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Story Of The HumpbackStory Of The Humpback
Story Of The Humpback
There was, in ancient times, in the city of El-Basrah, a tailor who
enjoyed an ample income, and was fond of sport and merriment. He was in the
habit of going out occasionally with his wife, that they might amuse
themselves with strange and diverting scenes; and one day they went forth in
the afternoon, and, returning home in the evening, met a humpbacked man, whose
aspect was such as to excite laughter in the angry, and to dispel anxiety and
grief: so they approached him to enjoy the pleasure of gazing at him, and
invited him to return with them to their house, and to join with them in a
carousal that night.
He assented to their proposal; and after he had gone with them to the
house, the tailor went out to the market; night having then approached. He
bought some fried fish, and bread and limes and sweetmeat, and, returning with
them, placed the fish before the humpback, and they sat down to eat; and the
tailor`s wife took a large piece of fish, and crammed the humpback with it,
and, closing his mouth with her hand, said, By Allah, thou shalt not swallow
it but by gulping it at once, and I will not give thee time to chew it. He
therefore swallowed it; but it contained a large and sharp bone, which stuck
across in his throat, his destiny having so determined, and he expired. The
tailor exclaimed, There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the
Great! Alas, that this poor creature should not have died but in this manner
by our hands! - Wherefore this idling? exclaimed the woman. - And what can I
do? asked her husband. - Arise, she answered, and take him in thy bosom, and
cover him with a silk napkin: I will go out first, and do thou follow me, this
very night, and say, This is my son, and this is his mother; and we are going
to convey him to the physician, that he may give him some medicine.
No sooner had the tailor heard these words than he arose, and took the
humpback in his bosom. His wife, accompanying him, exclaimed, O my child! may
Allah preserve thee! Where is the part in which thou feelest pain; and where
hath this small-pox attacked thee? - So every one who saw them said, They
are conveying a child smitten with the small-pox. Thus they proceeded,
inquiring, as they went, for the abode of the physician; and the people
directed them to the house of a physician who was a Jew; and they knocked at
the door, and there came down to them a black slave-girl, who opened the
door, and beheld a man carrying (as she imagined) a child, and attended by its
mother; and she said, What is your business? - We have a child here, answered
the tailor`s wife, and we want the physician to see him: take, then, this
quarter of a piece of gold, and give it to thy master, and let him come down
and see my son; for he is ill. The girl, therefore, went up, and the tailor`s
wife, entering the vestibule, said to her husband, Leave the humpback here,
and let us take ourselves away. And the tailor, accordingly, set him up
against the wall, and went out with his wife.
The slave-girl, meanwhile, went in to the Jew, and said to him, Below,
in the house, is a sick person, with a woman and a man: and they have given me
a quarter of a piece of gold for thee, that thou mayest prescribe for them
what may suit his case. And when the Jew saw the quarter of a piece of gold,
he rejoiced, and, rising in haste, went down in the dark: and in doing so, his
foot struck against the lifeless humpback. O Ezra! he exclaimed - O Heavens
and the Ten Commandments! O Aaron, and Joshua son of Nun! It seemeth that I
have stumbled against this sick person, and he hath fallen down the stairs and
died! And how shall I go forth with one killed from my house? O Ezra`s
ass!^1 - He then raised him, and took him up from the court of the house to
his wife, and acquainted her with the accident. - Any why sittest thou here
idle? said she; for if thou remain thus until daybreak our lives will be lost:
let me and thee, then, take him up to the terrace, and throw him into the
house of our neighbour the Muslim; for he is the steward of the Sultan`s
kitchen, and often do the cats come to his house, and eat of the food which
they find there; as do the mice too; and if he remain there for a night, the
dogs will come down to him from the terraces and eat him up entirely. So the
Jew and his wife went up, carrying the humpback, and let him down by his hands
and feet to the pavement; placing him against the wall; which having done,
they descended.
[Footnote 1: `Ozeyr, or Ezra, "riding on an ass by the ruins of Jerusalem,
after it had been destroyed by the Chaldeans, doubted in his mind by what
means God could raise the city and its inhabitants again; whereupon God caused
him to die, and he remained in that condition a hundred years; at the end of
which God restored him to life, and he found a basket of figs and a cruse of
wine he had with him, not in the least spoiled or corrupted, but his ass was
dead, the bones only remaining; and these, while the Prophet looked on, were
raised and cloathed with flesh, becoming an ass again, which, being inspired
with life, began immediately to bray." - Sale`s Koran, ch. ii., note [p. 31,
ed. 1734].]
Not long had the humpback been thus deposited when the steward returned
to his house, and opened the door, and, going up with a lighted candle in his
hand, found a son of Adam standing in the corner next the kitchen; upon which
he exclaimed, What is this? By Allah, the thief that hath stolen our goods is
none other than a son of Adam, who taketh what he findeth of flesh or grease,
even though I keep it concealed from the cats and the dogs; and if I killed
all the cats and dogs of the quarter it would be of no use; for he cometh down
from the terraces! - And so saying, he took up a great mallet, and struck him
with it, and then, drawing close to him, gave him a second blow with it upon
the chest, when the humpback fell down, and he found that he was dead;
whereupon he grieved, and said, There is no strength nor power but in God! And
he feared for himself, and exclaimed, Curse upon the grease and the flesh, and
upon this night, in which the destiny of this man hath been accomplished by my
hand! Then, looking upon him, and perceiving that he was a humpback, he said,
Is it enough that thou art humpbacked, but must thou also be a robber, and
steal the flesh and the grease? O Protector, cover me with thy gracious
shelter! - And he lifted him upon his shoulders, and descended, and went forth
from the house, towards the close of the night, and stopped not until he had
conveyed him to the commencement of the market-street, where he placed him
upon his feet by the side of a shop at the entrance of a lane, and there left
him and retired.
Soon after there came a Christian, the Sultan`s broker, who, in a state
of intoxication, had come forth to visit the bath; and he advanced staggering,
until he drew near to the humpback, when he turned his eyes, and beheld one
standing by him. Now, some persons had snatched off his turban early in the
night, and when he saw the humpback standing there, he concluded that he
intended to do the same; so he clenched his fist, and struck him on the neck.
Down fell the humpback upon the ground, and the Christian called out to the
watchman of the market, while, still in the excess of his intoxication, he
continued beating the humpback, and attempting to throttle him. As he was thus
employed, the watchman came, and, finding the Christian kneeling upon the
Muslim and beating him, said, Arise, and quit him! He arose, therefore, and
the watchman, approaching the humpback, saw that he was dead, and exclaimed,
How is that the Christian dareth to kill the Muslim? Then seizing the
Christian, he bound his hands behind him, and took him to the house of the
Wali;^2 the Christian saying within himself, O Heavens! O Virgin! how have I
killed this man? and how quickly did he die from a blow of the hand! -
Intoxication had departed, and reflection had come.
[Footnote 2: Chief police magistrate.]
The humpback and the Christian passed the remainder of the night in the
house of the Wali, and the Wali ordered the executioner to proclaim the
Christian`s crime, and he set up a gallows, and stationed him beneath it. The
executioner then came, and threw the rope round his neck, and was about to
hang him, when the Sultan`s steward pushed through the crowd, seeing the
Christian standing beneath the gallows, and the people made way for him, and
he said to the executioner, Do it not, for it was I who killed him. -
Wherefore didst thou kill him? said the Wali. He answered, I went into my
house last night, and saw that he had descended from the terrace and stolen my
goods; so I struck him with a mallet upon his chest, and he died, and I
carried him out, and conveyed him to the market-street, where I set him up
in such a place, at the entrance of such a lane. Is it not enough for me to
have killed a Muslim, that a Christian should be killed on my account? Hang,
then, none but me. - The Wali, therefore, when he heard these words, liberated
the Christian broker, and said to the executioner, Hang this man, on the
ground of his confession. And he took off the rope from the neck of the
Christian, and put it round the neck of the steward, and having stationed him
beneath the gallows, was about to hang him, when the Jewish physician pushed
through the crowd, and called out to the executioner, saying to him, Do it
not; for none killed him but I; and the case was this: he came to my house to
be cured of a disease, and as I descended to him I struck against him with my
foot, and he died: kill not the steward, therefore; but kill me. So the Wali
gave orders to hang the Jewish physician; and the executioner took off the
rope from the steward`s neck, and put it round the neck of the Jew. But, lo,
the tailor came, and, forcing his way among the people, said to the
executioner, Do it not; for none killed him but I; and it happened thus: I was
out amusing myself during the day, and as I was returning at the commencement
of the night, I met this humpback in a state of intoxication, with a
tambourine, and singing merrily; and I stopped to divert myself by looking at
him, and took him to my house. I then bought some fish, and we sat down to
eat, and my wife took a piece of fish and a morsel of bread, and crammed them
into his mouth, and he was choked, and instantly died. Then I and my wife took
him to the house of the Jew, and the girl came down and opened the door, and
while she went up to her master, I set up the humpback by the stairs, and went
away with my wife: so, when the Jew came down and stumbled against him, he
thought that he had killed him. - And he said to the Jew, Is this true? He
answered, Yes. The tailor, then looking towards the Wali, said to him,
Liberate the Jew, and hang me. And when the Wali heard this he was astonished
at the case of the humpback, and said, Verily this is an event that should be
recorded in books! And he said to the executioner, Liberate the Jew, and hang
the tailor on account of his own confession. So the executioner had him
forward, saying, Dost thou put forward this and take back that; and shall we
not hang one? And he put the rope round the neck of the tailor.
Now the humpback was the Sultan`s buffoon, and the Sultan could not bear
him to be out of his sight; and when the humpback had got drunk, and been
absent that night and the next day until noon, the King inquired respecting
him of some of his attendants, and they answered him, O our lord, the Wali
hath taken him forth dead, and gave orders to hang the person who killed him,
and there came a second and a third person, each saying, None killed him but
I: - and describing to the Wali the cause of his killing him. When the King,
therefore, heard this, he called out to the Chamberlain, and said to him, Go
down to the Wali, and bring them all hither before me. So the Chamberlain went
down, and found that the executioner had almost put to death the tailor, and
he called out to him, saying, Do it not: - and informed the Wali that the case
had been reported to the King. And he took him, and the humpback borne with
him, and the tailor and the Jew and the Christian and the steward, and went up
with them all to the King; and when the Wali came into the presence of the
King, he kissed the ground, and related to him all that had happened. And the
King, was astonished, and was moved with merriment, at hearing this tale; and
he commanded that it should be written in letters of gold. He then said to
those who were present, Have ye ever heard anything like the story of this
humpback? And upon this the Christian advanced, and said, O King of the age,
if thou permit me I will relate to thee an event that hath occurred to me more
wonderful and strange and exciting than the story of the humpback. - Tell us
then thy story, said the King. And the Christian related as follows: -
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