THE UNWALLED VINEYARD
One morning, as we rode along, we came to vineyards on a valley-side.
Rashîd dismounted and began to pick the grapes. Suleymân dismounted
likewise, and invited me to do the same.
'But it is stealing,' I objected.
'Allah! Allah!' moaned Suleymân, as one past patience. He hung his
head a moment, limp all over, as if the spirit had been taken out of
him; then called out to Rashîd, who was devouring grapes:
'Return, O malefactor, O most wicked robber! Thou art guilty of a
fearful crime. Thy master says so.'
Rashîd came back to us immediately, bringing a purple bunch, which he
was going to give to me when Suleymân prevented him, exclaiming:
'Wouldst dishonour our good lord by placing in his hands the fruit of
infamy, as if he were a vile accomplice of thy crime? For shame, O
sinful depredator, O defrauder of the poor!'
Rashîd gaped at him, and then looked at me. I held out my hand for the
grapes.
'Touch them not, for they are stolen!' cried Suleymân.
'I know not what thou wouldst be at, O evil joker,' said Rashîd, with
warmth; 'but if thou callest me a thief again, I'll break thy head.'
'_I_ call thee thief? Thou art mistaken, O my soul! By Allah! I am but
the mouthpiece of thy master here, who says that to pluck grapes out
of this vineyard is to steal.'
Rashîd looked towards me, half incredulous, and, seeing that I ate the
grapes with gusto, answered with a laugh:
'He does not understand our customs, that is all. By Allah! there is
no man in this land so churlish or so covetous as to begrudge to
thirsty wayfarers a bunch of grapes out of his vineyard or figs or
apricots from trees beside the road. To go into the middle of the
vineyard and pick fruit there would be wrong, but to gather from the
edge is quite allowable. If we were to come with sumpter-mules and
load them with the grapes, that would be robbery; but who but the most
miserly would blame us for picking for our own refreshment as we pass,
any more than he would stop the needy from gleaning in the fields when
corn is cut. What your Honour thinks a crime, with us is reckoned as a
kindness done and taken.'
'Aye,' said Suleymân, whose gift was for interpretations, 'and in the
same way other matters which your Honour blames in us as faults are in
reality but laudable and pious uses. Thus, it is customary here among
us to allow the servant to help himself a little to his master's
plenty in so far as food and means of living are concerned. The
servant, being wholly given to his master's service, having no other
means of living, still must live; aye, and support a wife and children
if he have them; and it is the custom of our great ones to pay little
wages, because they have but little ready money. Upon the other hand,
they have possessions and wide influence, in which each servant is
their partner to a small extent. No one among them would object to
such small profits as that cook of yours, whom you condemned so
fiercely, made while in your service. If the master does not care to
let the servant gain beyond his wages, he must pay him wages high
enough for his existence--certainly higher wages than you paid that
cook.'
'I paid him what he asked,' I said indignantly.
'And he asked what he thought sufficient in consideration of the
profits he felt sure of making in your service--a foreigner and a
young man of many wants.'
'I had told him that thou art of all men living the most generous!'
put in Rashîd. My dismissal of that cook had long been rankling in his
mind. 'It is the custom of the country,' he subjoined, defiantly.
'It is a custom which I very heartily dislike,' I answered. 'It seems
to me that people here are always grasping. Look at the prices which
the merchants ask, the way they bargain. They fight for each para as
if it were their soul's salvation. They are mad for gain.'
'Again you are mistaken,' answered Suleymân. 'They do not ask too much
from avarice, but for the sake of pastime. Indeed, you will find
sometimes that the price they ask is less than the real value of the
object, and still they let the buyer beat it down--for mere amusement
of the argument and for the sake of seeing what devices he will use.
In addition, they will give the buyer a nice cup of coffee--sometimes
two cups of coffee if the argument is long--and as many glasses full
of sherbet as he cares to drink.'
'And if the buyer will not pay the price, though much reduced, the
merchant often will present the object to him, as happened to your
Honour in Aleppo only the other day,' put in Rashîd.
'That was only a device to shame me into buying it.'
'No, by your Honour's leave!'
'Rashîd may well be right,' said Suleymân, 'although I cannot judge of
the peculiar instance since I was not present.'
Just then we came around a shoulder of the hill, and saw some people,
men and women, harvesting the grapes in a much larger vineyard.
'Now you shall see!' exclaimed Rashîd exultantly. He got down off his
horse and stooped over the nearest vines. The workers, seeing him, set
up a shout of 'Itfaddalû!' (perform a kindness), the usual form of
hospitable invitation. Since we refused to join them in the middle of
the vineyard a man came wading towards us, bearing on his head a
basket tray piled up with grapes. Suleymân picked out three monstrous
clusters, one for each of us, with blessings on the giver. To my offer
of payment the fellâh opposed a serious refusal, saying: 'It would be
a shame for me.'
'You see now!' said Rashîd, as we resumed our way. 'It is not robbery
for wayfarers to take refreshment.'
'And as for the custom of the merchants,' added Suleymân, 'in asking a
much higher price than that which they at last accept, what would you
have? Those merchants are rich men, who have enough for all their
needs. Their aim is not that of the Frankish traders: to increase
their wealth by all means and outdistance rivals. Their object is to
pass the time agreeably and, to that end, detain the customer as long
as possible, the more so if he be a person like your Honour, who loves
jokes and laughter. The greatest disappointment to our merchants is
for the customer to pay the price first asked and so depart
immediately. I have a rare thing in my memory which hits the case.
'Everyone has heard of Abdu, the great Egyptian singer, who died
recently. His only daughter met her death in a distressing way. It was
her wedding night, and bride and bridegroom died of suffocation owing
to the scent of flowers and perfumes in the bedroom where they lay. At
sight of the two corpses Abdu broke his lute and swore a solemn oath
never to sing again.
'He was rich--for he had earned much by his singing, often as much as
a hundred pounds a night--and he sought some means to pass the time
till death should come for him. He took a shop in Cairo, and hoped for
pleasant conversation in the course of bargaining. But the Egyptians
wished to hear him sing again, and men of wealth among them planned
together to buy up his whole stock-in-trade immediately. This happened
thrice, to the despair of Abdu, who saw his hope of pastime taken from
him. In the end he was compelled to get the Câdi to release him from
his vow, and sing again, although he would have much preferred to be a
merchant. That shows the difference between a trader in our cities
and one in any city of the Franks, whose sole desire is to sell
quickly and repeatedly.'
'There is no accounting for tastes,' was my reply. 'For my part I
detest this bargaining.'
'When that is understood by decent merchants they will not afflict
thee. They will ask thee a fair price and let thee go--though with
regret, for they would rather spend an hour in talk with thee,' said
Suleymân indulgently. 'It is a game of wits which most men like.' He
shrugged his shoulders.
'Your Honour was relating yesterday,' observed Rashîd, with grievance
in his tone, 'how an Englishman of your acquaintance in our country
accused his servants of dishonesty. Doubtless he distrusted them and
locked things up, which is the same as saying to them: "It is my locks
and my vigilance against your wits." Few men of spirit could resist a
challenge such as that, which is indeed to urge men on to robbery. But
where the master trusts his servants and leaves all things to their
care, only a son of infamy would dream of robbing him.'
'Let me propound the matter otherwise for understanding. Seeing that
open vineyard, with a wall but two stones high, no man would think of
plundering the crop of grapes. But surround that vineyard with a high,
strong wall, and every son of Adam will conceive the project of
clearing it of every cluster.'
'I should never think of such a thing.'
'That is because your Honour is accustomed to restraints and
barriers,' said Suleymân. 'We, in the Sultan's dominions, have more
freedom, praise to Allah! For us a high wall is an insult, save in
cities.'