, sighing, and grunting—from the excess of fat that had accumulated within him; he held in his hand a huge bread-cake, the size of a waggon wheel, smeared with honey, and when he took bites from it he moaned and purred in a swooning ecstasy, shielding himself with his elbow and glancing around to see whether anyone was going to take the bread-cake away from him or ask him for a piece.

Little Nasreddin was angry with the people of Bokhara for being so callous towards the old woman, and that is why the Big Bokhara Man appeared to him in such a repulsive light. Anger, however, is a poor counsellor of fairness; indeed, there was little justice in such a notion, since the real people of Bokhara were, in their vast majority, good and kind-hearted. They refused the old woman aid not through abysmal self-love, but rather because they were unable, through her outward ugliness to see the full depths of her inner suffering; if they had, they would have helped her themselves without being compelled thereto; they simply lacked the gift of deep thought. The boy had no time to think of this, however. He was preparing himself to grapple with the Big Bokhara Man, and consequently, conceived for him in advance a great contempt and wrath, as is always the case in every struggle.

After scrutinizing the shield of the Big Bokhara Man little Nasreddin quickly discovered therein its most glaring crack. Among the various foibles which the Big Bokhara Man was burdened with his greatest was an  {358}  idle curiosity and an insatiable admiration for all outlandish wonders.

The thing was to strike at this crack.

The next morning found little Nasreddin at the caravanserai again. Fired by his subtle schemes, he had come running down too early—the old woman was not there yet. He had to wait a full half-hour. The boy fretted and chafed with impatience, running round and round the caravanserai and looking for the old woman down all the four roads that met there. The early sun was not hot, the air was clear and light, the shady places still preserved the fragrant coolness of the night, and the ground, copiously moistened by the waterers, was only beginning to give off a warm vapour. The tiled caps of the minarets, however, already dazzled the eyes with their molten gleam, and the blue limpid canopy above them was already tremulous and shimmering, promising a day of sweltering heat. Every minute the hoarse gurgling roar of the bazaar increased in volume, filling the city from end to end, rising skyward together with the dust, shaking the halls of Allah and drowning heaven's angelic chorus. It was the voice of the Big Bokhara Man, purring over his honeyed bread-cake.

Presently the old woman appeared. With her was the black cat. The boy regretted that he had not thought of bringing a piece of boiled liver with him from home. This horrid mangy cat was now his chief ally against the Big Bokhara Man.

Without wasting time, little Nasreddin boldly approached the old woman.

“Good morning, grandma!” said he. “Did you spend a quiet night?”

“Good morning to you!” returned the old woman, screwing up her rheumy eyes. “The night passed quietly enough, but the day, I see, is beginning unquietly.”  {359} 

Nasreddin knew perfectly well what she was hinting at, but made believe as if he did not understand. The conversation had to be continued, so, bowing once more, he asked:

“Was it a quiet night for your esteemed cat too?”

“The cat did not sleep very well because he was catching mice,” the old woman answered, gazing steadily and searchingly at the boy.

He shuffled about uneasily, disconcerted by her glance. His courage had suddenly melted away, and together with it, all the words which he had prepared beforehand vanished from off his tongue.

Silence ensued. Nasreddin caught his breath in a sigh, feeling the heat not only upon his face but even in his stomach. At last, with a great effort, he brought out in half a whisper:

“I am that boy. The one of yesterday. And of the day before.”

The old woman was silent, her eyes fixed upon his face. Summoning all his powers, he added, now in a barely audible voice:

“The one who teased you. Do you remember?”

Had the old woman still kept silent, he would have turned and fled, as he had done the day before.

But the old woman answered.

“Do I remember you?” she said. “I should think I do. You stuck your tongue out so far that I was astonished to see how long it was.”

Those words would have burnt the boy to ashes, annihilated him, but for the old woman's smile—a sweet, kind smile that lit her face up as if with a sunbeam.

“Come closer,” said she. “You are a good boy with a kind heart, but a very mischievous one, from what I can see. Now tell me straight and honestly—what have you come here for, what do you want? And let me tell you beforehand—if you have brought me again two tangas  {360}  as you did yesterday, you had better betake yourself with your money. To help the poor is a good and charitable deed, but it is not good for boys to dip their fingers into their fathers’ purses for that purpose. For where else are you able to procure two tangas every day?”

Little Nasreddin felt insulted, but recollected that she was a Gypsy of the, Luli and judged him as she would have judged the boys of her own tribe.

“Oh no!” said he. “I have come today without two tangas. I never touch my father's purse. He often leaves me by myself to sell jars in his shop, and I always give him the receipts in full.”

“That is well,” said the old woman approvingly.

“On holidays he gives me a quarter of a tanga and sometimes half a tanga.”

“That you can take, that is not sinful,” said the old woman. “I am glad that I was mistaken. Do not be angry with me.”

After that the conversation between them went smoothly and easily: word caught into word like the cogs in wooden gears, and the mill began to revolve. Little Nasreddin seated himself beside the old woman, stroked the cat, listened to his purring, and praised his performance in the highest terms.

“Is he fond of milk and liver?”

“That I cannot say, for I have never fed him with either,” the old woman said with a laugh. “I have not seen them myself for years.”

This bitter confession served the boy as a bridge for passing over to that which lay uppermost in his mind. Stumbling over his words in his agitation, he imparted to the old woman his plan against the Big Bokhara Man.

She listened at first with curiosity, then with trust, and finally was moved to tears of tender emotion.

“Allah Himself has sent you to me, in order to comfort me in my homeless old age! In mind you are an  {361}  arrant rogue, and had you been born among our tribe you would have been the supreme chieftain. In heart, however, you are pure and righteous, and may God grant that your mind always be the handmaid of your heart.”

Nasreddin's plan required some preliminary expenses—about fifteen tangas, if not a little more. The old woman trusted the boy to such an extent that she did not hesitate to give him the money, which she produced from somewhere deep within her dirty rags.

“This is all I have,” she said, her hands trembling.

“Do not worry, grandma, they will be returned to you with profit,” answered little Nasreddin.

First he bent his steps towards Chinese Square where all kinds of second-hand oddments were sold. There, at a suitable price—half a tanga—he bought a broken old wooden cage of fairly ample size, one of those cages in which the chaikhana-owners keep kekliks—hill partridges, valued for their cackling which resembles the tinkle of glass. Then the boy repaired to the Woodworking Row, where he found a craftsman who agreed to mend the cage—and that cost another half-tanga. A third half-tanga was paid to a painter, who painted the cage in all the colours that he had in stock—green, blue, red, yellow, and white. Towards the end, in a fit of generosity, the painter adorned the cage with a wide golden border all round, exclaiming at his handwork:

“Now, boy, you have but to catch the fire-bird with a diamond feather in her tail!”

“I have caught her already,” answered Nasreddin. “A fire-bird the like of which has never yet been seen in Bokhara—one with four feet and black fur.”

Bringing the cage to the old woman (she threw her hands up in amazement at such splendour), little Nasreddin hied to the bazaar once more.  {362} 

This time he did not return until noon.

“Come, grandma, all is ready,” said he.

The old woman got up, grunting, and took the sleepy cat in her arms, who half opened a yellow eye, while the boy took the cage, and they all went forth.

They stopped at Chinese Square, at the crossing of three roads. Here began the three busiest trading rows—the Weaving, Shoemaking, and Hardware rows. A little to one side of the crossroads the old woman perceived a small tent made of reed mats fastened to four poles. The two openings, one facing the other, were covered with curtains of coarse unbleached linen. Outside the tent sat its architect, an old man of the bazaar, who, upon receiving two tangas from Nasreddin, withdrew with voluble expressions of gratitude.

The boy ushered the old woman into the tent. A post driven into the ground with a wide bit of board nailed on top of it, served as a stand for the cage. The tent contained nothing else. The light fell from a hole in the roof.

“Stay here awhile, grandma,” said Nasreddin. “I have another matter to see to—my last.”

Leaving the old woman, he plunged into Shoemakers’ Row, and thence, by a by-street, to the cistern of Yeski-Hauz, where the bazaar scriveners, composers of all kinds of petitions and complaints, but mostly informers’ missives, used to sit in those days.

It was the most strident, the most discordant, and quarrelsome place in the bazaar. Here men were for ever disputing, bickering, swearing, accusing, and boasting, and the very air here was thick with monstrous barefaced lies, such as confounded the imagination. Of the scriveners who abided here there was not a man but had occupied in the past an official post lower than that of Master of the Court Rolls somewhere in Istanbul, Teheran, or Khoresm, not a man but  {363}  had once given the king momentous advice at the very moment when his viziers and all the lords of his court had been stricken dumb with confusion, not a man but had been awarded with aught lower than the decoration of the Great Lion. . . .

The clients usually assembled at the water cistern after noon, and then the noise here somewhat abated, as the scriveners busied themselves with their affairs. Little Nasreddin, however, came before noon, that is, at the hour of greatest commotion, when all was hubbub and confusion, and it was impossible to make out who was disputing with whom and who was swearing at whom, for everyone was cursing everybody else, and everybody else cursing everyone, and there was such a wild uproar that it was a wonder the water of Yeski-Hauz could remain smooth and unruffled under such a hurricane of vituperation and execration.

“O son of a scabby hyena!” shouted a puny old man, as gaunt and twisted as the letter “mim,” to his neighbour. “O despised ignoramus, who can not even write the letter ‘alif’ properly! All remember the petition that you filed in court last winter. Instead of ‘The lamp of authority and piety’ you wrote ‘The damp author of poetry’—that is what you wrote!”

“Who wrote ‘damp author of poetry'? I did?” his neighbour cried choking with fury. This neighbour resembled the letter . . . but it is difficult to say what letter he did resemble—rather did he resemble the whole Arabic alphabet at once, for he kept changing his shape by reason of constant palsied twitchings in every single part of his body—his head, his legs, his arms, his hands and his back; it seemed as if his very entrails were shifting and shuffling about in his belly. “Did you forget how you very nearly ruined your client last year by writing a petition to the Emir in which you addressed him as ‘More Yajesty’ instead of ‘Your Majesty’?”  {364} 

All around began to giggle, snicker, snort, and cackle in a variety of keys. The scrivener, who resembled a twisted “mim,” was, with distorted countenance and gnashing teeth, preparing to return a fit retort, but little Nasreddin waited not to hear it and walked past.

Amid this simoom of rancorous wrangling, he descried, not without difficulty, an elderly scrivener, who took no part in the general squabble—not by reason of wisdom or mildness of temper, but for quite a different and more subtle reason. He was listening. With his long neck craned forward and his huge hairless skull shining in the sun—a skull whose weight seemed to have squashed his bony face—he sat listening, pouncing upon every word dropped unguardedly in the heat of mutual recrimination that could be made use of for the purpose of informing. He wrote it down secretly there and then in foreign characters so that none of the other scriveners should by any chance discover it. When little Nasreddin approached him he was busy writing down “More Yajesty.” He whispered the words as his reed pen scratched away, and such a malicious, snake-like, ugly little smile lurked in the corners of his thin lips that one could unerringly savour beforehand the taste of that pungent peppery dish which he was going to prepare for somebody in the not distant future.

He looked up at little Nasreddin and asked, “What do you want, boy?”

“I want a short little sign in Indian ink on Chinese paper. A very short one.”

“A short little sign!” exclaimed the scrivener, delighted at having a client, and such a callow and inexperienced one at that, before whom he could spread the peacock tail of lies and boasting to its full span without fear of exposure. “Thank your lucky stars, boy,  {365}  for having guided you to me, for there is not a man in all Bokhara who can vie with me in writing with the brush in Indian ink and upon Chinese paper. When I was the Chief Clerk of the Grand Divan of Bagdad and wore upon my robe of state the sign of the Great Lion—a gold badge studded with diamonds, conferred upon me by the Caliph. . . .”

Little Nasreddin was obliged to hear out all his boastful lies, but we have no need to do so, all the more that each of us has heard their like on many am occasion. Such boastful lying about their past grandeur is ever the way of men who have been cast down to the bottom of life, and it follows all generations without ever changing its essential pattern. After having related all the vicissitudes of fate and the treacheries of his enemies, the scrivener left it at that, then asked:

“What kind of sign do you desire, boy? Speak—I shall make you happy.”

“Just three words in big letters,” said Nasreddin. ” ‘Beast Called Cat.’ ”

“What? Repeat it. ‘Beast Called Cat’? H'm. . . .”

The scrivener pursed up his mouth and gave the boy a piercing glance out of his sharp little eyes.

“Tell me, pray, what do you want such a sign for?” he asked.

“He who pays knows what he pays for,” little Nasreddin answered evasively. “What is your price?”

“A tanga and a half,” came the reply.

“So dear? For only three words?”

“But what words!” returned the scrivener. “Beast!”—he made a mysteriously ominous face. “Called!”—he whispered the word, imparting to it a felonious conspiratorial tone. “Cat!”—he shuddered and recoiled as if he had touched a snake. “Who would charge you anything less than that?”  {366} 

Little Nasreddin was obliged to agree to the price of one and a half tangas, albeit he failed to grasp the dangerous import of his sign.

The scrivener pulled out a piece of yellowish Chinese paper from under his mat, trimmed it with a knife, armed himself with a brush and proceeded to his task, inwardly regretting that of the three words with which he had been entrusted he was unable, for all his dexterity, to carve out a single informer's report.

On his way back little Nasreddin tarried only at the Shoemakers’ Row, where, with shoemaker's glue, he pasted the sign to a smoothly planed little board.

Hung up outside the tent, it looked quite enticing.

“Now collect the money, grandma,” said little Nasreddin.

The caged cat, installed within the tent, wauled drearily and lonesomely.

The old woman seated herself at the entrance with her crock.

Little Nasreddin took up a position three paces away, nearer to the road, then, filling his lungs with air, he let it out in such a piercing voice that the old woman's ears began to itch dreadfully.

“Beast called cat!” screamed Nasreddin, his face red with exertion. “Sitting in a cage! He has four paws! Four paws with sharp claws, like needles! He has a long tail that bends freely right and left, up and down, and is capable of assuming any shape or form—that of a hook, or even a ring! Beast called cat! He curves his back and twitches his whiskers! He has a black coat! He has yellow eyes that burn in the dark like smouldering coals! He makes unpleasant noises when he is hungry, and nice ones when he is well fed! Beast called cat! Sitting in a cage, a strong reliable cage! Anyone can see him for two coppers without the slightest risk or danger! A strong reliable cage! Beast called cat!”  {367} 

But three minutes had elapsed when his zeal was rewarded. A bazaar loiterer, who had come out of the Hardware Row, stopped, listened, and turned towards the tent. In appearance he was the exact double of the Big Bokhara Man, albeit on a smaller scale—his younger brother, one might say—just as fat, and ruddy, and with the same dull sleepy look. He came close up to Nasreddin and gazed stupefied at him, his arms sticking out from his body. A fatuous blissful grin spread slowly over his face and his eyes became glassy and staring.

“Beast called cat!” Nasreddin screamed right into his face. “Sitting in a cage! To be contemplated for two coppers!”

The Small Bokhara Man stood there for a long time, listening to these cries with an air of quiet imbecilic rapture, then he went up to the old woman, rummaged in his girdle with fat fingers and tossed two coppers into her crock.

The coins tinkled. The voice of little Nasreddin broke with excitement. This was victory!

The Small Bokhara Man drew the curtain aside and walked into the tent.

Nasreddin fell silent, waiting with bated breath for him to reappear.

The Small Bokhara Man remained within the tent a very long time. What he was doing there no one knew; probably contemplating. When he came forth again there was written upon his face perplexity, annoyance and bewilderment—as though someone in the tent had tried to fit a boot on to his head or feed him with soap. He went up once more to little Nasreddin, who had renewed his cries, and stared at him again dumbstruck with his arms wide apart, the former blissful grin having now given place to an air of troubled  {368}  perplexity. He guessed that he had been fooled, but in what way he could not exactly make out.

Thereat the Small Bokhara Man withdrew. Three others now stood by the tent, quarrelling noisily among themselves as to who was to be the first to contemplate the beast.

These had more wits; coming out of the tent, the last one held his sides with laughter. Since it is the way of every dupe to desire that others should not be cleverer, none of the three mentioned a single word to the two others who were already awaiting their turn at the entrance.

The contemplation of the beast continued throughout the day. It was contemplated by merchants, by craftsmen, by visiting farmers, and even by learned men of Islam in white turbans with the ends turned up. It was contemplated before feeding time, when it emitted noises unpleasant, and after a liver repast, when it emitted of noises none at all, but fell to licking itself and catching fleas.

The tent did not close until drumbeat. The old woman counted the day's receipts. Nineteen tangas! The very first day had more than covered all expenses, and the morrow promised a clear profit.

The life of the old woman underwent a marvellous change. She now had even a roof of her own, for the tent was her inalienable property. She spent the night in it. The cat, let out of his cage, walked around the corners, tail erect, sniffing out his new dwelling.

Little Nasreddin cried outside the tent for three more days, then told the old woman that she would have to hire someone else, as he had other affairs at home to attend to. For three tangas a day they hired an old man, a former muezzin. This one shouted loud enough, but in a drawn-out prayerful voice, so that  {369}  they had to buy him a drum, which he beat at intervals for the greater attraction of the public.

The boy did not forget the old woman, and visited her every week. This meeting was always a joyful event for both. The old woman informed the boy of her increasing wealth and every time offered him a half. And every time he refused, taking only one tanga for sweetmeats in order not to offend her.

Before going away, the boy looked into the tent and contemplated. Fed daily with liver, the cat had grown amazingly sleek and fat and lazy, and always slept on a cushion, specially acquired for him. The boy opened the cage and stroked the cat, marvelling at his silky fur. The cat slightly opened one eye, barely wagged the tip of his tail, and went to sleep again.

When winter came the boy and old woman parted. She moved to Namangan, where she had some Gypsy kinsfolk. She rode away in a covered waggon—to such a degree of wealth had she attained! And how she wept, embracing little Nasreddin at parting! For the last time the boy filled his gaze with the sight of the beast sitting on a cushion in his cage—and the waggon moved off.

In the course of time, finding himself one day in Shiraz, the birthplace of the great Saadi, Khoja Nasreddin (he was Khoja Nasreddin by that time!) suddenly heard the loud shouts of a crier at the bazaar, “Beast called cat! Beast sitting in a cage!” With agitation in his heart he hastened towards the cries and beheld a tent on the square. At the entrance sat a young Gypsy—a merry beautiful damsel in earrings and beads, with a burnished copper tray for money in front of her. And opposite, at the other entrance, the old woman sat dozing; she was utterly decrepit, having already passed through that portal of earthly existence, beyond which  {370}  dreams and reality merge together indefinably. Khoja Nasreddin tossed a large silver rupee into the tray on purpose so as to linger before the beautiful young Gypsy while she counted out the change. She understood it, of course, and took her time with the change, which she counted out in small copper, her eyes demurely shadowed by velvety eyelashes which failed, however, to conceal the smile that hovered upon her fresh rosy lips. Khoja Nasreddin entered the tent and beheld the cat—the very same cat, only aged and decrepit like its mistress. Khoja Nasreddin called it, but received no response; belike it had grown deaf with old age.

Coming out at the other end of the tent, Khoja Nasreddin returned to the entrance. The young Gypsy thought it was because of her, and laughed frankly with a flash of white teeth. But to her great chagrin, puzzlement and even indignation, Khoja Nasreddin preferred converse with the old woman. He bent over her and said softly:

“Good morning, grandma. Do you remember Bokhara, do you remember the bazaar boy by the name of Nasreddin. . . .”

The old woman started and a sudden light burst upon her face. Gasping, she cried out softly and leaned forward, clutching at the air with eager trembling hands. But Khoja Nasreddin withdrew, saying within himself, “Let this be to her a fleeting echo from the past, an airy transient dream before the eternal sleep that soon will close those eyes.” He looked round. The old woman was still grasping, embracing the air with trembling hands, while the young one, utterly bewildered and alarmed, cast swift glances now at the old woman, now at the crowd into which the strange visitor had disappeared.

He looked back no more, and the bazaar engulfed him in its seething clamorous cauldron.  {371} 

Another incident happened to him in his childhood at the Bokhara bazaar.

He was wandering between the rows of shops. The unbearable heat drove him to the pool. A woman, covered with a thick veil, followed him. Hearing steps behind him, he looked round.

“Wait!” the woman said in an odd voice, and advancing towards him she threw back her veil and bent over him. She laid dry hot hands on his cheeks, brought her emaciated grief-stricken face close to his, and fastened her eyes upon his as though she would pour something from her soul into his, or, on the contrary, drink from his. He was confused. What did the woman want? Her eyes were big and black, and wet with tears.

“Go!” she whispered at last, pushing him gently. “May Allah preserve you always and everywhere. Go!”

She lowered her veil and walked away down a bystreet with swift steps, as though someone were pursuing her. He gazed after her in perplexity, understanding naught. Within an hour, in the motley turmoil of the bazaar, he had already forgotten the woman, and remembered her no more.

Many years later, when he was a grown-up man, he was spending the night in a roadside caravanserai somewhere between Beirut and Basra, and saw the woman in a dream—he recognized her face, her eyes, the voice, saying, “May Allah preserve you always and everywhere.”

He awoke with an aching heart, realizing that that woman was his real mother. This was not a mere guess, but exact knowledge, clear and incontestable, which had come to him in some mysterious way. He bethought himself that he had never spoken a word to her; moved by a great compassion and a great love for her, he wept, repeating without end words of love and tenderness, such as children use to their mothers. It was as if  {372}  a door had suddenly been opened in his long past babyhood, and the words came to him of themselves, and he repeated them, kissing the dark night air, convinced that she could hear him and responded to him with the palpitant, suffering, but living heart of a mother.

Thus did he meet his mother in his dreams, but her name he never discovered, and never visited her grave. Indeed, where could he seek that nameless grave, and wherefore should he seek it when she was ever alive and living to him!

We have come to the end of our story about the childhood of Khoja Nasreddin. This story, of course, is incomplete and fragmentary—the few grains which we have gleaned could not be made more of. But there are others who follow us, and each will discover new grains, which he will bring to the common treasure-house, and the common efforts will eventually create from this garnered stock a new book about Khoja Nasreddin—the book of his childhood. Our share is a small one, but then it lies in the foundation; he, the perhaps still unborn master who is destined to write that book and put his name upon it, will not pass our modest labour by in silence—and therein shall be our reward, our hope, and our solace.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Returning to the straight road of our narrative concerning the days and affairs of Khoja Nasreddin in Chorak, we shall begin with the ass.

He was living through days of purest bliss. Never before had life smiled upon him with such a pearly munificence of boundless joy and marvellous good luck. In the first place, he had moved from the clay hut by  {373}  the lake to the dwelling of Agabek, where he occupied the best part of the house with a door leading into the garden, whither he could descend at any time by way of the broad easy steps and browse among the flowers and leaves without fear of chastisement; secondly, for the gratification of all his desires, trays always stood ready with various kinds of bread-cakes, apricots, radish, early melons and other fruits of Chorak's fertile soil. Of water he drank none save that which had been rendered fit for noble palate by the aroma of rose petals. To such an extent had Khoja Nasreddin been able to persuade Agabek of the verity of the ass's transformation! Indeed, Agabek had even begun to think of a mate for him, but had encountered upon the path of his design insoluble doubts, for he knew not by what to be guided in this matter—by the outward appearance of the transformed one, or by his inner essence?

In all the rest Agabek wasted no time. All his efforts, all his speech and cunning were directed towards a single end—that of diverting the affections of the transformed one from Khoja Nasreddin to himself. For this purpose he spent days on end beside the ass, attending upon him personally, meekly suffering all asinine indelicacies, of which there were more than enough, for “that which is seemly for the stable is disgusting in the chambers.” He did everything he could to prevent Khoja Nasreddin from remaining alone with the ass and to reduce the minutes which they spent together. “The refulgent one is fatigued,” or “the Prince is engaged in affairs of state”—he would say impressively to Khoja Nasreddin as he dismissed him.

Khoja Nasreddin submitted meekly, although he was dying to know what Agabek could be telling the ass for days on end when they were alone together.  {374}  And hear it he did. Coming one day at an untimely hour, he found them both in the garden, deep in secret converse. Standing in the flower-beds, trampling the delightful clean carpet of sweet-smelling flowers, sniffling, munching and belly-rumbling, stood the ass, devouring slice after slice of melon handed to him by Agabek, while guileful speeches were poured into his long ears.

“And after that, O illustrious Prince,” Agabek whispered, “he permitted himself the outrageous insolence of casting aspersions upon your royal nature, as also upon that of your purple-clad parent. He said. . . . Nay, my tongue refuses to repeat the vile things that he said. He said, the Prince is captious and stupid. He said that, not I. The Prince is ill-natured, petty, obstinate, and his present lamentable aspect fully corresponds to his inner essence. Lurks there not here an evil intent to desert the Great Prince somewhere upon the road to Cairo, or—still worse!—to sell him to the drovers for a mere song as just an ordinary ass . . . ahem, ahem . . . as just an ordinary one of the long-eared and four-legged kind, in order to rob the Egyptian throne of its sole and lawful heir? And furthermore, he said. . . .”

Concealed behind a bush of Chinese honeysuckle, Khoja Nasreddin quietly withdrew unnoticed by Agabek.

That night he said to the thief, “I am apprised that our fruit is ripe.”

“As always, you have acted unerringly,” said the thief. “Tell me, pray, what string in his heart have you chosen for so successful a game?”

“Envy. Of all the foolish and harmful feelings to which men are heir, this is one of the strongest. There is an Indian tale: Allah said to a man: ‘Ask me what you will and I shall give it to you, but on one condition—that I shall give your neighbour twice as much. If you  {375}  have a house, he shall have two, if you have a horse, he shall have a pair. What would you have?’ ‘Almighty,’ answered the man, ‘I pray you—put out one of my eyes.’ ”

It was third cock-crow—the one that heralds the dawn. The thief rose and bowed to Khoja Nasreddin, saying:

“It is time for me to go. What further errands have you for me, what am I expected to do in the near future?”

“You are to undertake another journey to Kokand.”

“Allah the great! Every journey is a pair of boots. The soles burn away on these stones!”

“This is the last time. You shall not return hither, and I shall overtake you in Kokand.”

“I hear and obey. When am I to go?”

“I shall tell you when.”

There was a small bower at the bottom of Agabek's garden. Here were no flowers, and the gardener never came hither with his shears; here the ivy and vine grew freely, entwining the bower with their mingled leaves; here in the mornings the dewy freshness lingered longer, the air smelt of mint and damp earth, and the birds around it sang longer, for the dense leafage kept out the too early beams of the hot sun. It was in this bower one day that Khoja Nasreddin had an important talk with Agabek.

An old servant—blind, deaf and ever silent—placed before them a jug of wine and two bowls; he was the only servant left in the house, the rest having been dismissed by Agabek in order not to have the secret of the transformed one divulged. And now, fearing no informers’ tongues, he abandoned himself to the secret abominable vice of drunkenness, inclining Khoja Nasreddin thereto as well. That day he had started first thing in the morning.  {376} 

“Master, you are not fulfilling the Prince's wish,” said Khoja Nasreddin, receiving from Agabek's hands an overflowing bowl. “My time of departure is nigh, and you have not yet prepared me for my initiation into the office of Vizier and Court Treasurer of Egypt.”

“Why, do you think already of departing?”

“The road to Cairo is a long one.”

“But not so long ago you said that you would not accept the post of Vizier. You were thinking of your learned affairs, of a secluded dwelling and a modest income for the rest of your life.”

“I still think that, but the Sultan may not agree to it. He may say, ‘Accept this office or go to the scaffold!’ He is not to be argued with. So I have decided, just in case, to prepare myself for the office.”

Agabek blinked his dull little eyes uneasily and began to snuffle.

“What about the secret chamber?” said he.

“That is just what I desire to talk with you about—the best way of escaping it. You are rich in experience and wisdom—give me your advice. As a reward—I swear!—I shall send you from Egypt a hookah worked in gold and a silver pitcher for wine.”

A hookah and a pitcher!—why, it was like promising two drops of water to one who was thirsting in the desert. It was not a hookah or a pitcher that Agabek was dreaming of, but the palace vaults in Cairo filled with gold. This—and what was more precious than any money!—honours and great power.

Khoja Nasreddin sat with his head lowered; he did not look at Agabek's face, but kept his gaze fixed on his hands. The trembling of the fat fingers, and the throbbing of the swollen veins enabled him to read into his soul as clearly as in a magic book. Agabek's next words, therefore, were not entirely unexpected.

“Uzakbai, why not let me have your Prince?”  {377} 

Immediate assent would be bad policy. He would have to be kept on tenterhooks awhile.

“You?” sneered Khoja Nasreddin. “Bigger men have offered me the same thing. But, first of all, the Prince desires no other way-companion to Cairo but me, secondly. . . .”

“The Prince may be persuaded. Besides, while he is in this shape of an ass. . . .”

“He may be treated shabbily, you want to say? Deceived? O master!”

“I thought nothing of the kind. But his answer may be interpreted according to one's choice. Since he is unable to utter human words. . . .”

“Ah, but you forget the tail-wagging, the ear-twitching!”

“Those are just the things that can be interpreted.”

“Verily, master, you are born for court offices! There is a second obstacle, however—yourself.”

“I?”

“How will you reward me?”

His desire to become a Vizier of Egypt inflamed Agabek so violently that he even acquired eloquence of tongue.

“You crave seclusion?” he said, leaning over to Khoja Nasreddin. “Where will you find greater seclusion and more perfect peace than here?” Indeed, the peace that reigned all round was like that of a sweet dream. “You desire to have an income for life? My lake will provide you with a prosperous livelihood.”

“Yes, but look at the trouble I should have with that lake and the distribution of the water,” Khoja Nasreddin said. “It will divert me from my learned studies.”

“Hire a keeper. For a small salary he will do everything himself.”

“How true! It never occurred to me that I could hire a keeper.”  {378} 

“To be sure! You will entrust all your affairs to him and be free to devote yourself to the collection of your magic herbs.”

“Magic herbs!” Khoja Nasreddin cried with sudden animation. “The collection of magic herbs—that is just for me!”

“To be sure it is!” Agabek cried eagerly, pleased at having found the right key; his reason, which had long since degenerated into cunning, began to stir and wriggle all its four-score little legs. “There are no end of magic herbs here—I knew it all the time but did not tell you. They grow everywhere! One of them you have already found. But that is a mere nothing, a hundredth part!”

“Is that so?” Khoja Nasreddin whispered with a look of incredulous wonder.

“A thousandth! A thousandth part! You have no idea how much of these magic herbs grows here!” Stimulated by the wine, Agabek now let his tongue run away with him, fearing not to be caught in a lie, for before him sat a man of scholarly pursuits, consequently one, who, in the ordinary affairs of life, could be likened to an infant and be imposed upon with impunity. But before him sat Khoja Nasreddin, who was able to combine soaring flight of soul with great shrewdness of mind, and was not at all inclined to act the fat sheep to all kinds of crafty rascals who crawled about the earth. Here indeed was an edifying example to all learned men, to all sages and poets in their everyday lives.

“There, look at that ivy!” Agabek ran on breathlessly. “It is a magic plant, too! And those burdocks over there as well! All the plants round about are magic ones! You will not find a single plant that is not a magic one. There was a magician here long before you who explained this all to me. What is more, the stones here,  {379}  too, are magic ones. They just lie about to be picked up! That magician carried away a whole sackful, and two ewers of magic water besides! I forgot to tell you—there is magic water not far from here. Quite close by. Everything here is magical, everything!”

What man could withstand such a combination as magic herbs, magic stones and magic water?

Khoja Nasreddin succumbed. Yes, he would cede the Prince in exchange for the lake, the house, the orchard and all else that belonged to the lake, and ten thousand tangas besides.

“I have only seven thousand tangas in ready money,” said Agabek. “Only seven. And I must leave myself something for the way to Cairo, surely.”

“What about the jewels, which you recently received from Mamed-Ali?” Khoja Nasreddin reminded him.

They settled on five thousand. Agabek was to have the remaining two thousand and the jewels for the journey.

“The Prince will not refuse!” said Agabek. “He has come to know me well these last few days. If it comes to that, you can fall ill. Or even make believe that you have died. We shall arrange it so that he suspects naught and never learns aught.”

Khoja Nasreddin had no desire to die, either in reality or in pretence.

“That is needless,” said he. “Why employ deceit in such a righteous cause. Let us try to persuade the Prince.”

And forth they went on persuasion bound. There was tail-wagging and there was ear-twitching aplenty. These were duly interpreted. They returned to the bower.

“Now there remains a small matter,” Agabek rejoiced. “Every spring cadi Abdurahmann visits these parts from the big village of Yangi-Mazar, in which he  {380}  permanently resides. He examines lawsuits and legalizes transactions. He must be somewhere close at hand; tomorrow I shall send riders out to find him. And you, Uzakbai, meanwhile prepare plenty of the magic herbs. And write down all the incantations upon paper so that I should not forget them.”

“The Prince is already yours, but I have not seen my newly-acquired house yet,” said Khoja Nasreddin.

“Come, I shall show you.”

They looked over the house. It proved to be a very good one, built to stand for years and years. “Here is a wedding gift for that mad young couple—Said and Zulfia; they will have room enough here for themselves and their progeny!” thought Khoja Nasreddin as he followed Agabek from room to room. The house was quiet, clean, spacious and airy. The noonday sun poured its generous rays through the wide-open window, spreading under the feet of Khoja Nasreddin its gay little carpets woven of hot light, and setting a herd of sunny spangles dancing upon the wall when the wind, blowing from the garden, stirred the window-frames.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

From that day onward Agabek was no longer the Agabek of old. Taking dilatory Time by the forelock, he was already transported in his dreams to the palace in Cairo; he was, to himself, the Egyptian Vizier Agabek-ibn-Murtaz of Khoresm; he already felt upon his shoulders the weight of the gold-embroidered robe of state, he already heard with his mental anticipatory ear the clink of medals upon his breast and of the gilt sabre at his side. Henceforth, every day spent in Chorak was to him a day robbed from his future grandeur; every flying minute carried away with it irretrievably  {381}  the plentiful seeds of boons, blessings and benefits to come. He was puffed up with arrogant conceit. Conversation with him became a veritable torture to Khoja Nasreddin. He made his only servant—the blind and deaf old man—bow down to the ground before him every morning. He did not admit Khoja Nasreddin to the presence of the ass at all.

Meanwhile, life in the village went its customary round. The fruits in the orchards filled with sweet rich juice, the silkworms wrapped themselves up in their cocoons the first time and the second, the sheep in the pastures yeaned. Every villager had new summer cares on his shoulders; few guests now gathered of an evening in Safar's chaikhana—no more than five or six men; the rest, wearied after the day's toil, went to bed while the sun was still up.

The people of Chorak had already grown accustomed to the new keeper of the lake and his strange ways; he was only mentioned casually now in conversation at the chaikhana. But the sinister shadow of Agabek still hung relentlessly over the villagers, who faced another irrigation, more days of wearisome waiting and fear.

And suddenly, like claps of thunder from a clear sky, the tidings came pouring down, each more stunning than the other.

The first news was proclaimed by the mullah after the morning service on Friday: Agabek had turned his thoughts to God and donated fifteen hundred tangas to the mosque and ordered prayers to be held for the dead throughout the coming year.

Fifteen hundred! On the eve of the irrigation! How much would he take for the irrigation then? Services for the dead! What dead? Of the glassy worms, of course, the villagers knew nothing, and were lost in  {382}  conjectures. “Haply these prayers are for those whom he has decided to kill off by starvation?” Safar grimly prophesied.

The second news came from Agabek himself. Within a few days he was quitting Chorak to make his haj—his pilgrimage to the holy stone of Kaaba. In this wise Agabek saw fit to disguise his coming journey to Egypt.

New alarms, new perplexities! Would he leave before the irrigation or after it? And the main thing—most important of all—what price would he fix for the irrigation?

The third item of news was sinister and dreadful: Agabek had sent riders out in three directions to find the cadi Abdurahman. He was summoning the cadi to Chorak. What for? Against whom was he instituting a lawsuit before his departure, what transactions did he desire to legalize?

In this connection a great gathering was held in the chaikhana. Orchards, fields and pastures were forgotten. And again Safar prophesied, “You wait, he will ruin us all before he goes!” Mamed-Ali alone perceived joy amid these alarms. Whatever happened, he would no longer demand Zulfia into his house!

It was decided to meet fate half-way and ask Agabek how much he thought of charging for the irrigation. Four old men were dispatched to him.

The old men did not succeed in seeing him—he did not condescend. The new keeper of the lake spoke with them on behalf of his master. His words were strange and inspired no trust.

“You shall receive water,” he said. “Sell nothing in advance. The money that you have in your purses will suffice.”

And what had they in their purses? A hundred and fifty tangas, at most, in all Chorak. The old men told the keeper as much. He laughed, saying:  {383} 

“I know your purses—they resemble the dry-milked udder of a meagre goat. Nevertheless, I repeat: sell nothing. Go, my worthies, and pass my words on to the rest.”

Such a reply increased their anxiety rather than diminished it.

Just then the riders came back with the news that cadi Abdurahman, after finishing his affairs in the nearby village of Olti-Agach, would arrive in Chorak the next evening.

Chorak lay hushed in dread expectancy of great doings and unheard-of events.

Only two of Chorak's inhabitants did not share the common anxiety—Said and Zulfia. As to why they did not, anyone can easily guess. This is well described by Hamadhani, called Badi-uz-Zaman—Wonder of the Age—in his work The Scent of Morning Roses. This is what he writes: “Love, if it be strong, is always attended by a slight disorder of the mind, a kind of madness, to which, however, no importance should be attached, as it is not dangerous and causes no harm—indeed, how could it be otherwise, when love itself is a divine feeling given to us by Allah: can anything come from Allah that is harmful? Therefore, when meeting an enamoured youth, one should not be surprised at his distracted state, no more than at the strangeness of his remarks, for there is taking place within him an upheaval of thoughts and feelings, resulting in a confusion that baffles all, himself no less. He should be heard out with the greatest indulgence and not disputed with, especially in matters that concern the perfections of his lady-love, for all this is useless so long as he is in love, and none but fools can blame him for it.” Accordingly, let us follow this advice of the sage and treat  {384}  our two lovers with all indulgence, leaving them together side by side in the nocturnal garden without attempting to reproduce their conversation, which would but resemble that tangle of emotions and thoughts “that baffles all.”

The old cadi Abdurahman had lived crooked and judged crooked for so many years that he had grown crooked himself in the end—in heart, body and countenance. Even his neck was crooked, with a crop-like bulge in the middle, and his nose was crooked and had a sharp cleft tip, and his mouth had an odd twist, and his skimpy little beard was awry; in addition, he limped noticeably on his left foot and walked a bobbing motion. And so he was called in common parlance—“the crooked cadi Abdurahman.” To this we would add that he constantly screwed up one or another eye, depending upon the course of his judicial affairs—the right one in expectation of a bribe, the left one upon its taking. And as he invariably abided in one of these two conditions, on this or that side of bribery, he looked not upon the world save with one eye.

He arrived in Chorak in a rickety old covered waggon with awry wobbling wheels which obviously took umbrage at the road's straight ruts and tried hard at every turn to wriggle out of them. The skewbald nag in the shafts was a rawboned moth-eaten low-built little creature with a skimpy tail and a wall-eye; the driver, too, sat crooked with one leg bent under him and the other stretched out along the shaft. The cadi himself, as befitted his rank, sat within the waggon behind drawn curtains, while without, somewhere between the waggon and the horse's croup, perched the scribe, the ancient participant in all the cadi's shady affairs. This scribe, although not crooked in person, had a wrung and  {385}  rumpled appearance, as though someone had washed and rinsed him and forgotten to smooth him out after wringing, leaving him to dry up in twisted lump. The coloured turban on his long melon-like head looked wrung and twisted too.

Agabek had sent his servant out to meet the cadi and invite him to be his guest, but the cadi refused, desiring to preserve the whiteness of his impartiality against the smirch of mendacious obloquy. He put up at the chaikhana. Safar promptly expelled therefrom all the curious, and entrusting the cadi to the care of Said, he went forth among the houses to collect blankets. As was the custom of the times, the couch of an honoured guest had to be made up of numerous quilts, and according to Safar's understanding, the cadi was entitled to no less than a dozen.

After having performed the ablution and drunk his tea, the cadi, without a word, glanced at his scribe with one eye—the right one. The scribe, without a word, rose and departed in the direction of Agabek's house.

He returned at nightfall, when a pile of coloured quilts—fourteen in number instead of a dozen—had risen in the middle of the chaikhana, and the cadi reclined upon them, covering himself with a fifteenth. The scribe, still without a word, showed him two fingers and another half a finger. This meant two hundred and fifty. The cadi sighed, shut his right eye and opened his left, thereby indicating his passage from the state of “fore” to that of “after.”

Thereupon a brief conversation took place between them, carried on in whispers in order that the chaikhana-keeper should not hear them.

“What is the suit about?” asked the cadi.

“It is not a suit but a transaction,” answered the scribe.  {386} 

“A transaction?” the cadi said, wondering. “Such liberality for a mere transaction?”

“I believe he has made a good bargain,” whispered the scribe. “It seems to me that he has seized a great gain by the tail.”

“And a lawful gain at that,” the cadi remarked gravely. “Absolutely lawful. Tomorrow we shall hear of it,” he finished, and, turning over on his side, shut his left eye, since the states of “fore” and “after” did not apply to his hours of sleep.

Of all the crooked contracts which old cadi Abdurahman had ever penned and sealed in his life, this one surpassed all that was thinkable in crookedness. A lucrative lake, a house and orchard were being exchanged for a paltry and wretched ass! Here was an obvious case of secret motive, and according to the law all shady deals with hidden motives were strictly forbidden. Yet this contract of barter had to be registered in the book, and registered in such a way that the shrewd and experienced lords whom the Khan had placed over the cadis for the purpose of surveillance should not suspect aught.

When Agabek, in a loud clear voice, announced his unalterable decision to barter his lake, house and orchard for an ass, a low hum of sensation, like the sound of a disturbed gigantic beehive, arose among the crowd of villagers who gathered outside the chaikhana. Beginning at the dais of the chaikhana, this hum rolled over quickly to those in the rear, stirred and excited them, then, like a flying wind, swept the fences, which were bestrewn with small boys and girls, and flew across to the neighbouring roofs, which were gay with the kerchiefs of the women. A lake for an ass! He was bartering his lake for an ass! There was not a man or  {387}  woman in Chorak but whose reason was utterly confounded, as though enveloped in smoke, and whose heart shuddered.

But the old crooked cadi Abdurahman, who had grown grey in sharp practices, was not in the least astonished and did not turn a hair. He sat upon the dais of the chaikhana looking down with solemn gravity upon the crowd from the throne-like eminence of the fifteen sleeping blankets which Safar had collected for him. Below sat the scribe, his long dismal nose pointed at the open book of magisterial records. He too, following the example of his master, preserved an air of utter imperturbability.

The cadi contemplated the crowd with a stern air.

The buzzing murmur began to subside, was pressed down to the ground, and finally died away.

All stood silent in tremulous expectation.

“Uzakbai, the son of Babajan!” announced the cadi.

Khoja Nasreddin advanced towards the dais, leading his ass by the bridle.

“What say you in answer to the words of Agabek, the son of Murtaz?” asked the cadi. “Do you agree to the exchange?”

“I do.”

A murmur ran through the crowd again. He agrees! Who would not? To receive such wealth in exchange for an ass worth thirty tangas at the best of bazaars!

Something was afoot here, some strange, dark mischief. Someone in the crowd, unable to contain himself, gave a groan or rather a squeak.

The cadi preserved his former equanimity.

“Both parties have given their consent to the forthcoming exchange!” he announced. “The first requirement of the law has been fulfilled. Now let every inhabitant of the village who has sufficiently weighty reasons and supporting evidence to show why this  {388}  exchange should not take place—let him come forth and declare it before the face of all!”

There was none such.

The cadi paused for a minute or two, then announced:

“I hereby testify that there are no obstacles to the conclusion of the transaction.”

It remained now to make the entry in the book. It had to be an entry free from the slightest hint of crookedness.

The old cadi here revealed himself in the full splendour of his brilliant magisterial wit!

He sat deep in thought for five minutes; what course those thoughts took in his old head, by what ways they ran, it is difficult to say, but, following that course, his turban travelled leftward and hung tilted over one ear, then his spectacles travelled leftward, and finally he himself travelled leftward upon his blankets, which only kept in place and did not tumble down thanks to the heroic efforts of Safar, who buttressed the edifice with his shoulder.

When next the cadi spoke, his voice had that ring of proud elation which comes from the knowledge of a towering mind.

“Write down the names of the parties to the transaction!” he commanded the scribe.

The latter scratched away with his pen, himself so deeply buried in the book that it seemed as if he were scratching in it with his long nose.

The cadi meanwhile searched his mind for words that would best sustain the lawful character of the contract in terms of approximately equivalent consideration.

“A lucrative lake with a house and orchard belonging to it,” he said in a significant, prophetic kind of voice, holding up one finger. “Very good, let us put that down!” He made an imperious sign to the scribe.  {389}  “We shall put it down in the following order: a house and an orchard with a reservoir belonging to it. For who can say that a lake is not a reservoir? On the other hand, if the said house and orchard belong to the lake, in other words, the reservoir, then it is clear that in reverse order the reservoir belongs to the house and the orchard. Write as I have spoken: the house and orchard with the reservoir belonging to it.”

This was a brilliant move, which at a single stroke, solved half the problem. By a simple transposition of words the lake was, as if by magic, transformed into a paltry reservoir situated in some orchard or other in front of some house. The chief item of value in such an arrangement was, of course, the house, then the orchard, while the reservoir was merely mentioned in passing, as a trifling thing of little worth.

The property of one of the parties was thus reduced to hundredth part of its value. The transaction, however, still had a noticeably leftward list. In order to set it straight upon its keel that wisest of cadis proceeded to examine the property of the other party.

Here again the lance of his wit struck a new telling blow.

“Uzakbai, son of Babajan, tell me, by what name do you call the ass which you are bartering?”

“I have always called him simply Jackass.”

“Jackass!” exclaimed the cadi. “What a disreputable ugly name for so precious an animal, in exchange for which you are to receive a whole fortune! Would it not be wiser to give him some other, more noble-sounding name—if not Oltin-Gold, then at least Kumish-Silver?”

“I do not mind,” acquiesced Khoja Nasreddin, catching the ball of the cadi's thought in mid air, as it were. “It matters not to me, still less to him.”

“Write!” the cadi said to the scribe. “The aforementioned property—house, and orchard with reservoir  {390}  belonging to it—owned by Agabek, the son of Murtaz, is herewith made over to Uzakbai, the son of Babajan, in exchange for Kumish-Silver weighing. . . Tell me, Uzakbai,” said the cadi, lifting up his voice in the pride of his triumph to a trumpet-like pitch, “tell me, how much does your ass weigh?”

“About a hundred and fifty pounds or so.”

“I must have the exact weight.”

“Very well—a hundred and fifty-seven pounds ten ounces, the overweight being due to idleness and devoured bread-cakes.”

“Write!” trumpeted the cadi to the scribe. “In exchange for silver weighing a hundred and fifty-seven pounds ten ounces, the said transaction hereby being recorded by me, cadi Abdurahman, the son of Rasul, in complete accord with the existing laws and the royal commands.”

Khoja Nasreddin looked at the cadi with awe. His was the work—albeit in fraudulent cunning—of a genuine master, and one could not help admiring it.

“The contract is herewith officially recorded under my seal and signature!” trumpeted the cadi, his voice filling the chaikhana and overspilling into the space before it occupied by the crowd, while he himself, by imperceptible degrees, tilted more and more towards the left; just then, as luck would have it, Safar forgot himself and removed his buttressing shoulder, whereat the cadi, on the last word, slid slowly to the floor together with all the fifteen blankets.

The road before the chaikhana became deserted. And presently the chaikhana itself became deserted, the old cadi quitting Chorak for other places where a variety of suits and transactions awaited his wise decisions.

Before his departure Khoja Nasreddin privately inquired of the worthy cadi how soon he would be able to drop in at Chorak again on his way back.

The cadi's left eye shut immediately and his right one opened instead, betokening the state of “fore.”

“In four days or so, as soon as I have finished my affairs in several villages in the vicinity,” he answered, and grunting, crawled up the wheel spokes into the waggon.

The scribe settled himself in his customary place between the waggon and the horse's croup.

The driver drew one leg up at the knee and stretched the other forth along the shaft, clicked his tongue and started the horse.

The waggon trundled down the road, creaking, swaying, and wobbling, and disappeared behind the poplars.

That night was a sleepless one for both Khoja Nasreddin and Agabek.

Seized with impatience to don the court robe of Egypt, Agabek refused to tarry a single day in Chorak. He had decided to depart at dawn.

His travel-bags had been packed on the eve, room only being left in them for two small ewers containing the magic brew. By midnight these ewers had been packed away, too, their mouths carefully sealed with wax.  {392} 

The incantations, which Khoja Nasreddin had written down on a sheet of thick Chinese paper, Agabek hid away in a secret girdle, which the traveller wore under his shirt against his bare skin. That girdle contained also his money and the jewels which he had received from Mamed-Ali.

Day began to break.

“It is time!” said Agabek. “Farewell, Uzakbai, expect from me a rich present from Egypt. I shall send you a hookah worked in gold and a silver ewer for wine.”

Khoja Nasreddin answered with a low bow:

“I thank you, O powerful and illustrious Vizier of the land of Egypt. Suffer me, O Vizier, to do you a last service.”

He went into the house and reappeared a minute later dragging after him the resisting ass.

With a clatter of his hoofs on the moist stone steps, the ass descended into the garden and made straight for the flower-beds, half of which had already been nibbled away.

Khoja Nasreddin held him back by the bridle and threw the travel-bags over his back with a dexterous movement.

“What are you doing!” cried Agabek, snatching the bags away. “Burdening the Prince! Verily, you have taken leave of your senses, Uzakbai!”

“But why not?” Khoja Nasreddin asked in perplexity.

Agabek threw him a scornful look by way of reply, and, with a grunt, swung the bags upon his own shoulders.

“Think you to travel thus all the way to Cairo?” Khoja Nasreddin asked.

“I shall buy me a pack-horse in Kokand. Just for these bags. I shall walk myself, for it would be unseemly for me to ride while the Prince walks, I would hire a  {393}  cart for the Prince, only I am afraid he will be insulted by the jeers of ignorant fellows, who are accustomed to seeing such quadrupeds as the Prince is in his present image harnessed to carts instead of riding in them.”

“That is wise. How infinite is your wisdom, O Vizier!”

The blue of early dawn swiftly faded to the lighter hues of morn. A tinge of pink stained. Birds began to twitter and warble all over the garden.

The ass, Agabek, and Khoja Nasreddin went out into the road. The distant mountains were shrouded in dusk, their bases floating in a dense whitish mist, while their snowy peaks were already shining with a faint transparent glow—the first smile of awakening day. The mist within the gorges and clefts was already reeking, stirring and rising upward. How easy it was to breathe!

“It is best to have Arabian dinars on a journey,” Khoja Nasreddin admonished Agabek. “They are accepted everywhere at their full value, for unlike other coins, there are no cheap alloys in Arabian gold. But be careful in changing them. The money-changers are often swindlers, and may try to palm off on you fraudulent coins of base alloy. When you have seen to all your affairs in Kokand, O illustrious Vizier, visit the shop of the money-changer Rahimbai on the eve of your departure. It is not far from the principal cistern of the bazaar, on the left-hand side of the big aryk, which is being lined with stone these last fifteen years and has not been lined yet. Ask for Rahimbai—any man in Kokand will direct you to him. Everyone knows him for an honest merchant who can be fully trusted.”

“Haply he will buy my jewels as well?”

“Oh yes, trust no other man! He will give you a better price, too.”

“On the left-hand side of the big aryk, you say, next to the principal water tank?”  {394} 

“Yes. What a mighty memory Allah has put into your head, O Vizier!”

“Farewell, Uzakbai!”

“Farewell, illustrious Vizier!”

“Expect a present from me.”

“I thank you, O magnificent one!”

“Bid farewell to our royal Prince now. You long had the joy of living under his royal shadow; thank him for that great joy and honour.”

“I bow to the ground and thank you, my lord.”

With that they parted. For a long long time Khoja Nasreddin stood looking after them. And so strange is human nature, that although Agabek was his enemy, he could not help feeling a bit sad at seeing him go; for such is the power that separation wields over our hearts.

As for the ass, it goes without saying! When, after retreating some fifty paces, he stopped, turned his head and looked at his master with a melancholy reproachful glance, it was all that Khoja Nasreddin could do to keep his eyes dry. “O bread-cake eater!” he mentally exclaimed. “Do you really think that your old friend and companion of the road is capable of giving you away to an Agabek, capable of parting with you! Nay, I shall not be guilty of such base treachery, and we shall keep company for many more years to come.”

The departing ones vanished from sight. A pink timid sunbeam, cool, clear and fresh, glancing off by the smooth mountain snows, glided down the road upon their tracks.

Khoja Nasreddin returned to his clay hut by the lake. The thief was waiting for him there as arranged the day before.

“I am ready,” he said briefly. “Give me a little money, so that I may not have to procure it for myself in Kokand.”

Khoja Nasreddin counted out some money, saying:  {395} 

“Watch Agabek, follow his every step. He will not quit Kokand earlier than a week from now—that will give me time.”

“If you hurry.”

“Watch my ass particularly. I know not how I shall bear the blow should I lose him.”

“You shall not lose him, for he is dear to me as well—I have got so used to him! ’Tis astonishing—what can there be hidden away in that long-eared, obstinate creature with the ever rumbling belly to so captivate one's heart?”

“Go now, go! May the Almighly Allah preserve you!”

“Keep well! And may Allah help you in the fulfilment of your design.”

And so, on that bright morning, Khoja Nasreddin speeded yet another—the one-eyed thief—upon his distant journey.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mention was made at the very beginning of our narrative of a remarkable sparrow, of whom a fuller word was promised anon. The time for that word has now come. Let that sparrow, too, be given a place in our book, even though it be of the lesser ones of this earth—for what living creature can rightfully claim to be extolled above it as the only chosen one of the earth? Such self-exaltation is peculiar to some people, but is hardly to their honour, and merely bears witness to their boastful and stupid conceit. As for us, we can say in all sincerity, that the lesser feathered biped is often dearer to our heart than many a greater unfeathered one puffed up with self-complacency. So let us proceed with our word about the sparrow in a spirit of brotherly goodwill towards it.  {396} 

The sparrow in question lived in a snug little nest built on two crossbeams under the roof of Safar's chaikhana. His mode of life was similar to that of all the other’ sparrows in Chorak: he awoke ere sunrise, chirruped, cocked his head, preened himself, burying his little beak deep among his feathers, ruffled and shook himself, hopped about in the roadway, taking a dust bath, then splashed water over himself from the aryk, and went forth on his business—either to the mill to pick up grains, or to the vineyard to spoil the grapes. He had a lady sparrow and numerous offspring, which were reinforced twice a year—at the beginning and in the middle of summer. He was always in good heart and high fettle, always blithe and pugnacious; though possessing a good nest of his own, he would sometimes yield to the temptation of seizing another's, and would crawl into a tree hollow tenanted by starlings, whence he would be evicted with a great noise and commotion, accompanied by a pecking-out of feathers, and a dragging-forth by the wing. He avoided the swallows’ nests, knowing that encroachment there was fraught with the danger of being immured in them. And so he lived in the chaikhana for a long time, committing every day, like all other earthlings, a multitude of petty sins, without, however, violating the laws of common weal enjoyed by all earth-born creatures, in which respect he was fully deserving of the little bright-winged happiness that had fallen to his lot. More than this one could hardly expect—he was not known to have scaled any heights of the mind or spirit, and in the course of time, when his allotted span had been passed, he would have quitted this world quietly and without fuss in the claws of a hawk or the teeth of a dinner-desirous cat, and, like thousands upon thousands of his little grey brothers, would have left no mark of himself in the world. Chance,  {397}  however, singled him out, and pointed its finger at him, saying, “You!” And through that word he acquired immortality, a name of glory in the ages to come. How hard many people upon earth try to win that word from Chance and win it not, yet that little sparrow won it. The thread of his life—a thin grey little thread—weaved itself into the colourful carpet of Khoja Nasreddin's affairs and doings and remained in that carpet for ever.

The most astonishing thing is that the old Khojent mendicant from the ruined Mosque of Guhar-Shad had had a hand in that affair too. We may be asked—what was he doing here, in this remote village lost amid the mountains? The fact of the matter is that he came . . . or rather he appeared to Khoja Nasreddin. They held long converse with each other, or rather the mental likeness of converse, for the old mendicant appeared in bodiless form; nevertheless, Khoja Nasreddin heard him quite clearly and distinctly; whether it was in his dream or in reality, it is difficult to say; who can tell now how he appeared, that star-wandering old man of nebulous thought—in unbodied guise or in semi-corporeality? This appearance of his will thus to be related separately if the whole is to be understood. As for the sparrow, we shall return to him several pages farther down in this same chapter.

After taking leave of Agabek, the ass, and, after them, the thief, Khoja Nasreddin repaired to his newly-acquired house, where he spent the whole day in solitary reflection, conversing with none but the jug of wine which Agabek had left with the other provisions. The old servant had been told to admit no one, neither the old men of Chorak with their irrigation affairs, nor even Said.  {398} 

He had weighty reasons for reflecting. That morning there had suddenly risen before him a perplexing problem connected with the lake, which he had not foreseen before.

Agabek had been got rid of. The lake had been taken away from him. The promise which he had given to the old mendicant of Khojent had been fulfilled. But what was to be done with that lake now? He could not very well move over to Chorak because of it. He could give it as a wedding present to Said, of course. But what would the mendicant say, would he approve of such a decision? Haply he had designs of his own in connection with that lake? He had said nothing, and one had to think it out for oneself. Verily, he was created for the clouding of other men's minds, was that Silent and Sapient old man!

A jug of wine is an insidious boon companion. It always makes believe that the great, the essential Truth, like a precious pearl, is hidden at its very bottom, and that one gets nearer to it with every gulp. And when, by dint of heroic effort, the bottom is at last reached, the intrepid diver is no longer able to see the pearl, leave alone take possession of it. And so it was with Khoja Nasreddin. Twice that day had he dived to the bottom of the jug, and twice had he come up empty-handed and pearlless. Thus he sat till evening, unable to think of anything, and losing hold of even those thoughts that he had had before his discourse with the jug. It was therefore with a mind beclouded and a heart ungratified, that, respectfully supported under the elbow by the old servant, he retired to the bower at the far end of the garden where his bed had been made for him.

It was the same bower whence he and Agabek a week ago had gone forth to persuade the Prince. The magic ivy was there, and the magic burdocks, too, and  {399}  magic mosquitoes whined among the leaves. Khoja Nasreddin thought sleepily: “Would that some magic thoughts could tell me what to do with that lake.” He recalled with anything but flattering comment the venerable sage of Khojent who had caused him so much trouble, first in seeking out the lake, and now in its disposal. These were his last thoughts, for his head grew dizzier still, his thoughts clouded, and he fell asleep.

The bower proved to be a magic one after all. Khoja Nasreddin had this brought home to him that very night, when an event of truly magical import took place therein, to wit, the old mendicant of Khojent appeared to him.

He appeared on the edge of midnight. The whole bower was suddenly bathed in a soft pale-blue radiance, and in that radiance appeared the old man, a misty glimmering figure made of spectral starlight. As it were, Khoja Nasreddin should have been surprised, but he was not. One would think that he had been expecting the visitor.

The old man seated himself on the bench opposite, and prayerfully smoothed out his flowing luminous beard.

“How do you do, Khoja Nasreddin! You recalled me today, and here I am.”

“Peace be on you, venerable sage,” answered Khoja Nasreddin. “Be my guest, drink my wine.”

“I desire no wine. Have you forgotten that I am a dervish and indulge not in carnal gratification? I have come to thank you for the inestimable good which you have done for me. I am no longer menaced by the threat of having to begin my starry circle anew.”  {400} 

Khoja Nasreddin was afraid lest the old man embarked again upon one of his discourses.

“It is not worth mentioning,” he put in hastily. “All the more that I have not brought the matter to its conclusion yet. You have come most timely, for I am floundering in perplexity. I know not what to do with the lake. We shall now discuss it.”

“What to do with the lake? You know not?”

“How am I to know, venerable sage? During our last conversation you gave me no directions concerning the lake, for cock-crow interrupted your discourse.”

The old man smiled thereat, and his entire form began to glimmer with a shifting light. Having done glimmering, the old man said:

“I remember, aye, I remember. I was somewhat late then, I miscalculated my time. Be not angry with me, Khoja Nasreddin,”

“I am not angry at all. Let us not repeat the error, though. Midnight—your hour—is drawing nigh. Let us deal first with the main business, and talk afterwards.”

“Very well,” agreed the old man. “Let us discuss the main business. So you have found your faith, then?”

“When had I time to look for it?” Khoja Nasreddin said with veiled irritation, for the old man's thoughts were meandering again. “I had no time left, estimable sir, for the search of faith. In the first place, I had to find your lake, situated none knew where. Secondly, I had to take it away, and now I have to think what to do with it further. We shall speak of faith anon. Give me your wise word now about the lake.”

The old man fell silent, thinking. Within the hazy luminosity that was his body, a pale-green light appeared in the region of his heart, which, lengthening into a wavering jet-like flame, rose upward to his lips. Another smaller jet of bluish hue flowed down towards  {401}  it from the sage's head. Seeing this, Khoja Nasreddin decided that the bluish jet signified Thought, while; the greenish one Emotion, both of which, by uniting in the lips of the glimmering sage, were to engender speech.

And so it was. The old man gave utterance as follows:

“I must say, Khoja Nasreddin, that you are far removed yet from true wisdom. Know that it is in your faith that there lies hidden the solution of all the perplexities and doubts which may beset you upon the ways of life, including your present perplexity in regard to the lake.”

“Then resolve it, O venerable sage! I make bold to remind you that midnight is near, and but minutes remain for all our colloquies!”

“Would it not be better, O Khoja Nasreddin,” the old man glimmered with a solemnly pink light and lifted his forefinger, “would it not be better to leave it to your spirit, in the interests of its greater perfection, to draw its own independent conclusion in the matter of the lake—by means of the faith which you will have at last acquired?”

It became all too clear to Khoja Nasreddin that the word he was craving to hear about the lake would never be uttered.

“I can help you in the search of faith—let that be my gratitude,” the old man continued, the rosy glimmer passing to a pale silvery one, then to a golden one, and finally bursting into a rainbow-hued iridescence that dazzled the eyes of Khoja Nasreddin.

“Without naming it directly, I shall point out to you the path by which it should be sought.”

“That would be a good thing, sir,” Khoja Nasreddin concurred for courtesy's sake.

“Take hold of my left hand with your right one.”  {402} 

Khoja Nasreddin did so, and acquired a cool moistness, but no corporeality. The luminosity within the old man grew more intense, and the rainbow flooded the whole bower with its brightness.

“Shut your eyes!” quoth the old sage solemnly. “Follow me!”

There came a flight, so swift and sudden, that Khoja Nasreddin gasped for breath.

“Now open them!” he heard the sage's voice, or rather caught it by some means other than that of hearing.

He opened his eyes.

The bower had gone, and all around lay a dense bluish mist, spread apparently by the old sage.

“Look and try to understand,” the sage said, or rather glimmered, for instead of a voice there issued from his mouth a glimmering ripple in the shape of an elongated cloudlet, and within that cloudlet there mysteriously arose the words which Khoja Nasreddin caught without hearing.

“I can see nothing, I understand nothing,” he replied, and suddenly realized that he, too, was answering the old sage with a glimmer. He looked at himself and was amazed: like the old man, he was all a hazy luminosity of transparency, a mere spectral glimmer without any of the usual signs of corporeality.

Khoja Nasreddin was not a man who is easily frightened, but in this case he was alarmed. That starry wanderer of a dervish had played a parlous trick on him, it seemed.

“What . . . how . . . what is this?” he stammered, feeling that he was glimmering in a fitful flickering way. “W-w-where am I? What has become of me? Eh? This is the limit, sir, really. What have you done with me?”

The old sage answered with a reassuring ripple of purest emerald-green.  {403} 

“Fear naught, Khoja Nasreddin, you are with me. Truth to tell, I cannot understand such excessive fear on your part. You cherish that wretched corporeal husk of yours as if it were something precious.”

“There is a great difference between us, O estimable one!” Khoja Nasreddin pleaded, emitting a series of hurried disquieting purplish flashes like summer lightning. “It is not for me to rise to such an exalted state of sublime wisdom and perfection of spirit.”

He hoped by these fawning words to flatter the old sage, lest he take it into his head to leave him for ever in this state of incorporeality. And as he did so, his glimmering instantly acquired a disagreeably turbid yellow hue.

The old sage fortunately noticed nothing, or if he did, politely said nothing. There was no answering reproachful glimmer.

“Fear not, Khoja Nasreddin, your corporeality shall return to you. There it is. Look.”

And before the incorporeal gaze of Khoja Nasreddin there arose, somewhere far down below, the bower, and within that bower he saw himself asleep.

“Your corporeality is in its place, indulging in the animal pleasure of slumber at a time when your spirit is in a prophetic state of star-wandering wakefulness,” said the old sage. “Much shall be revealed to you, if you but comprehend.”

But try as he would to pierce the mist which the old dervish had spread, Khoja Nasreddin could not see or understand anything. All was blurred and hazy, without a spot one's thought could fasten on to; all seemed equally possible, yet equally inconsequent and unreal, allowing one to think of things this way, or that way, or any other way; in vain did Khoja Nasreddin seek in the mist a single earthly object, proceeding from which  {404}  one might forge a chain of consecutive reflection—he saw no such object around him.

“I understand nothing,” he repeated. “Here are only questions, venerable sage, and not a single answer. Where is the earth, where are the people, with their joys, sorrows and cares, where is that active good for which, according to you, I have been sent into this world for? How can I do good in this impenetrable mist, where everything is unreal and uncertain, and for whom must I work when there are no people here? And where is the evil which I am called upon to combat? Against whom is it aimed? Against the stars? Nay, venerable sage, the heights of starry aspirations are not for me. Please return me to earth, to where I belong!”

While he was speaking the glimmering old man kept losing his lustre, until suddenly he disappeared, melted completely from before the eyes of Khoja Nasreddin. With him there vanished all that was dim and obscure; the mist lifted, and Khoja Nasreddin discovered his world again, where everything could be seen, heard, felt, and examined, where people live in their conflicting tangle of passions, selfless strivings to help one another, and unswerving motion forward, for ever forward to the goal of the common universal weal, wherein each shall find good for himself.

Khoja Nasreddin awoke and opened his eyes. All around was a moist fresh darkness; a breeze stole into the bower and glided over his face with a cool touch; the distant stars shone through the foliage; it was night, the second half of it between midnight and dawn.

His head still ached a little, but his thoughts had recovered their customary lucidity. He smiled. Nay, he was no way-companion for the old sage in his stellar flights—his place, his home was the earth. Cognitive soaring was a good thing, to be sure, but for himself he  {405}  chose simple earthly understanding in which he was master of his own thoughts and deeds.

Returning in thought to the lake, he felt himself completely freed from all the doubts that had oppressed him on the eve. All was clear, simple and unquestionable. “’Tis a wonder that I did not see it before!” he exclaimed, forgetting that he could not have done so by reason of his wrong choice of companionship—the jug and the misty old man.

Let us return to our sparrow, to the story of how he met with Khoja Nasreddin and what threw them together.

But half an hour before their meeting they had not had a thought of each other. Both of them—each by himself—were equally occupied with their affairs: the sparrow was sitting above, on the roof of the chaikhana, basking in the last reddish rays of, and twittering a loud song of thanksgiving to, the departing sun, while Khoja Nasreddin sat below, in the chaikhana, conversing with the villagers, who formed a close ring round him.

When he had come to the chaikhana—for the first time since becoming keeper, then owner, of the lake—the villagers gathered therein were talking about none other than himself, wondering what direction he would now give to their sorrowful lives. And he—talk of the devil!—suddenly popped up, swam out of the depths of the jugar field adjoining the chaikhana. As if on purpose, he came not by the road, but through the field, to catch them unawares.

Safar bestirred himself, and the visitors hastily began to take their leave in order not to be in the way of the illustrious tea-drinking.

But it was not Uzakbai, the assistant and successor  {406}  of Agabek, who had now come to the chaikhana, but Khoja Nasreddin.

“Do not go away, my worthy friends!” he called out. “How have I offended you that you do not even wish to sit with me? Safar, here are twenty-five tangas, serve to everyone as much tea as he can hold!”

The villagers were greatly astonished at these kindly words. They stood timidly against the walls, not daring to touch the teapots which Safar busily carried round and placed before them.

A hot wave of loving compassion towards them swept through the heart of Khoja Nasreddin at the sight. They were so downtrodden, so cowed, that they dare not even drink tea, dare not utter a word. Even that sparrow (his glance fell upon it casually—their contact had begun)—even that sparrow was happier and freer in its life!

Said came. Before the eyes of the astounded Chorakians the new owner of the lake embraced him warmly as he would an old friend. This was beyond understanding. How did they know each other, and why had Said kept silent all this time?

Their fears somewhat allayed, the villagers reached for their teapots, while some moved up to Khoja Nasreddin and fell into conversation with him.

He had been very lonely in his clay hut by the lake and was now glad to be able to have a simple friendly talk and relax from the enforced life of a hermit. He questioned the villagers about their life and domestic affairs, about the recent breakdown of the bridge by the mil!, about the health of potter Babajan's mare, which had fallen ill a day or two ago—he knew everything that was going on in Chorak. He cracked merry jokes, addressing himself now to one man, now to another, congratulated Mamed-Ali in an undertone on the approaching marriage of the beautiful Zulfia, and extended  {407}  similar congratulations to Safar, the keeper of the chaikhana.

Of one thing, the most important thing of all, he said nothing, however—and that was the forthcoming irrigation. The thought of it sat in the head of every Chorakian like a red-hot nail that burned the tongue.

It was Mamed-Ali who made bold to ask:

“Pray, tell me, esteemed Uzakbai, when do you think of giving us water and what price will you charge?”

A hush fell upon the chaikhana, a deep hush broken only by the blithe incessant chirping of the sparrow on the roof.

A score of expectant glances bored Khoja Nasreddin through and through.

“You shall receive water in good season, within three or four days,” said he. “We shall talk about the price later, on the eve of the irrigation.”

A score-breasted sigh went up in the chaikhana.

“But what if we do not have sufficient money?” began Mamed-Ali.

“It will be sufficient!” Khoja Nasreddin interrupted him. “Your fields shall have water—I have spoken, and you have heard.”

A second huge common sigh went up. There will be water! A stone had been rolled off their minds. Truly he seemed to be a kind and benevolent man, this Uzakbai!

The sparrow upon the roof twittered, and chirped, and warbled away in a transport of joy and gratitude, puffing himself up in such a paroxysm of zeal that even his plumage ruffled up, as if it were to him that the water on the fields had been promised, to him life and happiness in the home had been pledged.

As for the Chorakians, they could express their joy only with sighs and a gleam of light in their eyes.  {408} 

“Aye, you shall receive water! And you shall go on receiving it for your fields as much as you want!” Khoja Nasreddin's voice broke for a moment, and a tremor ran through his body, tickling his head and his beard; had he had plumage upon him it would have stood up ruffled. “Believe me, your dark days have ended!”

Whereat he fell silent. He had said too much as it was for one time. The villagers were afraid to stir, and the light in their eyes grew brighter and brighter.

But the earth is earth, it has its own laws and its own order of things—one has to know these and know how to use them in order that the winged aspirations of our spirit may be translated into deeds. Khoja Nasreddin did not permit himself to soar too long in the pure empyreal heights; by an effort of reason, he descended to earth and real life, where all is confused and mixed up—good with evil, perfection with imperfection, nobility with baseness, the beautiful with the ugly, joy with sorrow, and purity with dirt. It was in this medley of conflicting principles and properties that he was called upon to act, and act with wit and cunning, in order that his noble design be crowned with deserving success.

His eye travelled over the Chorakians. Yes, he loved them with all the strength and ardour of his heart, but that did not prevent him from clearly perceiving the dark, the base and selfish that lived in their souls side by side with the divine, the pure, and the noble. His love was all the more fruitful in that he loved men as they were in reality, without endowing them in imagination with angelic qualities.

“Tell me,” said he, “wherefore did Shirmat have a fight with Yarmat yesterday?”

They quarrelled over a dry old mulberry-tree intended for firewood,” explained Safar. “Each considered it his own, and so they fought.”  {409} 

“Could they not saw it in halves?”

'They could, but each wanted to get it all for himself.”

This trait in men was only too well known to Khoja Nasreddin. After a silence, he said:

“Tell me, who does that starveling little poplar by the roadside belong to?”

“It is mine!” Dadabai the potter answered quickly. “Everybody knows that it is mine.”

His eyes narrowed, his lips tightened, and his jaw thrust forward—it would have gone hard indeed with anyone who had dared to challenge his ownership of that stunted wretched little tree, worth a paltry two tangas.

“Very well,” said Khoja Nasreddin, “Let it be yours, then. And that willow bush younder, that bends over the aryk—whom does that belong to?”

“To me!” said Rahman the butter-maker hastily.

“How come?” protested Usman the farmer. “How comes it to be yours?”

“It is on my land—therefore it is mine!”

“Well I never!” exclaimed Usman. “Do you hear that, good people? On his land!”

“Well, is it not my land?”

“That remains to be seen!” Usman answered in an irate quarrelsome voice, reddening. “It is only bending its branches over to your side, but its roots are in my land—yes in mine!”

“What?” hissed the butter-maker, his voice rising to a shrill squeaky note. “Since when is it your land, eh?”

“Wait, do not argue!” cried Khoja Nasreddin, hastening to prevent a quarrel. “Slop, I tell you! I do not intend to take away or buy from you that miserable bush, which no one needs and which is not worth a broken farthing. Let it grow, whomsoever it may belong  {410}  to. Now that wild thistle yonder—does that, too, have an owner?”

“It is on my land,” answered Mamed-Ali.

Khoja Nasreddin sat silent for a long time, reflecting.

Meanwhile the sun had set; its parting beam faded among the tree-tops, and the purple twilight deepened over the land, a transparent twilight without reflections or shadows. With the sunbeam gone, the sparrow's song ended—the day of the feathered tribe was over. The sparrow gave a last ruffle to its plumage, shook itself, then dived into its nest under the roof. And just as it did so, Khoja Nasreddin caught a glimpse of the tip of its tail.

“And that sparrow, which has just crawled into its nest—does that too, belong to anyone?”

His words were taken as a jest, and everyone smiled and laughed.

“Does he have an owner?” persisted Khoja Nasreddin.

“Who can be his owner?” Mamed-Ali answered, smiling. “He flies whither he will and when he will, spoils the grapes in all our vineyards, and pecks the grain in all our farmyards. He belongs to all and to none.”

That was just the kind of sparrow that Khoja Nasreddin needed—one that belonged to all and to none.

“Haply you, Safar, have some special claim to him?”

“Nay!” said the chaikhana-keeper, baring his toothless gums in a face-furrowing smile. “He lives here under the roof. I do not touch him, he does not touch me. I do not mind him, we do not interfere with one another. God's sparrow, a free bird.”

“Bring me a ladder, Safar!”  {411} 

Mamed-Ali exchanged glances with the potter, and the butter-maker with the horse doctor; a swift glance-exchange fluttered through the chaikhana.

Safar, in perplexity, dragged in a ladder. Khoja Nasreddin leaned it against the wall, climbed three rungs, thrust his arm into the hole under the roof, and rummaged about there with lifted eyebrow and preoccupied air, as if listening, and drew forth the terrified little sparrow.

“A cage!”

An old cage was found among the lumber in the chaikhana.

“Here, Safar, I place him in your keeping,” said Khoja Nasreddin, putting the sparrow in the cage. ‘Take good care of him, feed him well, and change his water frequently, lest he, God forbid, suffer any injury to his health. Remember—this is a precious sparrow, and soon you shall have proof of it.”

Having with these words consummated his evening in the chaikhana, he took his leave of the villagers and departed to his house.

Said went to see him off, and returned, glowing with the light of an inner joy. He refused, however, to say aught, and the Chorakians remained ignorant of the so joyful tidings which he had heard from the new master of the lake.

Not so Zulfia. Zulfia, of course, was told everything.

“He said, ‘All this is yours—the house and the orchard.’ ”

“No doubt he was joking. What will he be left with?”

“O Zulfia, be is no ordinary man. Everything that he says comes true. He has already given me the most precious gift—you.”

“We shall be happy as it is, Said, without the house and the orchard. Can we not build one of our own?”  {412} 

“Still, I do not think that he was joking. There was a wondrous light in his eyes.”

“Aye, ’tis a wonderful man you have met, Said! Since he has come to Chorak all our lives have been transformed, as if the sun has peeped out from behind a cloud.”

“Who is he? Whence comes he? Has he come to stay long in Chorak?”

The night spread its magic mantle. Four winds rose heavenward from the earth, fanning the stars to a tremulous twinkle: the north wind, frost-laden, for the blue stars, the southerly torrid wind for the red stars, the westerly for the white, and the easterly for the green stars; four sleeps descended upon the world from the starry heights, engulfing it in four oceans: a black one for the evil-doing and the malevolent, a sallow one for those who abetted them through cowardice or self-seeking, a blue one for all men of simple toil and guileless heart, and a clear ruby-red one for the valiant warriors on the roads of Good.

Stopping at Chorak on his way back, the old crooked cadi Abdurahman put up at the same chaikhana, reclined upon the same pile of fifteen-high quilts, and with his right eye wide open with greed, waited for his scribe, who, wasting no time, had betaken himself to the new owner of the lake.

It was nightfall when he returned to the chaikhana and showed the cadi his open hand—all five fingers. This meant five hundred tangas.

The old fox drew a deep sigh, his whole face looked as if it had been dipped in warm butter, and he screwed up both eyes ecstatically. When next he looked upon the world it was with his left eye alone.  {413} 

He received from his scribe the heavy purse and put it away in his girdle, fully prepared on the morrow to show no surprise whatsoever and to put his seal to any transaction, be it even the consignment of the faithful Moslem soul to shaitan himself in exchange for a tuft of hairs out of his mangy tail.

And surprised he was not. Not even when he heard from Khoja Nasreddin of his irrevocable decision to barter his lake for a sparrow belonging to all the Chorakians in common and to none of them in particular.

The cage stood right there, and the sparrow already felt quite at home in it—he twittered cheerfully and hopped about in it, pecking at the sesame seeds with which Safar had been feeding him those last few days.

The cadi's left eye glided over the sparrow and his head nodded assent. He saw no obstacles towards the transaction.

The crowd that filled the roadway surged and buzzed. A miracle of Good was being performed before their very eyes, and all of them, young and old, believed it. It was as if Father Turakhon himself had come to their village in the form of this man Uzakbai.

The old cadi steered his bark skilfully through the familiar current of judiciary cunning with a practised hand. The sparrow was named Diamond and his weight was fixed at three silver tangas. And so he was registered in the book.

The scribe drew up two documents: one certifying Khoja Nasreddin to be the owner of a diamond weighing three silver unadulterated and unobliterated tangas, and another transferring the lake for use in perpetuity to the inhabitants of Chorak—all in common with equal rights.

Khoja Nasreddin put his signature to both papers. Whereat the Chorakians came up to the dais one by one. None of them could sign his name, so instead each  {414}  pressed to the paper his thumb upon which Chinese ink had been smeared out of the ink-pot. Under each thumb-print the scribe wrote the name of its owner.

“Come up, do not be afraid!” Khoja Nasreddin told them. “Hurry up, I cannot wait to get that fat sparrow on my teeth, and your tardiness is holding up my dinner.”

They were many—Shirmats, Yarmats, Yunuses, Rasuls, Dadabais, Jurabais, Babajans, Amijans, and every other kind. By midday, however, the task was completed. The last to put his thumb to the deed was a certain Mohammed, son of Usman, and the cadi proclaimed in a trumpet-like solemn voice that the transaction was concluded.

The second transaction took only a short time. It was a usual deed of settlement transferring the house and the orchard to Said.

The Chorakians stood spellbound, neither stirring nor breathing.

The scribe closed the book; the cadi climbed down, grunting, from the eminence of his fifteen quilts and hobbled towards his waggon—he was in a hurry.

The driver clicked his tongue, the nag braced her hind legs, and the waggon swayed, creaked, and moved off. And although the road was the same, and the waggon was the same, the wheels this time did not twist out of the ruts, but rolled along straight and smooth, for the first time in many years. The old cadi, accustomed as he was to always riding with a leftward list, could not understand why he felt so uncomfortable that day sitting in the waggon.

On the shore of the lake, at the head of the conductor aryk, Khoja Nasreddin took his leave of the Chorakians.

He appointed Said guardian of the lake, saying to him:  {415} 

“Let your crops be at the very tail end of the aryk, so that you should not be able to irrigate them before you have irrigated all the other fields. Do not be offended—this matter concerns the welfare of all, and is so important that every measure of security is welcome. Here is the key to the padlock. Closely guard the water—it is your life.”

Said took the lock off. Together with Khoja Nasreddin he began to work the windlass that raised the shutter. The water rushed into the conductor aryk, seething and foaming. It flowed in a free and copious torrent, as in the blessed days of yore; it sparkled, glittered and gleamed under the bright noonday sun; the dipping branches of the bank-side willows, whipped taut by the rushing stream, were full of an eager tremor, and their leafage sprang into palpitant life as it spread out all in one direction.

“You have received water!” Khoja Nasreddin said to the Chorakians. “It will deliver you from hunger, want and perpetual humiliating fear. Man needs this if he is to be a man, but that is not enough. The spider of debasing selfishness lurking in each of us—that is the chief enemy of our upward flight and freedom! Banish it, destroy it, otherwise you will never be men worthy of the name, the noblest name in creation! Let that greedy selfish word T be rarely heard in Chorak, and let it give way to the better and nobler word ‘We.’ Farewell, may you be happy on your fields and in your homes, for ever and aye!”

Cries of gratitude and delight were heard; many people wept.

He took the cage, drew the sparrow forth from it and threw it up into the air. Grown heavy with too lavish feeding, the sparrow nearly fell to the ground, but caught itself upon the wind and soared into the heavenly heights.  {416} 

“He has flown to his lady sparrow in the chaikhana” said Khoja Nasreddin. “I leave you this ‘diamond’ as a keepsake.”

With the release of the sparrow, all his affairs in Chorak were finished, and he had nothing more to keep him there.

With a last salaam to the villagers and last wishes for a happy life and prosperous affairs, he advanced towards Mamed-Ali, Safar, Said, and Zulfia, who were standing together.

“You all called me Uzakbai, but know that that is not my name—it is hateful to me. I took it by necessity. When you think of me, call me by some other name.”

“By what name shall we call you?”

“Think, haply you may guess.”

He suffered no one to see him off, land departed alone by the bank of the aryk, in the wake of the swift-flowing water.

For a long time the Chorakians stood in utter silence, gazing at the hill behind which their strange and for ever memorable visitor had disappeared.

Then all of a sudden Said cried out:

“I know! I have guessed!”

Like a man awakening, he passed a hand over his face, as if tearing a web away from his eyes.

“Khoja Nasreddin—that is his real name!”

And, on the instant, it became clear to everybody. Why, of course—Khoja Nasreddin! And everyone was surprised that he had not guessed it before, although it seemed to him that he had half guessed it in a dim kind of way.

Said dashed down the bank-side trail, crying, “Khoja Nasreddin! Khoja Nasreddin!”

Echo responded with a faint ghostly voice, but Khoja Nasreddin answered him not.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Having safely reached Kokand, Agabek decided that to continue such a long journey alone was not without hazard, all the more with money in his girdle. It were wiser to join some caravan going that way. And so he tarried awhile in Kokand, thus giving Khoja Nasreddin time to arrive while he was still there.

The thief met Khoja Nasreddin with the words:

“One more day and you would have been late. The caravan is departing to Istanbul tomorrow night, and Agabek is going with it.”

“Then we shall have a lot of work to do tomorrow,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “How fares my beloved ass?”

“He is quite well, but lonesome. He misses you.”

“No wonder, such a separation! Never mind, tomorrow we shall be reunited. So Agabek has not visited Rahimbai yet, has not offered him the jewels?”

“Not yet. I am watching his every step.”

“Allah Himself is helping us!”

They were sitting in a small chaikhana, a poor dirty place with mats in place of carpets, cast-iron pots in place of copper ones, and tallow lamps in place of oil-lamps; it peeped out of a by-street on to the principal bazaar square like a timid humble beggar who had accidentally stumbled into a rich feast and knew that he had no place there. Indeed, it was incongruously out of place here amid all those large magnificent chaikhanas, which belted the square with lights, and filled the blue dusk of eve with the blare of trumpets, the whining of pipes, and the roll of drums, employed for the allurement of customers.

Agabek had put up at one of these rich chaikhanas—the thief pointed it out.

“He is a Vizier, no other chaikhana is befitting to his rank,” remarked Khoja Nasreddin.  {418} 

A soft velvety breeze was blowing; wearied by the day's stupefying heat, the city was relaxing blissfully in the cool fresh sea of night; the new moon traced a finely curved line in the sky, “like the eyebrow of a Turkish damsel from Shiraz,” as Hafiz once said. Khoja Nasreddin always liked these restful hours of large populous cities—this brief ebb in life's surging tide, as it gathered strength, as it were, for the morning's reflow. He had long since discovered the secret of life's fulness, which was that of contradictions—toil, without which there is no joy of rest, danger, without which there is no joys of victory; hence this twilight lull, so hateful to him in sleepy Khojent, was so entrancing in its fleeting beauty here, in this vast busy bazaar.

It was with a similar fulness of soul, and grateful praise of life that he met the multi-keyed and multicoloured morn, with its jostling, swirling, and foaming vortex of cosmopolitan crowds, within whose swelling roar was merged every believable and unbelievable sound of earthly origin. A dust rose and clouded the sky, gritting on the teeth, packing into the nostrils; warming under the sun, the earth seemed to be drawing into itself the long light shadows, which it deepened to inky blackness; the tiled minarets spread a blazing heat around them; within another half-hour there was no air to breathe.

Thereupon, in the richest and most luxurious of the chaikhanas, Agabek rose from his couch of cushions after finishing his morning tea-drinking.

“Keeper, receive your pay for my board and lodging. And lead out my long-eared and hide-coated one.”

Even in the ass's absence he dared not call him by aught save respectful indirect names, in order that, on arriving at the palace in Cairo, he should not commit a slip of the tongue and be given at the very outset a taste of the secret chamber.  {419} 

Khoja Nasreddin and the thief, who had been waiting near the chaikhana since the morning for Agabek to appear, concealed themselves round the corner.

The Egyptian Vizier-to-be strutted past them leading his ass by the bridle-rein. The long-eared and hide-coated one presented a dismal sight: his muzzle hung down to the ground, his ears dangled, his tail hung limp and the tuft at the end barely stirred.

“Look at his inconsolable grief,” said the thief. “He is a real devoted friend, and many people could take a lesson from him.”

They followed Agabek into the crowd, into the crush and din of the covered trade rows; here there was no air whatever—it had been ousted by the vapours that rose from the ground, which had been copiously watered by the street waterers. Thousands of odours diffused by leather, paints, foreign spices, rotting garbage, sellers and buyers steaming in their robes—all blended and thickened to such an inconceivable degree of density that the mixture stuck to hands and faces like some viscid ooze. Agabek passed the Paint, Shoemakers’ and Saddlers’ rows and came out to the big bazaar aryk. Khoja Nasreddin nudged the thief.

“He is looking for the shop of Rahimbai,” he said.

The fat money-changer had had no handsel yet that day, and sat in his shop, yawning and bored. His face, which had recovered its former roundness of aspect, his curly well-groomed beard, and the slumberous contentment of his eyes all bore witness to the fact that no further storms had disturbed his peace of mind since the chest incident. Outraged innocence, in the person of his wife, had graciously condescended to forgive him, his Arab stallions stood safe and sound in the stable under  {420}  a tripled guard, waiting for the next race, the grandee responded, albeit coldly, to his salutations, and life had slipped into its former smooth rut.

Neither did that torrid morning augur aught to disturb his contented mood; on the contrary, he even contemplated closing his shop after dinner and enjoying sweet repose at the side of his spouse. Vain dreams! The winds of new afflictions were already blowing over his heedless head.

A man of most respectable men, leading an ass by the bridle, stopped before his shop.

“May the word of Allah abide over you, merchant. Peace be on you. Pray, is your name Rahimbai?”

“You have guessed aright, they call me Rahimbai.

What affair has brought you to my shop, O wayfarer?”

“I heard of you across the mountains as of an honest merchant, and so I have sought you out among the money-changers of Kokand.”

Like all arrant knaves, Rahimbai was exceedingly jealous of his reputation; pleased and flattered by Agabek's words, he immediately inclined towards him in his heart, albeit, in keeping with his natural knavery, this inclination found expression in a secret design to cleverly cheat the man—in a friendly way, of course, without noise or fuss, and with even a certain touch of goodwill.

“You are not the first, O wayfarer, to come to me with such words,” Rahimbai said with a complacent grunt, the while he patted his round protruding belly. “Thank God everyone in Ferghana and beyond it knows me as an honest man, and such do I hope to remain till the end.”

“A good name is better than riches,” Agabek said with a respectful salaam.

The merchant returned both the salaam and the compliment:  {421} 

“Still better is it to meet a wise and worthy interlocutor.”

“Verily you have spoken the truth!” exclaimed Agabek. “For ’tis such a meeting that Allah has blessed me with today.”

“I hear words engendered by nobility itself,” returned the merchant.

“They are but a mirror, reflecting what they see,” said Agabek.

They saluted each other in this wise for a long time, vying in mutual praise and lauding each other to the skies, while the money-changer's beady eyes—the true mirror of his mind—turned into narrow slits, and darted about shiftily, groping over the wayfarer and trying to penetrate the fabric of his girdle to the purse that lay within it.

At last they came down to business. Rahimbai counted out a handful of gold, which was about five coins less than it should have been at the rate of exchange on the Kokand bazaar, the while he sighed ruefully and deplored the recent sharp rise in the price of Arabian gold, which of course, was a shameless lie. Agabek—himself no babe in the art of cheating—smiled knowingly, but did not argue. What were those five wretched dinars in comparison with the royal treasury that awaited him in Cairo!

“And now, worthy sir,” he said, stemming the merchant's effusions, “I have one more matter.” He poured the dinars into a round purse of black leather, put it away, and drew forth from his girdle another purse.

“I have jewels here—a necklace, bracelets, and rings. Haply you will buy them?”

“Hush!” Rahimbai said, leaning over the counter and glancing to right and left to see whether there were any spies or guards about. “Have you not heard, wayfarer, that such transactions are forbidden in Kokand unless  {422}  the authorities are apprised of them beforehand? We may get into trouble—you will lose your jewels and I shall be imprisoned.”

“I heard about it, but I presume that two sensible men. . . .”

“And honest ones,” the merchant hastily put in.

“Above all, discreet,” added Agabek.

The conversation tricked away to a chuckle, for words were no longer needed.

Rahimbai tossed a handful of small silver on to the counter as a blind in the event of the guards putting in an appearance, then he untied the purse-strings and pulled back the edges to glance at the jewels without taking them out.

The thief and Khoja Nasreddin, who were hiding round the corner, saw the fat face of the money-changer grow livid with fury and the hairs in his beard bristle.

“Tell me, wayfarer, how, whence, and when did these jewels come into your possession?”

“Worthy merchant,” answered Agabek, “let us leave those questions to the authorities, whom we have decided to dispense with. What difference does it make to you whence and how? Your business is to take them or not take them. If you take them, pay me the money—six thousand tangas.”

“Pay you?” sputtered the merchant. “Six thousand! For my own property, which has been stolen from me!”

At this Agabek was put on his guard. Did this merchant think that he could catch him on the hook of his knavery?

With a swift movement he made a snatch at the purse.

But the merchant was not dozing either. He held on to it with clutching fingers.

And so they stood glaring at each other, separated  {423}  by the counter and joined by the purse. A steel chain could not have held them more securely.

They pierced each other with eyes of malevolent hate, eyes that bulged, round and staring, blotted out by a whitish film, like those of infuriated fighting cocks. The air burst from their convulsed throats with a hoarse whistle.

At the same time they had to restrain their movements and check any outcry lest they attract the attention of the guards thereby.

“Let go!” wheezed Agabek.

“Give it back,” growled the merchant.

“Swindler!”

“Accursed thief!”

A brief tussle ensued—a fierce but quiet one, hardly noticeable from the outside. It seemed as if two respectable men were leaning over the counter, engaged in a confidential conversation, and only by listening carefully to the sounds of furtive desperate struggle, the wheezy panting breath, the suppressed moans and the gnashing of teeth could one guess the truth.

The tug-of-war ended in a draw.

Clutching the purse and breathing heavily, they both stood frozen again in attitudes of glaring enmity.

“O spawn of shaitan, O evil-smelling jackal, so this is your honesty! Let go, I tell you!”

“Give it to me back, impious devourer of your father's carrion!”

They who, only a minute ago, had been vying in mutual praise and encomium, were now heaping upon each other vicious abuse. Thus does it often happen with people when a purse comes between them.

“Defiler of tombs and mosques!” croaked the merchant, rolling his eyeballs up in a frenzy. “O counsellor of shaitan in his blackest deeds.”

“Silence, you misbegotten fornicator, who sinned  {424}  with an ape yesterday!” answered Agabek, breathing gustily through his nose, for cold fury had locked his jaws and clenched his teeth.

Then all of a sudden, catching the merchant unawares, he wrenched the purse towards him with such violence that the ground rocked beneath his feet. And he succeeded—not in wrenching the purse from the merchant's hands, but in wrenching the merchant himself, attached to the purse, from behind his counter.

The merchant, however, bent his knees up to his stomach and caught them under the inside edge of the counter, which prevented him from flying out into the road, lifted though he was above the ground.

The tug exhausted Agabek's strength. Taking advantage of this, the merchant, lying on the counter on his fat belly began to draw the purse under him, as if slowly swallowing it. But together with the purse Agabek's numb arm was drawn under his belly right up to the shoulder.

Anyone throwing a cursory glance at this scene from the outside would still not have noticed anything. The thief and Khoja Nasreddin, however, looked below the surface and probed the truth of every movement, every sound.

“He has spat in Agabek's eye!”

“And Agabek has got his teeth in the merchant's beard. Look, look, he has torn out a sizeable tuft.”

“And now he is spitting it out. The hair has stuck to his gums and tongue.”

“Look, the merchant tried to bite Agabek's nose off!”

“Aye, but he missed, his teeth snapped in the air.”

The thief was all aquiver with excitement, and his yellow eye glowed.

“It is time, Khoja Nasreddin! Why do you tarry?”

“Let them fight a bit more.”

Besides the two fighting ones and the two watching  {425}  ones, there was a fifth party to this squabble. In fact, he was the chief culprit, the original cause of all the trouble. With him it had begun and through him it continued, for Khoja Nasreddin had baited the money-changer and Agabek with the sole aim of recovering his beloved ass.

That animal preserved an attitude of complete apathy. His muzzle still hung low to the ground, his ears dangled, and his tail hung limp; only once in a while, when Agabek jerked the halter strap in the heat of his tussle, did he toss his head.

The furtive struggle at the counter was renewed with fiercer intensity.

Further delay was dangerous. The bazaar guards might appear at any moment.

Khoja Nasreddin gave a low whistle.

The ass started and lifted his muzzle. He would have known that whistle anywhere, through any clamour or thunder. That short whistle held for him the call of a friend, the command of a master, the voice of God—for Khoja Nasreddin, of course, was a god to him, an almighty and ever beneficent deity.

The whistle was repeated, and then Khoja Nasreddin looked out from behind the corner, presenting his godlike glorious lineaments to the ass's gaze.

No words can describe the perturbation that seized the long-eared one! He had recovered his lost godhead, the world was filled again for him with light and joy! He kicked all four legs in the air, lifted his tail, and with a loud bray, rushed towards the radiance that emanated from round the corner.

The strong halter strap grew taut like a string.

At that very moment Agabek, puffing and straining, was trying to pull forth the purse from under the merchant's belly. To these futile exertions was added the sudden jerk of the ass. “The Prince himself is helping me!” Agabek thought, putting forth all his strength.  {426}  Such a concerted effort the money-changer could not withstand. He was dragged out of the shop into the roadway, together, of course, with the purse, which he did not let out of his hands.

Here he had no choice but to call the guards.

“Robbers!” he screamed, beside himself, in a shrill repulsive voice in which fury united with terror in unholy wedlock. “Help! Robbers!”

Agabek was in a worse fix: on one side he had the merchant pulling him, on the other the ass; the ass had the advantage in brute strength, and all three trailed down the road—the ass, head down and hind legs kicking, in the lead, behind him Agabek with arms crucified between the ass and the purse, and in the rear, dishevelled of beard and raucous of voice, the recumbent merchant, the upper part of his body hoisted, while his fiat belly and short legs dragged over the ground. Such was the strength of the bridle-rein of reputed Yarkend workmanship.

The long-eared one had to be rescued. Once more Khoja Nasreddin presented his shining aspect to him from around the corner. Seized with utter frenzy, the long-eared one kicked out his hind legs, tossed his head and gave a furious jerk. The strap broke.

The merchant pitched into the dust with his beard. Agabek sprawled on top of him. They rolled over together.

“He is a thief! A thief!” screamed the merchant. “I shall prove it. The illustrious Kamilbek has seen those jewels, he knows them.”

“Let me go!” gasped Agabek, feeling that his Egyptian glory was slipping out of his hands together with the ass. “Unhand me, I tell you!” he snarled, struggling like an ensnared and infuriated panther. “Begone! Do you hear! I shall turn you all into asses this very instant!”

One other guard jumped on to his back and clung to his neck.

Beside himself with rage, Agabek whipped out from his girdle the little gourd with the magic brew.

“Limchezoo! Pootzoogoo! Zomnihoz!” he uttered with a great cry, sprinkling the guards out of the bottle. “Kalamai, dochiloza, chimoza, soof, kabahas!”

“Hold him! Seize him! Tie him! Drag him along!” the guards countered his incantations with their own in a variety of keys.

Their incantations, as was to be expected, proved to be more potent by far. Within a minute Agabek was overcome and bound hand land foot.

A pole was brought and slipped under his trussed hands and legs, and two stalwart guards raised the ends of the pole upon their shoulders. Agabek—the Vizier of Egypt—swung in the air belly upward and spine ground-ward like a wild beast borne oft by the huntsmen after a successful chase. His turban dropped from his head and was instantly pounced upon by the guards, who shared it between themselves in bits.

He spat, foamed at the mouth, swore, and threatened—but all in vain. Amid the exultant clamour of the guards, who surrounded their trussed captive, thus  {428}  concealing him from the view of Khoja Nasreddin, the procession moved off with a roll of drums, and headed through the thick of the bazaar, towards Office House, wherein, the illustrious Kamilbek had his residence. The money-changer, clutching at his heart staggered along in the rear, escorted by two guards. A third guard bore the purse aloft for all to see—for so bade the law, in order, on the one hand, to prevent temptation, and on the other, to protect the guards against the tongue of calumny.

A large crowd gathered, and followed the procession.

The roadway in front of the shop became deserted. The dust settled.

Khoja Nasreddin handed the ass over to the thief, saying:

“Hide him in a safe and reliable place. Then find the widow and come with her to the judgement place.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Before the guard-house was a spacious square, where no trading or gatherings were allowed except on Tuesdays, when the illustrious grandee administered justice here in person and meted out punishment to all the malefactors who had been apprehended during the week.

That day happened to be a Tuesday. The grandee in his robe of state, with a new sabre and a multitude of medals (he had had no little trouble renewing these after his memorable chest misadventure!) sat enthroned upon the judge's dais under a silken canopy, twitching his moustaches and gazing sternly upon the crowded square from the eminence of his judgement seat. He grimaced and snorted with distaste whenever the wind wafted up from the square a none too odoriferous whiff, in which two smells predominated—those of sweat  {429}  and garlic. The malefactor himself, Agabek, was below, or even lower than below—for he sat in a narrow well-like hole, whence only his shaven fleshy head stuck out. This, for the visual edification of the common herd, betokened the inaccessible grandeur of authority on the one hand, and the infinite debasement of iniquity on the other. A guard stood over the hole armed with a long-handled wooden knocker, softened at its knocking end with rags, to prevent the malefactor from daring to raise his impious glance upward to the shining countenance of his judge. This was meant to tell the common herd that the very contemplation of those in authority was of itself a great joy to which the unworthy were not admitted. Agabek had already received a couple of taps on the head, and now, somewhat dazed, was staring dully at the ground with a blurred and bleary eye.

On the steps of the wide gently sloping staircase, between the grandee and the guilty one—the better to hear both—sat the scribes with their books; a little to one side, two paces away, stood the merchant under the watchful eye of a special guard.

The other guards, horsed land on foot, ringed off the judgement place against the press of the crowd with a double line. There was a flash of whips and a gleam of sabres brought down flatwise upon the heads and shoulders of the too eager and the too curious.

Khoja Nasreddin squeezed his way forward with great difficulty, only to find a whip flourished over his head, which, however, he managed to dodge. He stepped back to a place of safety behind a huge bearded fellow, whence he could see and hear everything without exposing himself to the glance of the illustrious grandee.

“And now explain, you who call yourself Agabek, the son of Murtaz,” quoth the grandee, “whence and how these jewels came to be in the possession of the farmer Mamed-Ali from whom you claim to have received them  {430}  in payment for irrigation water? And why did he pay you with jewels instead of just money?”

“He is poor,” Agabek murmured in reply. “Where could he have got so much money?”

“Poor?” sneered the grandee. “Poor, yet he pays for the water for all the village? Poor, yet he pays with gold and gems? Write that down!” he ordered the scribes. “Write down that shameless stupid lie, which shall serve as further evidence against him!”

“It is not a lie, O illustrious lord!”

Forgetting himself, Agabek was about to raise his head, but received a tap on it with the knocker and dropped his chin on the edge of the hole, biting his tongue. The tap, albeit a softened one, amazed his reason, and he was rendered inarticulate for quite a time, being able only to maunder, roll up his eyes, spout foam, and drag his beard along the ground. At last he recovered his reason and power of speech.

“It is not a lie!” he mumbled down into the hole, as into a barrel. “The said Mamed-Ali is really poor and has no money. As for the jewels, he found them under the roots of an apple-tree in his orchard while he was digging round it.”

“Silence, wretched liar!” roared the grandee, his moustaches bristling. “There is not a word of truth in your speeches. Found them under the roots of an apple-tree indeed! Would you have me believe that gold and rubies grow in the ground like mushrooms?”

“O wisest of judges, O Lamp of justice—I am prepared to swear by the Koran!”

“Swear by the Koran! You would lengthen the list of your villainies by blasphemy too! Write down that lie, scribes, write it down so that we may pass to the next question.”

The scribes wrote it down. The grandee passed to the next question.  {431} 

“If, as your previous words make clear, you really possessed a lucrative lake—for what reasons then did you quit it and purpose to go to Egypt? Where is your lake?”

“I bartered it.”

“You bartered it? For what and with whom?”

“I bartered it for the heir apparent to the Egyptian throne. . . . That is, for an ass, who is really a Prince. I mean, for a Prince in the form of an ass. . . .”

“What?!” cried the grandee, jumping up. “Say that again! Nay, do not dare to repeat it! How dare you, before my face compare in your mendacious speeches a royal person to a despicable quadruped?”

“That's it!” Agabek cried, overjoyed. “A long-eared, hide-coated quadruped. . . .”

At last he had been understood! The knocker forgotten, he looked up and out. The heavy blow that struck his head deprived him instantly of speech and silenced him. His gaze dimmed, reflecting the state of his reason, and a mist of insensibility screened from him the countenance of the grandee.

“A new crime!” roared the grandee. “He has bespattered a royal person with aspersions, and has dared to do that in the presence of the authorities! Scribes, write that down—in becoming allegorical terms, of course.”

“There is no aspersion here whatever!” the unfortunate man groaned from out of his hole. “I was journeying to Egypt in order to receive the office of Vizier and Guardian of the Court Treasury as a reward for returning to the Prince his human shape. I met the Prince, whom evil spells had transformed into a long-eared one. . . .”

“Silence, wretched mendacious slanderer—silence, I tell you!” thundered the grandee, rising from his cushions in the heat of his indignation. “Verily, it is  {432}  long since we have profaned our sight with the contemplation of so vicious and hardened a criminal. To the list of all his reeking villainies he has added another—the false assumption of the high rank of Vizier, a rank to which we ourselves have only recently attained! Write, scribes, write it all down: first, theft, secondly, outrageous conduct and violence indulged in today at the bazaar, third, the casting of aspersions upon royalty, fourth, imposture. . . .”

The scribes fell to scratching away with their pens, and in that scratching Agabek heard his fatal and irrevocable doom.

In vain did he appeal to the grandee's mercy, plead for justice, beg to be heard out. The grandee was adamant, deaf to all his wretched and contemptible wails. He gazed out above the heads of the crowd glassy-eyed and inexorable, as though contemplating in the heavenly heights the lamp of justice whose lambent flame was visible to him alone.

Agabek—horrified, helpless, exhausted—fell silent. Here at last the former magistrate understood through bitter experience how pure truth can sometimes be made to appear as an ill-intentioned lie in the eyes of a judge, and there was nothing one could do about it, there was no way of proving one's innocence; how often he himself had tried and sentenced innocent people to imprisonment simply because their truth had borne the outward semblance of a lie. And now the hand of retribution had struck at him!

The sentence was a heavy one—imprisonment for life in the dungeons.

Agabek groaned and tore out a tuft of his beard.

The guards seized him, and dragged him out of the hole and off to the dungeons. There he fell into the hands of Abdullah the One-and-a-Half, who, giving the criminal a dozen lashes by way of a foretaste, handed  {433}  him over to his assistant, the ferocious Afghan. After the usual kicks and punches, Agabek was sent rolling down the forty steps into the stink and gloom, from whence issued teeth-gnashing howls, and there he remained for ever, having received from Kismet that which had long been due to him for the evil which he had sowed in the world.

The court proceedings continued. The merchant asked for the restitution of his jewels. One could easily have found a quite lawful reason for seizing them as forfeited to the public treasury, all the more that no complaint against such an action was likely to find favour with the Khan. The jewels, however, belonged not so much to the merchant, as to his lovely spouse, before whom the grandee felt guilty, for ever since the chest incident he had avoided her, although she had twice sent to him an old woman with a message. Fearing to anger her still more, and knowing the ardour and impetuosity of her nature, he decided for safety's sake to send her the jewels as a present—through the merchant, in whose favour he was about to give judgement and close the case.

“Write, scribes!” he said in a loud voice. “Inasmuch as it has been established beyond doubt that the precious articles mentioned above do truly belong to the merchant Rahimbai, son of Kadir, who has a shop in the Money-Changing Row. . . .”

But here his speech was impudently interrupted by a cry from out of the crowd, “Protection and justice!”

The guards, with a ferocious snarl, made a dash at the crowd in the direction of the voice. The grandee choked on his own tongue. Never before had any of the common people dared to interrupt the course of his judicial deliberations.  {434} 

Yet the law permitted and provided for such interruption from without; the grandee remembered that. Moreover, it suddenly occurred to him that some enemy of his at court might have sent a spy here with the express purpose of provoking a violation of the law in order to be able thereafter to report it.

He checked the zeal of the guards with an imperious gesture.

“Speak! Who is there? Come forward!”

And was unutterably amazed to behold Khoja Nasreddin.

“You, soothsayer! Where have you been? We have ransacked every nook and cranny of the city, searching for you.”

He would have been nearer the truth had he said, “Searching for your head,” for such had been the real and sinister purpose of his search—but that, of course, he omitted mentioning.

He did, however, make a secret sign to the guards, and they approached Khoja Nasreddin stealthily from behind, feeling for the ropes which they always carried about with them under their robes.

Khoja Nasreddin saw all this, but preserved perfect calmness, for he possessed a strong and reliable shield against the grandee's nefarious designs.

“I salute you, O worthy Rahimbai!” he greeted the merchant. “May Allah continue your prosperity!”

The merchant turned away, saying nothing. He had not forgotten the ten thousand tangas of his which had passed into the pocket of that knave of a soothsayer.

“Where have you been?” the grandee repeated his question.

“I quitted the town on matters of business, O illustrious lord! Now I have returned, and just in time to offer here very important evidence aimed at the furtherance of justice.”  {435} 

“You desire to give evidence? What kind of evidence?”

“Evidence concerning the jewels and their rightful indisputable owner.”

“The owner is known, he stands there before us,” the grandee said, pointing to Rahimbai, who was beginning to fret, apprehending yet another dirty trick on the part of the soothsayer.

“Therein lies an error,” answered Khoja Nasreddin. “I know for certain that the most estimable Rahimbai is not the rightful owner of those jewels. They belong to another.”

“How is that!” shouted the money-changer, the blood of anger swelling his veins. “What do you mean—I am not the owner? Who is the owner then? You?”

“Not I, nor you, but a third person.”

“What third person can there be?” bellowed the money-changer. “Why are all kinds of vagabonds and tramps admitted to the court?”

The grandee raised his hand, commanding silence. After a pause, he said:

“Your riddles are out of place here, soothsayer. What do you mean? I know the owner of those jewels perfectly well, for I had occasion to see them with my own eyes—long before today—upon the person of my acquaintance. . . .”

He choked on the name of Arzi-bibi, for he dared not utter it in front of the merchant by reason of his uneasy conscience.

“Verily, you speak truth!” Khoja Nasreddin replied. “But before that, before my illustrious lord had seen those jewels—long before today—upon the person of his acquaintance—his close acquaintance, I should say—they belonged not to Rahimbai, as I have said, but to another person, who was unlawfully and forcibly dispossessed of them by the said Rahimbai.”  {436} 

“It is a lie!” shouted the merchant. “A black vile lie!”

“That person is here now,” Khoja Nasreddin continued, undismayed. “Widow, come forth towards the dais, show yourself to the high and power-invested judge.”

The widow came forth from among the crowd and stood beside Khoja Nasreddin.

The grandee was dumbstruck. All this was so unexpected—this sudden appearance of the soothsayer, his evidence, this widow.

Meanwhile, agitation was kindled in the crowd. It had to be extinguished at once.

“Soothsayer!” the grandee cried in a grim voice of wrath. “I perceive in your words naught save a mischievous intent to blacken with slander the fair name of the merchant Rahimbai. How can you know the truth? Where are your proofs? Wherefore must I believe you? Whence comes this woman?”

“It is a lie!” the money-changer shrilled from below. “It is all a lie and cunning knavery, designed to disturb the peace among the common populace!”

“Inasmuch as we discern criminal intent in the words of the soothsayer,” the grandee continued, making a sign to the scribes and then to the guards, who hastily drew forth the ropes from under their robes, “and inasmuch as such cases are liable to. . . .”

He was not given time to finish.

“Where are my proofs? How do I know?” exclaimed Khoja Nasreddin, taking a step forward. “All this was revealed to me in my soothsaying, the veracity of which my illustrious lord already knows, as does also the worthy merchant! I have not my magic book at hand, but I can do without it.”

Giving the grandee no time to collect his wits, he worked his eyebrows up and down fearsomely, and began to breathe hard, as if shouldering an enormous  {437}  burden, then, with a huge heave, he brought out in a singsong sepulchral voice:

“Lo and behold! I see a chest and two sitting within it! What is that? Can my mental eye be deceiving me? O refulgent and magnificent one, vested with power—what wretched state is this? Where is thy robe of honour, thy medals, and thy sabre? He is neighboured in the chest by. . . .”

The grandee gasped, pale as death. Despite the blazing heat, a crawling chill ran up his body like the touch of a steel blade. The apparition of the court physician appeared before him, and the blood ran slow in his veins. A black chasm yawned at his very feet.

Another minute, two more words, and he was ruined! Utterly irreparably ruined! O accursed soothsayer!—he had to be stopped, stopped at any price!

It so happened, fortunately, that the soothsayer himself ceased utterance, as though gazing deep behind the hidden veil.

That one minute alone could save him, for the next would spell his doom—that much the grandee understood.

“Why did you not say at once, soothsayer, that the truth about these jewels was revealed to you by divination?” he exclaimed in a tone of friendly reproach. “You should have said so at once, and all this talk would have been avoided! Inasmuch as the veracity of your soothsaying is known to us, and has been certified and established beyond all doubt, it is open to no questioning by whomsoever.”

“I have other proofs too,” remarked Khoja Nasreddin. “Let my illustrious lord glance at the crowd on his left hand.”

The grandee glanced and froze in horror. Merciful Allah!—gazing at him from out of the crowd with a smirk and a wink of its one yellow eye, was the same  {438}  flat horrible visage that had presented itself to him that time in the cemetery from behind the gravestone! And it was not only grinning, it was furtively showing him from under its robe the hilt of his own gold sabre!

The grandee's breath took some time returning to him; he had grown white, and his face seemed to have melted away, leaving only a pair of black moustaches. He could not tear his eyes away from the frightful visage.

He was brought to his senses by Khoja Nasreddin's voice.

“If need be, O illustrious lord, further proofs can be submitted.”

“Nay, these are quite enough!” answered the grandee, coming out of his stupefaction. “The case is now quite clear, and we proceed to our judgement.”

Some strange magnetic power drew his glance irresistibly towards the hideous face in the crowd. Succumbing to it, he stole a sidelong glance to the left and shuddered.

Khoja Nasreddin understood what was going on in his soul and gave the thief a secret sign to withdraw.

The thief disappeared.

The grandee drew a breath of relief.

“Scribes, cross out all that you have written down concerning the jewels,” he commanded. “Better still tear those leaves out and begin anew. Write: inasmuch as it has been established beyond a shadow of possible doubt that the said precious articles belong to the widow woman. . . .”

“Saadat,” Khoja Nasreddin obligingly prompted.

“The widow woman by the name of Saadat,” continued the grandee, “the aforementioned jewels, according to law and justice, are to be immediately restored to her. . . .”  {439} 

At this point the money-changer's voice rose in a wail.

“What do you mean? The jewels belong to me, and not to any widows

He had been silent till then, as he had not been able to grasp what was going on, albeit he had sensed that it boded him no good. But the moment the jewels were mentioned he became vociferous.

“What court is this?” he shouted. “Where is all that irrefutable evidence? I see none. This is another mischievous plot against me! Let at least one proof be submitted to me! Good people!” he turned to the crowd. “Do you hear, do you see! An honest man is being robbed before your eyes! Good people, be witnesses!”

A hum arose in the crowd, who responded with jokes, laughter and derisive exclamations; one little boy began to cry like a quail, another barked, a third caterwauled; signs of unruliness, unsufferable before the face of authority, arose upon the square.

“Merchant Rahimbai, silence!” roared the grandee. “You are inciting the people against law and authority!”

“I will not be silent!” the merchant screamed, beside himself. “The jewels are mine, I paid money for them!”

The tumult and agitation on the square waxed high. Something had to be done to quieten the merchant, but the grandee saw no means of doing so. The merchant had fallen into such a frenzy of rage that neither coaxing nor persuasion could bring him to his senses.

At that the grandee, to save himself, resorted to an extreme measure. He made a sign to the guard with the head-knocker.

“I shall go to the palace. Let the great Khan judge this case himself!” the merchant shouted while the huge strapping guard crept stealthily behind his victim with his instrument raised aloft.

“Let the great Khan see what kind of judges he has!”  {440}  shouted the merchant, and these were the last words he uttered. The knocker came down upon his pate.

A hand-length of tongue shot out of his head, his eyes popped and rolled up. He went blue in the face, began to hiccup fast and loud, then reeled backward and would have fallen had not the guard with the head-knocker caught him in time.

The other guards had meanwhile restored order among the crowd.

Availing himself of the lull, the grandee announced judgement and gave the purse with the jewels to the widow with his own hands.

All this took place before the face of the merchant, but he no longer clamoured and interrupted the course of justice. It is doubtful whether he saw anything either, because he looked upon the world from under his half-closed eyelids with naught but the whites of his eyes, the pupils still being rolled up under his very forehead. Hiccups, punctuated with snorts, shook his fat body, and in such a plight he was sent home with an escort of three guards, of whom two dragged him along under the armpits while the third propelled him from behind.

Not until he reached the wicket of his garden, and the guards, seating him in the roadway with his back propped up against the wall, had taken their departure, did he come to his senses and stare about him with befogged senseless eyes, understanding nothing. Where was the square, where was that knave of a soothsayer? Had it all been a dream?

Where was his leathern bag?

He clapped his hand to his left side.

The bag was gone. Filled with sand, it rested at the bottom of a nearby cistern, and the money from it now pleasantly burdened the pockets of the guards.

The merchant sprang up, and staggered back, groaning,  {441}  to the scene of judgement, his turban all askew. But there was no one there—the grandee, the soothsayer, and the widow were all gone. The court session was over and the crowd had dispersed. The square, flooded with hot sunshine, spread wide and empty before the gaze of the merchant, as if there had never been any crowd here, as if all that had happened here half an hour ago had been a dream, a vision that had faded.

Two men of the watch sauntered about lazily, while a third, with legs wide apart, sat in the shade of the dais, rewrapping the rags round his head-knocker.

“My bag!” howled the merchant. “Where is my bag with money!”

He was answered with a loud guffaw and obscene swearing.

“He wants some more!” cried the guard with the knocker. “One dose is not enough for him! Just hold him a minute, will you!”

Hearing these words, the merchant at last understood what had befallen him and why he felt such a dull throbbing pain at the back of his head.

“Robbers! Thieves!” he howled, and rushed off to the palace, followed by the guffaws land profanities of the guards.

What happened to him thereafter, whether he succeeded in gaining admission to the palace and laying his complaint before the Khan, and how this new quarrel with the grandee ended—we know not. Nor do we know the further destinies of the others—the imprisoned Agabek, the passionate Arzi-bibi, and the rest. With these lines they quit our book, in which they found a place only in so far as they came in contact with Khoja Nasreddin, shining with the reflected light of his unfading glory; the moment he parts with them, that light pales and dies, and all of them are plunged before our eyes into the gloom of non-being, the rayless chasm of oblivion.  {442} 

For they themselves, by reason of their utter spiritual insignificance, are incapable of leaving any mark in the world.

And so, on his homeward way, Khoja Nasreddin rid himself of the numerous travelling companions whom fate had sent him upon this journey. None but the thief was with him now.

Together at early morn they quitted the busy and noisy city of Kokand.

The already awakened bazaar accompanied them a long way with its predatory roar. An incessant stream of carts, caravans, and horsemen passed them from all sides, from all the nine gates of Kokand, hastening towards the mart; the new day promised the same as the day before—blasphemous worship of the god of gain, deceit, and cunning.

Beyond the city, all was quiet in the gardens and orchards, which were still shady and moist. Here reigned a deep shining peace, so hazily blue and sun-kissed as if it had just been born from the heavenly misty blue, It was here that Kokand said its farewell word to Khoja Nasreddin—here behind the low dilapidated wall of a little garden sweet children's voices rang out in song:

Khoja Nasreddin stopped his ass, dismounted, and made a respectful salaam towards the garden wall. He  {443}  was saluting Kokand, which had rewarded his good work with this song.

They passed the last garden, and came to low-lying land, where ricefields gleamed in the sun with a white incandescence. The tomb of Father Turakhon was not far away from here.

Khoja Nasreddin embraced the thief, and said:

“We part now. Give my greeting to Turakhon, pray him to give you strength for a continued life of virtue.”

There followed a tender leave-taking with the long-eared one. The thief kissed his nose and combed the little tuft on his tail for the last time with a wooden curry-comb.

“When shall I see you two again?” said the thief.

“I do not know,” said Khoja Nasreddin. “But remember, the world is open to you from end to end, as it is to me. Haply we shall meet again. Every parting contains the seed of a new meeting.”

Here they took leave of each other. Slowly, with hanging head, the thief departed down a side path that led to the tomb of Turakhon.

Khoja Nasreddin rode on; ahead of him could already be heard the hum and roar of the high road; half an hour later it had received him into its turbid seething torrent.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE CONCLUDING

There remains but little to tell—how Guljan returned and how she and Khoja Nasreddin met.

He forestalled her by one day. Returning home at nightfall, he went straight to bed, being extremely fatigued by the journey. He made his bed on the flat roof.  {444}  In the morning, roused by the sun, he glanced down and cried out in a furious voice:

“What are you doing, despised bread-cake eater! Haply you have decided to become a fig eater as well?”

This shout was addressed to the ass. Khoja Nasreddin had forgotten to shut the gate into the garden the previous night, and the ass had got in and worked wanton ruin among the fig-trees, which he had stripped of both the fruit and the leaves.

He was forthwith expelled by means of a stick, after which Khoja Nasreddin was kept busy for a long time trying to disguise the more obvious signs of damage. He still had lots of things to see to—to take the cooking-pot to be mended, to pay the butcher, to loosen the earth round the vines, and—most important of all!—to mend the garden wall.

To this last task he addressed himself first without delay. He dug a hole in the ground and mixed a mortar consisting half of clay and half of shredded straw. And that was all he managed to do when a waggon appeared from round the corner, and his ears were assailed all at once by seven ringing voices, over which preponderated a powerful eighth belonging to Guljan.

“I salute you, my dear husband! How did you get on here without me?”

“O, quite well,” said Khoja Nasreddin, helping his offspring down from the waggon and kissing each in turn. “I missed you all, and kept looking forward to your return.”

Resting a hand on his shoulder, Guljan alighted from the waggon, and the first thing she beheld on looking round was the hole in the garden wall.

“What about the wall?”  {445} 

Khoja Nasreddin dropped his eyes in confusion.

“I could not find time for it, I know not why. What with one thing and another, I was so busy. . . .”

“Look!” Guljan cried, angrily. “Look at that man! In three months, three whole months, he has not been able to see to such a trifle!”

In finishing this our second book about Khoja Nasreddin, we should have liked to be able to reassure the reader that all the actors therein, not excluding, of course, the venerable sage of the brotherhood of the Silent and Sapient Dervishes, attained the happy ending which they deserved.

Truth, however, compels us to confess with sorrow that the venerable one did not live to see Khoja Nasreddin again. He died, or, as he would have expressed it, passed into another higher state. Possibly, nay, almost certainly, the ancient dervish himself would not have considered this passage a matter for sorrowful reflection, but we, who are still remote from the rarefied heights of his wisdom, are unable to conceal the grief that overwhelms us over his nameless grave.

For he had died as becomes a true dervish, without disclosing his name, and in that very namelessness his grave suddenly acquired a sublime human meaning, implicit in the words—Here lies a Man.

And that is how Khoja Nasreddin understood that grave, when he heard of the old sage's decease from a beggar, who had arranged his burial.

That beggar, in showing Khoja Nasreddin to his grave, had related on the way:

“I was with him till the last. He died in silence, true to his vow, and only towards the very end did he whisper, ‘Take the money under my head and give my body  {446}  a simple burial. All that remains give away to the poor. . . .’ He died with such a light of joy upon his face that I was astonished.”

“Leave me by myself,” Khoja Nasreddin said, and his companion departed. Thereat he knelt before the grave, which did not have even a simple stone upon it. Life itself, however, took care of its adornment: here and there upon the little mound young grass was pushing through, and a tiny flower had made its home at the head of the grave—a blue drop that had fallen upon it from heaven together with yesterday's rain.

Khoja Nasreddin tarried long in the cemetery, mentally conversing with the dead. Darkness fell, the air became fresh, and the stars lit up in the dark sky.

Khoja Nasreddin said:

“Farewell, venerable sage. I shall visit you once in a while.”

And he heard a soothing answer, conveyed to his mind through his heart—not in words, but in a warm wave.

“Set your mind at ease about the lake,” continued Khoja Nasreddin. “I have done everything that I saw fit, and done it well. I am glad if by my modest aid you have been enabled to pass into the higher state of immortal existence. Of one thing, though, I am guilty—I have not succeeded in finding my faith. Truth to tell, I relied upon your promise to help me in that search—but you went land . . . er . . . passed to another state without waiting. . . . Now, of course, I shall try to find it myself, but I know not whether I shall succeed.”

Majestically, and solemnly, in the company of the stars, the world floated through the blue gloom of night. The wind rustled in the trees, the nocturnal birds cried, the dewy verdure smelt sweetly and Khoja Nasreddin's heart beat high within his breast. In all this he suddenly  {447}  perceived his faith, felt it with absolute certainty, albeit he could not yet give it a name. His heart overflowing with rapture and the joy of boundless love for the world, himself aware of a similar answering love from the living world, he mingled and merged with all the animate things around him without losing himself, and entered within the portal of one of those precious moments, when man makes contact with the great and eternal whirligig of life, to which death has no access.

His faith sounded ever louder within his soul, and brimmed over, but the word for it, the one and only wondrous word, eluded him. He knew it was there, somewhere near, and he strained all his powers in order that the flame of his soul rise to his mind and kindle that great word within it; and when, at last, he seemed to be swooning with the violence of his efforts, the word suddenly flashed within him with a blinding, dazzling light, and, flying to his lips, seared them with its invisible flame.

“Life!” he cried, quivering, unaware of the tears that streamed down his face.

And everything around him quivered in startled response—the wind, the leaves, the grass, and the distant stars.

Strange—he had always known that simple word, but never till now had he probed its fathomless depths, and now that he had plumbed them, that word became all-comprehensive and infinite to him.

From that memorable day, when the prophetic word had been revealed to him at the graveside of the old dervish, he began to live differently—to live in lucid serenity, untroubled and undisturbed by doubts, unoppressed by the confusion and seeming chaos of the world he lived in, for he now held the true and trustworthy key to  {448}  everything. The further story of his life, however, will make a new book to be written by someone else, by our successor, who goes after us.

Our labours here are ended, and we take leave of Khoja Nasreddin. In mind, of course, we shall return to him many a time to hold mental converse with him on a variety of subjects and matters that we shall meet with upon Life's road, but to pen and paper we shall return no more, for we have said of him all that we know and all that we wished to say.

1954

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics