(CALLED "OF BARAK'ID")[21]
Al Harith, son of Hammam, related: I had determined on journeying
from Barak'id; but now I noted the signs of the coming feast, and I
disliked to set forth from the city until I had witnessed there the day
of adornment. So when it came on with its rites, bounden or of free
will, and brought up its horsemen and footmen, I followed the tradition
in new apparel, and went forth with the people to keep festival. Now
when the congregation of the prayer-court was gathered and ranged,
and the crowding took men's breath, there appeared an old man in a
pair of cloaks, and his eyes were closed: and he bore on his arm what
was like a horse-bag, and had for a guide an old woman like a goblin.
Then he stopped, as stops one tottering to sink, and greeted with the
greeting of him whose voice is feeble. And when he had made an end of
his salutation he circled his five fingers in his wallet, and brought
forth scraps of paper that had been written on with colors of dyes in
the season of leisure, and gave them to his old beldame, bidding her to
detect each simple one. So whenever she perceived of any that his hand
was moist in bounty, she cast one of the papers before him. Said Al
Harith: Now cursed fate allotted to me a scrap whereon was written:
Sure I have become crushed with pains and fears;
Tried by the proud one, the crafty, the assailer,
By the traitor among my brethren, who hates me for my need,
By jading from those who work to undo my toils.
How oft do I burn through spites and penury and wandering;
How oft do I tramp in shabby garb, thought of by none.
Oh, would that fortune when it wronged me had slain my babes!
For were not my cubs torments to me and ills,
I would not have addressed my hopes to kin or lord:
Nor would I draw my skirts along the track of abasement.
For my garret would be more seemly for me, and my rags more honorable.
Now is there a generous man who will see that the lightening of my
loads must be by a denar;
Or will quench the heat of my anxiety by a shirt and trousers?
Said Al Harith, son of Hammam: Now when I had looked on the garb of
the verses, I longed for a knowledge of him who wove it, the broiderer
of its pattern. And my thought whispered to me that the way to him was
through the old woman, and advised me that a fee to an informer is
lawful. So I watched her, and she was wending through the rows, row by
row, begging a dole of the hands, hand by hand. But not at all did the
trouble prosper her; no purse shed aught upon her palm. Wherefore when
her soliciting was baffled, and her circuit wearied her, she commended
herself to God with the "Return," and addressed herself to collect
the scraps of paper. But the devil made her forget the scrap that I
held, and she turned not aside to my spot: but went back to the old man
weeping at the denial, complaining of the oppression of the time. And
he said, "In God's hands I am, to God I commit my case; there is no
strength or power but by God," then he recited:
There remains not any pure, not any sincere; not a spring, not a
helper:
But of baseness there is one level; not any is trusty, not any of
worth.
Then said he to her, "Cheer thy soul and promise it good; collect the
papers and count them." She said, "Truly I counted them when I asked
them back, and I found that one of them the hand of loss had seized."
He said, "Perdition on thee, wretch; shall we be hindered, alas, both
of the prey and the net, both of the brand and the wick? Surely this
is a new handful to the load." Then did the old woman hasten back,
retracing her path to seek her scroll; and when she drew near to me
I put with the paper a dirhem and a mite, and said to her, "If thou
hast a fondness for the polished, the engraved (and I pointed to the
dirhem), show me the secret, the obscure; but if thou willest not to
explain, take then the mite and begone." Then she inclined to the
getting of that whole full moon, the bright-faced, the large. So she
said, "Quit contention and ask what thou wilt." Whereupon I asked
her of the old man and his country, of the poem, and of him who wove
its mantle. She said, "Truly, the old man is of the people of Seruj,
and he it was who broidered that woven poem." Then she snatched the
dirhem with the snatch of a hawk, and shot away as shoots the darting
arrow. But it troubled my heart that perchance it was Abu Zayd who
was indicated, and my grief kindled at his mishap with his eyes. And
I should have preferred to have gone suddenly on him and talked to
him, that I might test the quality of my discernment upon him. But
I was unable to come to him save by treading on the necks of the
congregation, a thing forbidden in the law; and, moreover, I was
unwilling that people should be annoyed by me, or that blame should
arrive to me. So I cleaved to my place, but made his form the fetter of
my sight, until the sermon was ended, and to leap to him was lawful.
Then I went briskly to him and examined him in spite of the closing
of his eyelids. And, lo! my shrewdness was as the shrewdness of Ibn
'Abbas, and my discernment as the discernment of Iyas. So at once I
made myself known, and presented him with one of my tunics, and bade
him to my bread. And he was joyful at my bounty and recognition, and
acceded to the call to my loaves; and he set forth, and my hand was
his leading cord, my shadow his conductor; and the old woman was the
third prop of the pot; yes, by the Watcher from whom no secret is
hidden! Now, when he had taken seat in my nest, and I had set before
him what hasty meal was in my power, he said, "Harith, is there with us
a third?" I said, "There is none but the old woman." He said, "From her
no secret is withheld." Then he opened his eyes and stared round with
the twin balls, and, lo! the two lights of his face kindled like the
Farkadan. And I was joyful at the safety of his sight, but marveled at
the strangeness of his ways. Nor did quiet possess me, nor did patience
fit with me, until I asked him, "What led thee to feign blindness;
thou, with thy journeying in desolate places, and thy traversing of
wildernesses, and thy pushing into far lands?" But he made show as if
his mouth were full, and kept as though busied with his meal, until,
when he had fulfilled his need, he sharpened his look upon me and
recited:
Since Time (and he is the father of mankind) makes himself blind to
the right in his purposes and aims,
I too have assumed blindness, so as to be called a brother of it. What
wonder that one should match himself with his father!
Then said he to me, "Rise, and go to the closet, and fetch me alkali
that may clear the eye, and clean the hand, and soften the skin, and
perfume the breath, and brace the gums, and strengthen the stomach: and
let it be clean of box, fragrant of odor, new of pounding, delicate
of powdering; so that one touching it shall count it to be eye-paint,
and one smelling it shall fancy it to be camphor. And join with it
a toothpick choice in material, delightful in use, goodly in shape,
that invites to the repast: and let it have the slimness of a lover,
and the polish of a sword, and the sharpness of the lance of war, and
the pliancy of a green bough." Said Al Harith: Then I rose to do what
he bade that I might rid him of the trace of his food; and thought
not that he purposed to deceive by sending me into the closet; nor
suspected that he was mocking of his messenger when he called for the
alkali and toothpick. But when I returned with what was asked for, in
less than the drawing of a breath, I found that the hall was empty, and
that the old man and woman had sped away. Then was I extreme in anger
at his deceit, and I pressed on his track in search of him; but he was
as one who is sunk in the sea, or has been borne aloft to the clouds of
heaven.