CONCERNING CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
If we wished to stay in any place for more than a day or two, Rashîd,
upon arrival, wandered through the markets and inquired what dwellings
were to let, while I sat down and waited in some coffee-house. Within
an hour he would return with tidings of a decent lodging, whither we
at once repaired with our belongings, stabling our horses at the
nearest khan.
My servant was an expert in the art of borrowing, so much so that no
sound of disputation on that subject reached my ears. It seemed as if
the neighbours came, delighted, of their own accord to lend us pots
and pans and other necessaries. He also did the cooking and the
marketing without a hitch, giving a taste of home to the small
whitewashed chamber, which we had rented for a week, it might be, or a
month at most.
When obliged to go out upon any errand, Rashîd was always worried
about leaving me alone, regarding me as careless of my property and so
untrusty from the point of view of one who idolised it.
'If your Honour should be seized with a desire to smell the air when I
am absent,' he would say, 'do not forget to lock the door and place
the key in the appointed hiding-place where I can find it. There are
wicked people in the world. And while you sit alone, keep our revolver
handy.'
He told me that in cities robberies of private dwellings are oftener
committed at high noon, when many houses are left empty, than at
night, when they are full of snoring folk. I did not doubt the truth
of this assertion, but differed from him in believing that we
harboured nothing likely to attract a thief.
'I would not lose the buckle of a strap, a single grain of sesame, by
such foul means,' he would reply with vehemence.
One morning--it was in Damascus--he went out, after imploring me as
usual to take care of everything. The room we occupied was at the end
of a blind alley, up a flight of nine stone steps. The alley led into
a crowded, narrow street, bordered with shops of many-coloured wares,
which at that point was partly shaded by a fine old ilex tree. From
where I sprawled upon a bed of borrowed cushions in the room, reading
a chap-book I had lately purchased--_The Rare Things of Abu Nawwâs_--I
saw the colour and the movement of that street as at the far end of a
dark kaleidoscope, for all the space between was in deep shadow.
When a man turned up our alley--a most rare occurrence--I noticed his
appearance. It was rather strange. He wore an old blue shirt, and on
his head a kind of turban, but of many colours and, unlike any I had
ever seen upon the natives of the country, with an end or streamer
hanging loose upon one side. In complexion, too, he was a good deal
darker than a Syrian, and yet had nothing of the negro in his looks.
Something furtive in his manner of approach amused me, as suggestive
of the thief of Rashîd's nightmares. I moved into the darkest corner
of the room and lay quite still. He climbed our steps and filled the
doorway, looking in.
It happened that Rashîd had left a bag of lentils, bought that
morning, just inside. The thief seized that and, thinking he was
unobserved, was going to look round for other spoil, when I sat up and
asked to know his business. He gave one jump, replied: 'It is no
matter,' and was gone immediately. I watched him running till he
vanished in the crowded street.
Rashîd returned. I told him what had happened in his absence, but he
did not smile. He asked me gravely to describe the man's appearance,
and, when I did so, groaned: 'It is a Nûri (gipsy). Who knows their
lurking-places? Had it been a townsman or a villager I might perhaps
have caught him and obtained redress.' He said this in a manner of
soliloquy before he turned to me, and, with reproachful face,
exclaimed:
'He stole our bag of lentils and you watched him steal it! You had at
hand our good revolver, yet you did not shoot!'
'Why should I shoot a man for such a trifle?'
'It is not the dimensions or the value of the object stolen that your
Honour ought to have considered, but the crime! The man who steals a
bag of lentils thus deliberately is a wicked man, and when a man is
wicked he deserves to die; and he expects it.'
I told him that the gipsy was quite welcome to the lentils, but he
would not entertain that point of view. After trying vainly to
convince me of my failure to perform a social duty, he went out to the
establishment of a coffee-seller across the street, who kept his cups
and brazier in the hollow trunk of the old ilex tree, and set stools
for his customers beneath its shade, encroaching on the public street.
Thither I followed after a few minutes, and found him telling
everybody of the theft. Those idlers all agreed with him that it was
right to shoot a thief.
'All for a bag of lentils!' I retorted loftily. 'God knows I do not
grudge as much to any man.'
At that there rose a general cry of 'God forbid!' while one explained:
'It were a sin to refuse such a thing to a poor man in need who came
and begged for it in Allah's name. But men who take by stealth or
force are different. Think if your Honour had destroyed that thief,
the rascal would not now be robbing poorer folk, less able to sustain
the loss! Suppose that bag of lentils had been all you had! There may
be people in the world as poor as that.'
'Why should I kill a man who offered me no violence?' I asked
defiantly.
'Why should you not do so, when the man is evidently wicked?'
'Why do the Franks object to killing wicked people?' asked the
coffee-seller with a laugh. 'Why do they nourish good and bad in their
society?'
'It is because they are without religion,' muttered one man in his
beard.
An elder of superior rank, who overheard, agreed with him, pronouncing
in a tone of gentle pity:
'It is because they lose belief in Allah and the life to come. They
deem this fleeting life the only one vouchsafed to man, and death the
last and worst catastrophe that can befall him. When they have killed
a man they think they have destroyed him quite; and, as each one of
them fears such destruction for himself if it became the mode, they
condemn killing in their laws and high assemblies. We, when we kill a
person, know that it is not the end. Both killed and killer will be
judged by One who knows the secrets of men's breasts. The killed is
not deprived of every hope. For us, death is an incident: for them,
the end. Moreover, they have no idea of sacrifice. Killing, with them,
is always the result of hate.'
'What does your Honour mean by that last saying?' I inquired with
warmth.
The old man smiled on me indulgently as he made answer sadly:
'Be not offended if we speak our mind before you. We should not do so
if we wished you ill. Here, among us, it is not an unheard-of thing
for men to kill the creatures they love best on earth; nor do men
blame them when, by so doing, they have served the cause of God, which
is the welfare of mankind. Thus it was of old the rule, approved of
all the world, that every Sultan of the line of Othman had to kill his
brothers lest they should rise against him and disturb the peace of
all the realm. Was it not like depriving life of all its sweetness
thus to destroy their youth's companions and their nearest kin? Yet,
though their hearts were in the bodies of their victims, they
achieved it. And the victims met their death with the like fortitude,
all save a few of less heroic mould.
'Now, I have read some histories written by the Europeans. They do not
understand these things at all. They think us merely cruel--just as
we, in the same unperceiving manner, think them merely covetous. Yet I
disagree with your good servant in the present case. I think that you
were right to spare that Nûri.'
Rashîd, who, with the rest of the assembly, had listened to the old
man's speech with reverence, exclaimed:
'It is not just this Nûri or that bag of lentils, O my lord! My master
is thus careless always. He never locks the door when he goes out
during my absence, though all that we possess is in that room.'
'Thy lord is young.' The old man smiled upon me kindly, and proceeded
then to read me a mild lecture on my carelessness, detailing to me the
precautions which he took himself, habitually, when shutting up his
house or place of business, including pious formulas which he made me
repeat after him. While he was thus instructing me, Rashîd went off,
returning in about three minutes with a face of indignation strangely
and incongruously mixed with triumph.
Taking his stand before me in the very middle of the seated crowd, he
said:
'You left the door wide open even after you had seen that Nûri steal
the bag of lentils. I have this minute been to look and I have seen.
With our revolver lying in the full light of the doorway! Merciful
Allah! What is to be done with you?'
The old man, my preceptor, laughed aloud; and at the sound Rashîd,
whose desperation was not acted, wept real tears. The people round us
tried in vain to comfort him.