THE STORY OF THE HUNCHBACK WITH THE TAILOR, THE JEW, THE CHRISTIAN, AND THE BARBER OF BAGHDAD
The Taylor's Narrative, Part 5.
ON THE NINETEENTH NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
All these friends whom I have invited, no more than I, your servant, are neither talkers nor inquisitive prying eyes; but they are bons vivants who banish all melancholy. The least of them is worth more, in my eyes than the most powerful king. Know, indeed, that each of them is famous throughout the city of Baghdad for a different dance and song. And, if it pleases you, I will dance for you and sing the dance and the song of each one of them.
So look at me! Here is the dance of my friend Zeïtoun, the masseur! Here it is! As for his song, here it is:
"She's sweet, my friend, and the sweetest lamb can't match her sweetness!
I love her with burning desire! And her too!
And she loves me so much that barely away from her for a moment,
I see her running up and throwing herself on my bed!
She's sweet, my friend, and the sweetest lamb can't match her sweetness!
But, O my master, continued the barber, as for my friend Hamid the sweeper, here is his dance!... You see how suggestive it is, and full of science and gaiety! But as for his song, here it is:
"My wife! she is miserly! and, to listen to her, I would die of hunger!
My wife! she is ugly! and, to listen to her, in my house forever I would shut myself up!
My wife! the bread, she hides it in the cupboard!
But if I don't eat bread, and as she is so ugly as to scare away a negro with a flat nose,
I will soon have to castrate myself forever!"
Then the barber, without giving me time to make a sign of protest, imitated all the dances of his friends and sang all their songs. Then he said to me: “Here is what my friends can do to me. So if you wanted to laugh, I advise you in your interest and for the pleasure of all of us, to come to my house to be part of our company and to leave there the friends with whom you told me you intended to go. For I see that you still have traces of fatigue on your face, and you are recovering from illness; and you may meet among the friends individuals who love idle talk and boring talkers and inquisitive indiscreet ones, and they will make you fall back into a disease much more serious than the first!"
So I said to the barber: “For today it is hardly possible for me to accept your invitation, but that will be for another day!" He answered me: "The thing which is most advantageous for you, I repeat it to you, is to hasten the moment of the visit to my house and to come without delay to taste all the urbanity of my friends and to take advantage of their admirable qualities. And so you will act as the poet says:
"Friend, never delay taking advantage of the enjoyment that is offered,
And never put off until tomorrow the pleasure that passes!
Because the pleasure does not pass every day
And the pleasure to your lips every day does not offer its lips.
Know that fortune is a woman and, like a woman, she varies!"
So, in front of all these harangues and all this chatter, I could not help laughing but, with my heart stuffed with heavy fury; then I said to him: “Now I command you to complete the operation for which I have called you, and to let me go in the way of Allah and under his holy protection; and on your side, you will go to find your friends who, at present, must be waiting for you impatiently!" He replied: "But why do you refuse? In truth, I ask only one thing of you: to let me introduce you to my friends, these delicious companions, who are far from being indiscreet people, because I assure you that once you have them you will no longer want to see others, and you will abandon your current friends!" I said to him: “May Allah increase even more the happiness you experience from their friendship! And, by the way, I promise you that one day I myself will invite them to come to a feast that I will give especially to them!"
So that accursed barber consented to agree with me, but said to me: "As long as I see that you prefer all the same for today the feast of your friends and their company to the company of my friends, have enough patience to wait for me to run home with all the food that I owe to your generosity; I will put them on the tablecloth in front of my guests, and, as my friends will not have the foolishness to be scandalized if I leave them alone to do honor to my tablecloth, I will tell them not to have to count on me nor to wait my return; and immediately I will come back to join you, and I will accompany you wherever you wish to go!" Then I exclaimed, 'Oh! there is no recourse nor power except in Allah the Most High, the Almighty! O man, go finally find your friends and rejoice with them in fulfillment, and let me go to find my friends who must await my arrival at precisely this hour!" And the barber said to me: “Oh no! I will never consent to let you go alone!" I answered him, making great efforts to not insult him: “But know finally that the place where I go can only be visited by me alone!" He said to me: “So I understand! I think you have a date with a woman! Because, without that, you would take me with you. And yet know that I deserve this honor more than anyone in the world and that in addition, I will be of great help to you for everything you want to do. And then I'm afraid that woman is a treacherous stranger. So, woe to you if you're all alone! You will certainly leave your soul there! Because this city of Baghdad hardly lends itself to these sorts of meetings, oh! no way! And especially since we have this new governor who is of a terrible rigor for these kinds of things; because it is said that he is without zebb or eggs and that it is out of hatred and jealousy that he punishes these kinds of adventures so severely!"
At these words, I could no longer sit still, and I cried out violently: “O you most accursed of the treacherous and the executioners! Are you, yes or no, going to put an end to all this chatter with which you bore me?” Then the barber consented to be silent for a good while during which he took up his razor again and finally finished shaving my whole head. But all this had made the time for the midday prayer come, and even the prayer must have already been quite advanced.
So I said to him, to be able to make him clear off: “Go to your friends and bring them all these dishes and all these drinks; and I, I promise to wait for your return so that you can accompany me to this appointment!" And I insisted a lot. So he said to me: “I can see that you want to circumvent me to get rid of me and go away alone. But I warn you that in doing so, you throw yourself into calamities from which you will no longer be able to find a way out or deliver yourself. I conjure you, therefore, in your interest, not to leave this place before I return to take you and accompany you to find out how your adventure will end!" I told him: “Yes! but, by Allah! don't be too slow to come back!"
Then the barber asked me to help him put on his back all the things I had given him, and on his head the two large trays of pastries, and, fully laden, he left my room. But, damn it! Scarcely was he outside when he called two porters, gave them his load, told them to take it all home to such and such a place; and he himself took refuge in a dark alley, waiting for my exit.
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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