Oriental Encounters Part 3

We had arrived in a village of the mountains late one afternoon, and were sauntering about the place, when some rude children shouted: 'Hi, O my uncle, you have come in two!'

It was the common joke at sight of European trousers, which were rare in those days. But Suleyman was much offended upon my account. He turned about and read those children a tremendous lecture, rebuking them severely for thus presuming to insult a stranger and a guest. His condemnation was supported on such lofty principles as no man who possessed a particle of religion or good feeling could withstand; and his eloquence was so commanding yet persuasive that, when at length he moved away, not children only but many also of the grown-up people followed him.

The village was high up beneath the summit of a ridge, and from a group of rocks within a stone's throw of it could be seen the sea, a great blue wall extending north and south. We perched among those rocks to watch the sunset. The village people settled within earshot, some below and some above us. Presently an old man said:

'Thou speakest well, O sage! It is a sin for them to cry such things behind a guest of quality. Their misbehaviour calls for strong correction. But I truly think that no child who has heard your Honour's sayings will ever be so impudent again.'

'Aman!'[3] cried one of the delinquents. 'Allah knows that our intention was not very evil.'

I hastened to declare that the offence was nothing. But Suleyman would not allow me to decry it.

'Your Honour is as yet too young,' he said severely, 'to understand the mystic value of men's acts and words. A word may be well meant and innocent, and yet the cause of much disaster, possessing in itself some special virtue of malignity. You all know how the jann[4] attend on careless words; how if I call a goat, a dog, or cat by its generic name without pointing to the very animal intended, a jinni will as like as not attach himself to me, since many of the jann are called by names of animals. You all know also that to praise the beauty of a child, without the offer of that child to Allah as a sacrifice, is fatal; because there is unseen a jealous listener who hates and would deform the progeny of Eve. Such facts as those are known to every ignoramus, and their cause is plain. But there exists another and more subtle danger in the careless use of words, particularly with regard to personal remarks, like that of these same children when they cried to our good master: 'Thou hast come in two,' directing the attention to a living body. I have a rare thing in my memory which perhaps may lead you to perceive my meaning darkly.

'A certain husbandman (fellah) was troubled with a foolish wife.

Having to go out one day, he gave her full instructions what to do about the place, and particularly bade her fix her mind upon their cow, because he was afraid the cow might stray, as she had done before, and cause ill-feeling with the neighbours. He never thought that such a charge to such a person, tending to concentrate the woman's mind upon a certain object, was disastrous. The man meant well; the woman, too, meant well. She gave her whole mind to obey his parting words. Having completed every task within the house, she sat down under an olive tree which grew before the door, and fixed her whole intelligence in all its force upon the black-and-white cow, the only living thing in sight, which was browsing in the s.p.a.ce allowed by a short tether. So great did the responsibility appear to her that she grew anxious, and by dint of earnest gazing at the cow came to believe that there was something wrong with it. In truth the poor beast had exhausted all the gra.s.s within its reach, and it had not entered her ideas to move the picket.

'At length a neighbour pa.s.sed that way. She begged him, of his well-known kindness, to inspect the cow and tell her what the matter really was. This neighbour was a wag, and knew the woman's species; he also knew the cow as an annoyance, for ever dragging out its peg and straying into planted fields. After long and serious examination he declared: "The tail is hurting her and ought to be removed. See how she swishes it from side to side. If the tail is not cut off immediately, the cow will die one day."

'"Merciful Allah!" cried the woman. "Please remove it for me. I am all alone, and helpless."

'The man lifted up an axe which he was carrying and cut off the cow's tail near the rump. He gave it to the woman and she thanked him heartily. He went his way, while she resumed her watch upon the cow.

And still she fancied that its health was not as usual.

'Another neighbour came along. She told him of her fears, and how the Sheykh Mukarram, of his well-known kindness, had befriended her by cutting off the damaged tail.

'"Of course," cried the newcomer, "that accounts for it! The animal is now ill-balanced. It is always a mistake to take from one end without removing something also from the other. If thou wouldst see that cow in health again, the horns must go."

'"Oh, help me; I am all alone! Perform the operation for me," said the woman.

'Her friend sawed off the horns and gave them to her. She exhausted thanks. But still, when he was gone, the cow appeared no better. She grew desperate.

'By then the news of her anxiety about the cow had spread through all the village, and every able body came to help her or look on. They cut the udder and the ears, and then the legs, and gave them to her, and she thanked them all with tears of grat.i.tude. At last there was no cow at all to worry over. Seeing the diminished carcase lying motionless, the woman smiled and murmured: "Praise to Allah, she is cured at last; she is at rest! Now I am free to go into the house and get things ready for my lord's return."

'Her lord returned at dusk. She told him: "I have been obedient. I watched the cow and tended her for hours. She was extremely ill, but all the neighbours helped to doctor her, performing many operations, and we were able to relieve her of all pain, the praise to Allah! Here are the various parts which they removed. They gave them to me, very kindly, since the cow is ours."

'Without a word the man went out to view the remnant of the cow. When he returned he seized the woman by the shoulders, and, gazing straight into her eyes, said grimly: "Allah keep thee! I am going to walk this world until I find one filthier than thou art. And if I fail to find one filthier than thou art, I shall go on walking--I have sworn it--to the end."'

Suleyman broke off there suddenly, to the surprise of all.

'I fail to see how that rare thing applies to my case,' I observed, as soon as I felt sure that he had finished speaking.

'It does not apply to your case, but it does to others,' he replied on brief reflection. 'It is dangerous to put ideas in people's heads or rouse self-consciousness, for who can tell what demons lurk in people's brains.... But wait and I will find a rare thing suited to the present instance.'

'Say, O Sea of Wisdom, did he find one filthier than she was?'

'Of course he did.'

'Relate the sequel, I beseech thee.'

But Suleyman was searching in his memory for some event more clearly ill.u.s.trating the grave risks of chance suggestion. At length he gave a sigh of satisfaction, and then spoke as follows:

'There was once a Turkish pasha of the greatest, a benevolent old man, whom I have often seen. He had a long white beard, of which he was extremely proud, until one day a man, who was a wag, came up to him and said:

'"Excellency, we have been wondering: When you go to bed, do you put your beard inside the coverings or out?"

'The Pasha thought a moment, but he could not tell, for it had never come into his head to notice such a matter. He promised to inform his questioner upon the morrow. But when he went to bed that night he tried the beard beneath the bedclothes and above without success.

Neither way could he get comfort, nor could he, for the life of him, remember how the beard was wont to go. He got no sleep on that night or the next night either, for thinking on the problem thus presented to his mind. On the third day, in a rage, he called a barber and had the beard cut off. Accustomed as he was to such a ma.s.s of hair upon his neck, for lack of it he caught a cold and died.

'That story fits the case before us to a nicety,' said Suleyman in conclusion, with an air of triumph.

'What is the moral of it, deign to tell us, master!' the cry arose from all sides in the growing twilight.

'I suppose,' I hazarded, 'that, having had attention called to the peculiar clothing of my legs, I shall eventually have them amputated or wear Turkish trousers?'

'I say not what will happen; G.o.d alone knows that. But the mere chance that such catastrophes, as I have shown, may happen is enough to make wise people shun that kind of speech.'

I cannot to this day distinguish how much of his long harangue was jest and how much earnest. But the fellahin devoured it as pure wisdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Rare things.

[3] Equivalent to 'Pax.'

[4] Genii.

CHAPTER VI

NAWaDIR (_continued_)

'What happened to the man who went to seek one filthier than she was?

How could he ever find one filthier?' inquired Ras.h.i.+d, reverting to Suleyman's unfinished story of the foolish woman and her husband and the hapless cow, when we lay down to sleep that evening in the village guest-room. I also asked to hear the rest of that instructive tale.

Suleyman, sufficiently besought, raised himself upon an elbow and resumed the narrative. Ras.h.i.+d and I lay quiet in our wrappings.

'We had reached that point, my masters, where the injured husband, having seen the remnant of the cow, said to his wife: "Now, I am going to walk this world until I find one filthier than thou art; and if I fail to find one filthier than thou art I shall go on walking till I die." Well, he walked and he walked--for months, some people say, and others years--until he reached a village in Mount Lebanon--a village of the Maronites renowned for foolishness. It was the reputation of their imbecility which made him go there.'

'What was his name?' inquired Ras.h.i.+d, who liked to have things clear.

'His name?' said Suleyman reflectively, 'was Salih.'

'He was a Muslim?'

'Aye, a Muslim, I suppose--though, Allah knows, he may perhaps have been an Ismaili or a Druze. Any more questions? Then I will proceed.