THE STORY OF THE HUNCHBACK WITH THE TAILOR, THE JEW, THE CHRISTIAN, AND THE BARBER OF BAGHDAD
The Taylor's Narrative, Part 14.
ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
My brother El-Kouz examined the silver coins he had just received from the stranger and found that they were brand new and dazzlingly white. So he hastened to put them aside, in a special box, and said to himself: “Here are some coins that will bring me luck!"
For five months, the old sheik with the long white beard did not stop coming every day to give my brother El-Kouz some of these silver coins, white and new, for fresh meat of good quality; and each time, El-Kouz took care to put this money aside. But, one day, El-Kouz wanted to count all the money he had amassed in this way to buy beautiful sheep and especially some rams, which he wanted to train to fight among themselves, an exercise much sought after in Baghdad, my city. But no sooner had he opened the box in which he had put the white-bearded sheik's money than he noticed that there was no money in it, and he found only a few round pieces of white paper. At this sight, he began to beat himself hard on the face and head and to cry out in lament. And he was soon the center of a large number of passers-by, to whom he related his misadventure, without anyone being able to explain the cause of the disappearance of this money. And El-Kouz continued to shout and say: "May Allah grant that this cursed sheik returns now, and I will tear off his beard and turban with my own hands!"
Scarcely had he finished pronouncing these last words, when the old man suddenly appeared and quickly pushed through the assembled crowd and approached my brother the butcher, as if to give him some money, as was his wont. And immediately my brother rushed at him and held him in the chest, crying: “O Muslims, come and help me! Behold the cheeky thief!" But the sheik lost none of his great calm and, without moving, replied to my brother to be heard only by him: “Choose! do you prefer to be silent or do you prefer to compromise yourself publicly? The affront I will give you will be much more terrible than the one you want to charge me with!" El-Kouz answered: "But what affront can you make me, O sheik of bitumen, and in what way do you think to compromise me?" He said: "I will prove in front of everyone that you usually sell people human meat instead of sheep meat!" My brother replied: “You lie, O thousand times liar and thousand times accursed!" The sheik said: "No one is cursed and a liar but he who has in his shop, at this very moment, a corpse hanging from the hook of his butcher's shop instead of a sheep!" My brother protested sharply: “If the thing is proven as you say, O son of a bitch, my goods and my blood belong to you rightfully!" Then the sheik turned to the crowd and shouted with all his voice: “O all of you, my friends, look at this butcher! To this day he has deceived us all, and broken the precepts of our Book! This man, every day, instead of sheep, slaughters the sons of Adam and sells their meat to us as mutton! And if you want to verify the truth of what I say, all you have to do is come in and examine his shop!"
Immediately a clamor arose from the crowd, which rushed into my brother's shop and stormed it. And, for all to see, a dead man appeared hanging on the hook, flayed, prepared, cleaned, and gutted; and on the headboard, they saw three human heads flayed and cleaned and prepared in the oven to be sold! And, indeed, the sheik with the long white beard was none other than a sorcerer versed in the art of magic and spells and suddenly he had been able to make one thing something else for all to see.
At this sight, all the assistants threw themselves on my brother, shouting to him: “Impiety! sacrilege! cheat!" and fell upon him, some with sticks, others with whips; and the most desperate to deal him the cruelest blows were his old clients and the best of his friends. As for the old sheik, he took it upon himself to land a violent punch on my brother's eye, and instantly gouged it out. Then they took the alleged corpse of the slaughtered, they bound my brother El-Kouz, and everyone, preceded by the sheik, arrived before the executor of the law. And the sheik said to him: “O emir! here we bring into your hands, to suffer the penalty of his crimes, this man who, for a long time, slaughtered his fellows to sell their flesh as mutton. You only have to pronounce the sentence and make work the justice of Allah, because here are all the witnesses."
As for my brother, he defended himself in vain, the judge did not want to hear anything more and sentenced him to suffer five hundred blows of a stick on his back and behind! Then they confiscated all his goods and all his properties; and he was very lucky to have so many riches, for otherwise the penalty for him would have been death without remedy. Then the sentence of exile was pronounced against him.
My brother, one-eyed, his back bruised with blows, almost dying, left the town, and walked straight ahead, without knowing where, until he came to a distant town unknown to him. He stopped there and resolved to settle there and practice the trade of cobbler, which hardly requires any other capital than good hands.
He, therefore, fixed his habitual residence at the corner of two streets and set to work to earn his bread. But one day when he was sewing a piece to an old slipper, he heard the neighing of horses and the sound of many horsemen walking. He asked the cause of all this tumult and was told: “It is the king who is going, as usual, to hunt on foot and with hounds, accompanied by all his retinue." Then my brother El-Kouz left his needle and his hammer for a moment and rose to see the king's procession pass. And while he was on his feet and thoughtful, and dreaming of his past and present state, and of the circumstances which, as a famous butcher, had made him the last of the cobblers, the king came to pass at the head of his marvelous retinue; and, by chance, there was this coincidence that the king's eyes fell on the gouged eye of my brother El-Kouz. At this sight, the king changed color and exclaimed: “May Allah protect me from the misfortunes of this accursed and inauspicious day!" Then he immediately turned his mare around and turned back, he and all his retinue and all his soldiers. But at the same time, he ordered his slaves to seize my brother and give him the punishment he deserved. And immediately the slaves rushed on my brother El-Kouz and gave him so many blows that they left him for dead on the road. When they had moved away, El-Kouz got up and painfully regained his retreat under the little canvas that sheltered him at the corner of the street, and he was torn and barely alive. And as, by chance, a man from the king's retinue was late and passed in front of his retreat, he begged him to stop, told him of the treatment he had just undergone, and begged him to tell him the reason. The man burst out laughing and answered him: “My brother, know that our king cannot tolerate the sight of a one-eyed person, especially if the one-eyed person is blind in his left eye; it brings him bad luck, and he always has the one-eyed man killed without forgiveness. So I am very surprised that you are still alive."
At these words, my brother, without hearing more, picked up his tools and what remained of his strength, and, without delay, he fled and did not rest until he left the city. And he began to walk until he came to another town very far off, which had no king or tyrant like the other.
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.*
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