A Story About the Young Khoja Nasreddin

 

A Story About the Young Khoja Nasreddin

An excerpt from ‘The Enchanted Prince’ published by Stillwoods, 2022.

Author Leonid Solovyov (Solovyev)

 

And so for the story of his childhood.

We must repudiate at the very outset the rooted opinion that Khoja Nasreddin was born and grew up in the home of a poor Bokhara saddler named Shir-Mamed. Here are two errors: in the first place, Shir-Mamed was not a saddler but a potter; secondly, Khoja Nasreddin was not born in his home but only grew up in it. The fact of the matter is that Shir-Mamed, till now considered Khoja Nasreddin’s father, was really his foster-father.

It is this circumstance that our story will be built upon.

Shir-Mamed the potter was a fairly skilful craftsman, especially in the making of tanours—large earthenware jars the size of a man for keeping water in. The craftsman’s skill was judged by whether his jars preserved the water always fresh and cool—all the cooler the hotter the weather. Shir-Mamed had mastered the secret of mixing clay, sand, powdered stone and the ash of burnt saksaul in suitable proportions, the secret of baking and of the subsequent gradual cooling. His jars came out of the oven sonorous and porous, and sweated well in the hot weather, becoming misted over as with watery silk. These jars yielded him a comfortable income and even enabled him in his old age to provide himself with a house, an orchard, and a vineyard, and two chests full of stuffs and other goods. For all that he considered himself an unhappy man, whom life had treated cruelly—his home was childless.

Prayers, endless donations to the mosque, sorcerers, charms—everything had been tried by Shir-Mamed, but in vain. His wife blessed him not with children. And so the two of them passed into old age. Perfect order and peace always reigned in the house; the crockery stood in its niches, unrenewed for years, as not a cup was ever broken; the silk coverlets looked as if they had been bought yesterday. Such orderliness, however, pleases none save the hardened self-lover, and that Shir-Mamed was not. O, how he would have rejoiced to find all that crockery one day smashed to pieces down to the very last cup by a ball thrown incautiously, and the silk coverlets holed and ruined by burning embers which had been extracted from the hearth for the purpose of closer study!

At one time he and his wife had talked about children and sorrowed together over their misfortune; with the approach of old age, when hope had been abandoned, they ceased to talk about it, feeling guilty one before the other, and sorrowed in silence, each on his own.

One day, towards the end of April, when the peaches, apricots, and apple blossoms had shed their petals in the little orchard and only the squat dumpy quince still carried its coarse pink beauty upon its branches, Shir-Mamed rose from his after-dinner sleep and unwittingly violated the tacit understanding between them that the subject of children was to be avoided.

“Do you know what I dreamt of?” he said. “I dreamt that a son was born to us—a sturdy little squaller.”

The old woman shrank, and glanced at him with eyes of pleading, which seemed to say, “Forgive me!” He sighed and turned away. Haply it was he who should plead forgiveness?

The whole evening passed in wistful silence.

The old woman began to make preparations for supper, while Shir-Mamed examined the six new jars, which stood in a row against the garden wall in readiness for the market where they were to be taken on the morrow. These tanours were larger than usual. “I am afraid there will be room only for two at a time, instead of three, in the waggon,” he mused, figuring how much it would cost him to convey the jars to the bazaar.

Then they had their supper and went to bed.

Shir-Mamed woke up in the middle of the night to find the old woman kneeling before the open window. A flood of moonlight illumined the whole of her, even to the smallest wrinkle on her face. She was praying. Shir-Mamed lay listening to her prayer. She was praying to God for a child—that mad woman, at sixty! Her whispered pleadings, too, were mad—she knew not what she was saying and addressed God with reproaches. The anguish of a lifetime, the ungratified yearning of motherhood, loneliness, the misery of frustration—all were in that whisper. And yet, despite of all, in defiance of reason, there was faith in that whisper. “Almighty Allah!” she murmured, tearing the grey tufts of her tumbled hair and dropping down upon her face with a low moan. Words failed her. Shir- Mamed’s heart was wrung with pity and tenderness for the old woman, and he lay in his bed biting his pillow to keep back the tears that choked him.

Presently the old woman returned to his side in the bed. Shir-Mamed did not stir; neither did she; each knew that the other was not sleeping, but they tried to spare each other’s feelings, feigning sleep, and pretending that they believed in this innocent deception. Not a word was uttered between them until daybreak, but much was said in thought without words, and they forgave each other, understanding that they lived a single life together—he for her, and she for him—and that the time when they had lived separate lives, each on his own, had long since passed for them.

It was a painful night for Shir-Mamed, and it was with relief that he greeted the dawn, hoping to drown his sorrowful and compassionate thoughts in the day’s customary round of cares.

It was very early, the morning light had not yet lost its blue tinge, daybreak was still a glimmer in the sky, and it wanted at least two hours before Shir-Mamed would ride forth to the bazaar. He thought he would examine his jars once more and tap them over. They responded to the tap of his little stick with a clear full sound without that dull deadened note that betokens the presence of cracks or other flaws. In this manner he examined five jars, and approached the sixth, the last one.

Wonder of wonders! This sixth jar responded to his tap not with a ring but with a squeak. Unutterably amazed, Shir-Mamed struck the jar once more. And again he heard a squeak. But now it was clear that it was not the jar squeaking, but something else, some living thing within the jar.

Who could have got in there? A kitten? A pup? A nestling? In what manner? Whatever it was, it was there. It was squeaking.

Shir-Mamed peered into the jar, but beheld there naught save darkness. He put his hand into it. The jar was a deep one, and Shir-Mamed lay on it in order to reach the bottom. At last his hand came in touch with some padded clothing, then— He jerked his hand back hastily and carefully examined it.

The marks of teeth! The one within the jar had snapped at the old man’s finger. He could not only squeak, he could bite as well!

It was clear by now who sat within that jar, but Shir-Mamed still refused to believe it. Frightened and shaken, he brought a chisel and a mallet and began to hew out an opening in the jar in order to get him out. The old man’s hands trembled, the chisel slipped and wobbled, and the blows that he struck glided off it. He in the jar sat still and quiet. But when the chiselled piece fell away and a flood of light and air streamed into the opening—what an ear-splitting wail then assailed the ears of the old man Shir-Mamed seized the living bundle of rags and drew it forth, struggling and wriggling in his hands, squalling lustily in an angry voice.

The old woman came running out, alarmed, anxious.

“What is it? Whence comes it? Almighty Allah, look how you are holding him—give him to me!”

She snatched the bundle of rags out of Shir-Mamed’s hands, at which, as if by magic, it instantly fell silent.

“Where did you find him? Why do you not speak?”

Pale and shaken, bereft of speech by all these doings, Shir-Mamed could only point at the jar.

Meanwhile, the next-door neighbour, awakened by the screams, was already looking over the low garden wall. The other neighbour, who had slept on the roof, called down in a hoarse sleepy voice, “What is the matter there? Thieves? A fire?”

The old woman cast a jealous look round, and hugging the living find close to her withered breast, she walked swiftly indoors.

The prying ranks of neighbours had swelled—two others were now looking over the wall from the other side, asking what had happened.

“I found him in the jar. . .” Shir-Mamed kept repeating. “He was lying in the jar. I had to break the jar open. . . .”

Beyond that he could say no more, for the gift of inventive speech was not his. On the other hand the occurrence was so extraordinary that it called for immediate interpretations, explanations, and conjectures, a task which the neighbours took in hand with gladsome alacrity, filling the quiet of the morning with the hum of excited voices.

And but a minute had elapsed when two more neighbours came running up to look, announcing their impatience by a loud banging at the wicket. Then two more came, then another one—The little yard was crowded with people. They examined the jar, the ground, and the wicket, but no trace of anything could they find. It was astonishing! One would think he had dropped into the jar straight from the sky!

The voice of the old woman could be heard within, calling Shir-Mamed. He hurried indoors, escaping from the insatiable curiosity of the neighbours.

In the house he saw him, lying among cushions on a silk coverlet spread on a chest. And he recognized him at once, instantaneously, as the boy of his dream.

“Look,” the old woman said in a melting voice, “look, Shir-Mamed—he has teeth!”

Shir-Mamed approached the chest. The boy kicked his legs up at his approach, waved his arms, and began to scream with his mouth wide open—and the astonished Shir-Mamed beheld in his mouth two rows of dazzling white, strong, sharp teeth. Forsooth, here was something to confound the reason and daze the mind— teeth in a sucking infant! Shir-Mamed felt a weakness in his legs and a contraction of the heart at the memory of his dream, for that other one, too, had had a mouthful of teeth.

A miracle had entered their house. That much was clear to Shir-Mamed and the old woman. She dropped her head upon her husband’s shoulder and whispered through her tears, “I knew it would happen. I had always known. But I knew not when and how.”

According to the laws of Bokhara, a foundling could not be adopted until three months had elapsed, provided his parents were not heard from in the course of that period.

For three months the town crier proclaimed on the bazaar square the firman informing all the populace of Bokhara and all strangers that a male infant approximately five months old, having as its distinguishing mark a mouthful of teeth premature for its age, had been discovered in an earthenware jar in the house of the potter Shir-Mamed residing in the potters’ quarter of the city. This firman was shouted out by the crier three times a day—morning, noon, and evening. Verily not everyone succeeds in entering this world with so much noise. All this noise around little Nasreddin was a presage, as it were, of his whole future life.

Those three endless months were torture to Shir-Mamed, and still more so to the poor old woman, who ate her heart out. She greeted each morn with the fearful question—would they come, would they take him away? The creaking of the wicket made her go hot and cold, and she bristled like a she-wolf who is prepared to defend her young to her last dying breath. On the advice of her neighbours she took her gold earrings—a wedding present—to a market scrivener for him to draw up a captious question list designed to expose those lying tricksters who would try to pass themselves off as the parents of little Nasreddin. The old woman conceived towards them in advance a bitter hatred, and did not for a moment entertain the thought that they could be anything but tricksters. The scrivener, a wizened pettifogger with a yellow pock-marked foxy face, proved to be an adept at his job: he drew up eighty-six questions and arranged them with great cunning; if put, in that given order, to any person, they made of that person a robber, a perpetrator of villainies innumerable, of which robbery upon the high road and infanticide were by no means the least.

Their fears, however, proved groundless. The last, ninetieth, day passed and no one came to claim the foundling, and on the ninety-first day the mullah, in the presence of the needful number of witnesses, performed in the mosque the rite of adoption.

Such were the circumstances under which Khoja Nasreddin made his appearance in the house of the potter Shir-Mamed. It is also known that he was nursed in turn by all the women of the potters’ quarter who had infants at the breast. We know not how many blood brothers and sisters he had, but of foster-brothers and foster-sisters he had a multitude. This again can be regarded as a presage: already in his cradle he had contrived to make the whole potters’ quarter his kin, as he was later to make the whole world his kin. It is said that although he had a strong tooth itch in infancy, during which he gnawed everything that he could get into his mouth, he never once bit the breast of his wet-nurse.

He grew very rapidly. At three he looked five, and in intelligence, still more. At three he knew a great number of words, had mastered their different combinations, and astonished all grown-ups with the correctness of his speech. He divined the properties and purpose of the objects around him, such as distaffs, axes, saws, pincers, pruning-shears, bores, press irons, and so forth, with amazing intelligence. At four he first sat down to the potter’s wheel and made, to Shir-Mamed’s indescribable astonishment, a pot of such flawless perfection that it could be taken to the market at once! All things readily yielded up to him their secrets, and it seemed as if he was not making his acquaintance with the world, but recognizing it all over again, as though he had not come into the world but had returned to it, the way people return home from a long journey to things that are familiar, albeit slightly forgotten.

Of the other peculiar traits of his childhood mention is made of the strange reflective moods that visited him of an evening. At such times he would seek the silence of seclusion and his glance would acquire a transparency, as though he could see nothing nearer than the constellation of The Seven Diamonds. With the passing of the years this singularity, so odd in a child of fours vanished without a trace—mayhap to return to him in old age, when men’s thoughts naturally aspire to starry heights. He is also said to have been extraordinarily fond of the sun—a fondness that verged on adoration; while still an infant in arms he could look at the sun without blinking, with an open glance undazzled by its beams an ability possessed, of all earthlings, by the eagle alone.

With the lesser creatures of the earth, that is, the beasts, the birds and all the various beetles and insects, he was on terms of steadfast friendship. Shir-Mamed marvelled to see the little boy calmly pick a bumble-bee off a bough and carefully examine it, while the fat shaggy insect calmly waited to be let go and did not even try to defend itself with its terrible sting. The birds were quite unafraid of him, and on one occasion, when he leaned a ladder against the wall and climbed up it to help the swallows build their nests under the eaves, those birds readily accepted his aid. Those who know how jealously these blithe little birds guard their nests will appreciate this wondrous affair at its full worth. When the baby birds were hatched in the nest and the time came for them to learn how to fly, little Nasreddin was a great help to the winged parents in the flying lessons which they gave their children; he picked up the inapt, who had fallen to the ground, and tossed them into the air. A great friend of his—a hedgehog—lived under the roots of an old apricot-tree in a corner of the garden, and to him a little crock of milk the boy carried every morning. He had friends also among the mice. One day, while passing through the old cemetery with Shir-Mamed, little Nasreddin stepped off the path into the thick weeds and trod on a snake with his bare foot; with a hiss it instantly coiled itself round his leg up to the knee; Shir-Mamed’s blood ran cold in his veins with horror, but the boy calmly lifted his leg and the snake unwound its slippery coils and crawled away without having stung him, although it continued to hiss angrily, because its tail, after all, had been painfully trodden on. He lived on equally good terms with all the other four-legged, crawling and flying creatures, all, that is, except the mosquitoes; those vile insects, begotten by the putrid breath of the swamp devils, refused to accept him as their own and tormented him cruelly to the point of tears.

He lived in kinship with the whole vast world around him, for ever aware of his oneness with it, as if conscious that the ether, of which everything in this world consists, is a single entity, flowing uninterruptedly, and no single particle of it belongs permanently to anyone: from the sun it passes to the bumble-bee, from the bumble-bee to the cloud, from the cloud to the wind or the water, from the water to the bird, from the bird to man, in order thence to rush on further upon its eternal round. That is why it was so easy for little Nasreddin to understand the bumble-bee and the wind, the sun and the swallow, for he was himself a bit of them all. That great blessing of oneness with the world, which is given only to sages, and only in their old age at that, as the crowning reward for their labours and efforts, was given to him, the chosen son of Life, at his birth.

As to his coevals—his foster-brothers of the potters’ quarter—his feelings towards them were friendly, albeit he had begun to perceive the imperfections of human nature at a very early age. Khoja Nasreddin, however, could be indulgent to people without demanding of them angelic qualities, for he knew that that was impossible. Years later, as a grown-up man, he had discovered in the book of the most wise Ibrahim-ibn-Hattab the following comment: “The very imperfection of human nature, however, is such as to bear definite testimony to man’s highest place among all the other creatures, for only to him, of all living creatures, is given the possibility of perfecting himself. The very word ‘imperfect’ as applied to him already implies an admission of his ability and capacity towards elevation. . . .” Upon reading this, Khoja Nasreddin had exclaimed, “The veritable truth, I always thought thus!”

 

But let us return to the story of his childhood. He displayed great gifts for trade. At eight he was selling pots unaided. Shir-Mamed fully relied upon him, and during the torrid hours of the bazaar he gave himself up to peaceful relaxation in some chaikhana. Nasreddin plied a brisk trade, and never once did the old man have cause to rue the trust he placed in him.

One day, when the boy was alone in the shop, a merchant came in and selected a small pot for buying honey in. Glancing at the huge tanours standing in a row, each of which was twice the size of its seller, the merchant remarked, “The pots are big, the seller is a mite.”

Nasreddin instantly turned these words into the first line of a couplet and supplied the second with his answer:

“The buyer is big, but he buys slight.”

Amazed and delighted at such a display of sprightly wit, the merchant, who himself composed verses in his leisure hours and was a good judge in these matters, bought five more pots from the boy and paid for them generously without haggling.

Nasreddin bid the merchant good day with another couplet:

Though this pot from common clay be set,

May it hold for you the taste of sherbet . . .

 

Whereat the merchant fairly shook with delight, and he even went to the pains of writing down both couplets, thanks to which they have survived to this day.

He was a true son of the bazaar. The hubbub, the bustle and the crush never wearied him; he could swim in this unending noisy torrent for days on end. It was at the bazaar that there occurred to him an incident which had no little effect in revealing to him his own mind and heart.

One afternoon he strayed into Old Camel Square. It was a slack hour, when both sellers and buyers were waiting for the heat to pass. All around lay camels, saturating the hot motionless air with the acrid odour of their sweat; little Nasreddin fearlessly crossed the square, disappearing at one moment amid the smelly yellow petrified waves of camel-humps, to bob up the next with his red-tasselled velvet skull-cap. The somnolent square held no attraction for him; he tried to tease a baby camel, but it was so drowsy with the heat that it merely looked at him apathetically and turned away, refusing to spit.

After a moment’s reflection little Nasreddin bent his steps towards Tamerlane Bridge where newly-arrived rope-walkers were said to have made their pitch. As he was passing a large caravanserai, he stopped at the sound of shouting, squeals, and laughter. His heart rejoicing within him, he hastened thither.

He saw a crowd of bazaar boys of his own age giving themselves up enthusiastically to a cruel sport. An old beggar woman—a Gypsy of the Luli tribe, the most despised of all the Gypsy tribes—was sitting in the hot sun by the roadside, leaning against the wall of the caravanserai. The boys, laughing and making faces, were teasing her, shouting out all kinds of insulting names and throwing clods of dry earth at her.

The old hag was very ugly and repellent. White bald patches showed through her uncovered hair, yellow fangs stuck out in her mouth behind blue flabby lips, her nose was hooked and livid, her eyelids inflamed, red and bare of eyelashes, her eyes were round and wicked; moreover, she held in her lap a cat as repulsive as she was herself, a black scabby cat almost hairless with age; in a word, she was a real witch, one of those frightful witches who steal little children in order to drink their blood.

Little Nasreddin lost no time joining in the general sport. He yelled and squealed, he growled and barked like a dog, he hopped about on one foot with his tongue sticking out, vying with the rest of them. The old hag cursed and shook her bony fist, the cat spat and arched its back—and altogether it was so funny that the boys went into fits of laughter.

At last, they wearied of the old woman, and, besides, other diversions awaited them at Tamerlane Bridge. And so off they scampered at breakneck speed, arriving there safely and just in time for the rope-walking spectacle. The old hag and her cat were instantly forgotten— indeed, who could remember them when one’s ears were filled to aching with the deafening din of drums, large and small, with the piercing whistle of the pipes and the blare of trumpets, while one’s eyes were filled with the blissful sight of the rope-walkers strolling about under the sky with their long poles. Only once, like a dim fleeting shadow, did the thought of the old woman pass before little Nasreddin to vanish immediately, catching oddly at the heart in passing, as if leaving a scratch in it.

This bliss continued all day. Nasreddin returned home a different way and did not see the old hag. But in relating to Shir-Mamed the events of the day, he recollected her and faltered.

“Well, why do you stop?” said Shir-Mamed.

“I saw an old woman of the Luli, a beggar woman,” answered Nasreddin. “She had a black cat. . . . And then we went to Tamerlane Bridge.”

He did not tell a direct lie, but neither did he tell the truth—it was a half-truth, which is really the worst kind of lie. Once more something scratched at his heart.

With this he went to bed. Fatigued by his busy day, he quickly fell asleep. He awoke in the middle of the night from a terrifying dream. The old hag, with an evil leer, chased him, seized him, and dragged him off to a pit wherein a huge black cat with fiery eyes prowled about snarling and spitting. This dream haunted the boy and filled him with a strange yearning; listening to Shir-Mamed’s sighs and snores, he felt twinges of increasing pain within him, as if that old woman’s cat had got into his breast and was sharpening its claws upon his heart.

Thus, for the first time, he heard the voice of conscience, and learned that he carried within him invisible scales upon which was weighed every grain of evil done by him, and the dipping of those scales caused him acute distress.

To rid himself of that scratching at the heart, he tried to divert his thoughts to games, to the hedgehog, the swallows. But in vain! Wishing not to think of the old woman, he could not think of aught else.

And then a strange thing happened: the deeper he became engrossed in thoughts of the old woman, the less did he remain himself and the more did he become the old woman, as if he were emptying himself into her, so that by dawn he was three-quarters her and only one-quarter his old self. And when he had become three-quarters her, he felt as unhappy and lonely as she did, while the quarter that was still him was filled with such poignant pity for her that he shed hot tears.

He understood all now—the infinite loneliness, the infinite misery of her who had not a soul in the world to befriend her. Was it her fault that she had been born in the Luli tribe, was it she who had made herself ugly? Then why must she suffer lifelong punishment for it? The multitudinous bazaar all round was a desert to her—nay worse, for it was filled for her with scorn and enmity. Wherefore? She was always bent and she always looked round fearfully, because she always expected a blow—by whip, by word, or by laughter. The black cat was all that she had in the world; and so they lived together, both old, infirm, for ever hungry, destitute, having naught but each other in the whole wide world.

With what eyes, now that he understood this, did he look upon himself, upon his shameful mocking grimaces, his disgraceful shouted insults, and his hopping about on one foot with his tongue stuck out. He was horrified. He found the sight of himself so shameful and disgusting that he could not bear it, and hid his head deep under his pillow with a loud groan.

Morning found him sad and thoughtful. Hastily eating a bread-cake and drinking some milk, he ran off to the bazaar. In his girdle lay a purse filled with small coppers, making up two and a half tangas all together. The fruit of wise thrift, some might think? Nay, gambling luck!

He hastened to the old woman. How many bazaar temptations lay in his path—airan, honey snow, sugar candy, khalval. He manfully conquered them all and did not untie his purse-strings. Neither did he stop in the street where the boys were rapturously playing a Chinese game by the name of lianga for stakes amounting to a quarter of a farthing per nose. Little Nasreddin had no equal in this game, and yet he passed by with a quickened step, glancing aside.

He found the old woman in her old place by the caravanserai. The cat was lying in her lap. The earthenware crock for alms was empty, like the day before. The old woman was stroking the cat and speaking to it, and the cat answered with a piteous mewing—no doubt it was hungry.

Little Nasreddin concealed himself behind the gap of a broken wall. He suddenly felt timorous. How was he to approach the old woman, what was he to say? An idea occurred to him to toss her the purse and run away. But that did not befit the solemnity of the moment.

All kinds of people passed the old woman along the road but none gave her a copper, not even a crust of stale bread. Nasreddin looked and wondered how unjust and hard-hearted people were.

His wonder waxed into indignation. People kept passing by and passing by, but still the old woman’s crock remained empty. The blood rushed to the face of little Nasreddin—why could they not understand what he with his child’s mind had grasped with such certitude. Today he had no eye either for the old woman’s livid nose or her yellow fangs, for his mental vision had risen above such irrelevant and inconsequential details, and probed below the surface to the underlying essential core of helplessness, loneliness, and suffering.

Moved by anger and compassion, he overcame his timidity and, purse in hand, advanced towards her.

The nearer he came the more difficult was the going. His feet seemed to be sticking to the ground.

She had recognized him—he could tell by the strained guarded look in her eyes. She shrank and drew her head into her shoulders, expecting from him stones or verbal insults, as yesterday.

“Here, grandma, take this,” he mumbled with faltering tongue, emptying his purse straight into her lap and showering copper coins over the spitting cat.

Here his courage failed him, he had passed the bounds of his spirit’s bravery. Turning, he fled, and ceased not his retreat until he reached the Hardware Row far from the caravanserai.

Having performed his deed of penance, he pondered the whole day thereafter. He pondered in seclusion. His thoughts ran in two rows—one concerned the old woman, the other the hard-hearted people who refused her aid. He pitied the one and was indignant with the others. But he would have proved unworthy of his great destiny had he confined himself to pity and indignation alone. Action was called for, but what kind of action?

It was here for the first time that he discovered the true capacities of his mind. To begin with, he detached his thoughts from his feelings, in order that the latter should not hurry the former, then he brought the tangled skein of his thoughts into orderly array by simplifying them to the greatest possible degree and disposing them by right of seniority, in the order in which they were born. He learnt this method of cogitation on his little chess-board by studying the puzzles which he often saw in the chaikhanas at the bazaar. There are forced moves in chess which one is obliged to make against one’s will because one is impelled thereto by one’s opponent. This is what little Nasreddin decided upon. If the populace of Bokhara were not charitable of their own accord, they would have to be made so.

In thus defining his task, he also defined the channel in which his further reflections would flow. The drift of them was this—to discover a game in which he would have the ascendancy over the men of Bokhara. To avoid bothering his mind with the thousands of hard-hearted Bokhara inhabitants, he deemed it wise to merge them all together in his mind into one Big Bokhara Man.

Things were thus simplified. To think of one Bokhara Man, albeit a very Big One, proved a much easier task. Nasreddin applied himself to studying the nature of that so heartless Big One for the purpose of discovering a crack in the shield with which the aforesaid Big Bokhara Man covers his mind and his heart against the penetrations of charity and compassion.

The inner essence of the Big Bokhara Man proved to fall far short of the abysmal. It did not take the boy more than two or three hours of cogitation to plumb its depths, and there, at the bottom, to discover the evil-smelling slime of avarice, the shells of stinginess, and the rotting weeds of ineradicable self-love. The Big Bokhara Man was now so clear to him that he could envisage him even with his inward eye in all his foul and hideous aspect. In stature he could have vied with a minaret, except that he was much thicker—the girdle round his waist could barely meet; he was fat and ruddy, with plump cheeks and deep-set little eyes that looked out upon the world dully and listlessly; a smug vacuous smile wandered sleepily over his face, and when he opened his lips one divined rather than saw behind them a thick, awkward, lisping tongue; he was continually puffing, sighing, and grunting—from the excess of fat that had accumulated within him; he held in his hand a huge bread-cake, the size of a waggon wheel, smeared with honey, and when he took bites from it he moaned and purred in a swooning ecstasy, shielding himself with his elbow and glancing around to see whether anyone was going to take the bread-cake away from him or ask him for a piece.

Little Nasreddin was angry with the people of Bokhara for being so callous towards the old woman, and that is why the Big Bokhara Man appeared to him in such a repulsive light. Anger, however, is a poor counsellor of fairness; indeed, there was little justice in such a notion, since the real people of Bokhara were, in their vast majority, good and kind-hearted. They refused the old woman aid not through abysmal self-love, but rather because they were unable, through her outward ugliness to see the full depths of her inner suffering; if they had, they would have helped her themselves without being compelled thereto; they simply lacked the gift of deep thought. The boy had no time to think of this, however. He was preparing himself to grapple with the Big Bokhara Man, and consequently, conceived for him in advance a great contempt and wrath, as is always the case in every struggle.

After scrutinizing the shield of the Big Bokhara Man little Nasreddin quickly discovered therein its most glaring crack. Among the various foibles which the Big Bokhara Man was burdened with his greatest was an idle curiosity and an insatiable admiration for all outlandish wonders.

The thing was to strike at this crack.

The next morning found little Nasreddin at the caravanserai again. Fired by his subtle schemes, he had come running down too early—the old woman was not there yet. He had to wait a full half-hour. The boy fretted and chafed with impatience, running round and round the caravanserai and looking for the old woman down all the four roads that met there. The early sun was not hot, the air was clear and light, the shady places still preserved the fragrant coolness of the night, and the ground, copiously moistened by the waterers, was only beginning to give off a warm vapour. The tiled caps of the minarets, however, already dazzled the eyes with their molten gleam, and the blue limpid canopy above them was already tremulous and shimmering, promising a day of sweltering heat. Every minute the hoarse gurgling roar of the bazaar increased in volume, filling the city from end to end, rising skyward together with the dust, shaking the halls of Allah and drowning heaven’s angelic chorus. It was the voice of the Big Bokhara Man, purring over his honeyed bread-cake.

Presently the old woman appeared. With her was the black cat. The boy regretted that he had not thought of bringing a piece of boiled liver with him from home. This horrid mangy cat was now his chief ally against the Big Bokhara Man.

Without wasting time, little Nasreddin boldly approached the old woman.

“Good morning, grandma!” said he. “Did you spend a quiet night?”

“Good morning to you!” returned the old woman, screwing up her rheumy eyes. “The night passed quietly enough, but the day, I see, is beginning unquietly.”

Nasreddin knew perfectly well what she was hinting at, but made believe as if he did not understand. The conversation had to be continued, so, bowing once more, he asked:

“Was it a quiet night for your esteemed cat too?”

“The cat did not sleep very well because he was catching mice,” the old woman answered, gazing steadily and searchingly at the boy.

He shuffled about uneasily, disconcerted by her glance. His courage had suddenly melted away, and together with it, all the words which he had prepared beforehand vanished from off his tongue.

Silence ensued. Nasreddin caught his breath in a sigh, feeling the heat not only upon his face but even in his stomach. At last, with a great effort, he brought out in half a whisper:

“I am that boy. The one of yesterday. And of the day before.”

The old woman was silent, her eyes fixed upon his face. Summoning all his powers, he added, now in a barely audible voice:

“The one who teased you. Do you remember?”

Had the old woman still kept silent, he would have turned and fled, as he had done the day before.

But the old woman answered.

“Do I remember you?” she said. “I should think I do. You stuck your tongue out so far that I was astonished to see how long it was.”

Those words would have burnt the boy to ashes, annihilated him, but for the old woman’s smile—a sweet, kind smile that lit her face up as if with a sunbeam.

“Come closer,” said she. “You are a good boy with a kind heart, but a very mischievous one, from what I can see. Now tell me straight and honestly—what have you come here for, what do you want? And let me tell you beforehand—if you have brought me again two tangas as you did yesterday, you had better betake yourself with your money. To help the poor is a good and charitable deed, but it is not good for boys to dip their fingers into their fathers’ purses for that purpose. For where else are you able to procure two tangas every day?”

Little Nasreddin felt insulted, but recollected that she was a Gypsy of the Luli and judged him as she would have judged the boys of her own tribe.

“Oh no!” said he. “I have come today without two tangas. I never touch my father’s purse. He often leaves me by myself to sell jars in his shop, and I always give him the receipts in full.”

'“That is well,” said the old woman approvingly.

“On holidays he gives me a quarter of a tanga and sometimes half a tanga.”

“That you can take, that is not sinful,” said the old woman. “I am glad that I was mistaken. Do not be angry with me.”

After that the conversation between them went smoothly and easily: word caught into word like the cogs in wooden gears, and the mill began to revolve. Little Nasreddin seated himself beside the old woman, stroked the cat, listened to his purring, and praised his performance in the highest terms.

“Is he fond of milk and liver?”

“That I cannot say, for I have never fed him with either,” the old woman said with a laugh. “I have not seen them myself for years.”

This bitter confession served the boy as a bridge for passing over to that which lay uppermost in his mind. Stumbling over his words in his agitation, he imparted to the old woman his plan against the Big Bokhara Man.

She listened at first with curiosity, then with trust, and finally was moved to tears of tender emotion.

“Allah Himself has sent you to me, in order to comfort me in my homeless old age! In mind you are an arrant rogue, and had you been born among our tribe you would have been the supreme chieftain. In heart, however, you are pure and righteous, and may God grant that your mind always be the handmaid of your heart.”

Nasreddin’s plan required some preliminary expenses—about fifteen tangas, if not a little more. The old woman trusted the boy to such an extent that she did not hesitate to give him the money, which she produced from somewhere deep within her dirty rags.

“This is all I have,” she said, her hands trembling.

“Do not worry, grandma, they will be returned to you with profit,” answered little Nasreddin.

First he bent his steps towards Chinese Square where all kinds of second-hand oddments were sold. There, at a suitable price—half a tanga—he bought a broken old wooden cage of fairly ample size, one of those cages in which the chaikhana-owners keep kekliks —hill partridges, valued for their cackling which resembles the tinkle of glass. Then the boy repaired to the Woodworking Row, where he found a craftsman who agreed to mend the cage—and that cost another half-tanga. A third half-tanga was paid to a painter, who painted the cage in all the colours that he had in stock —green, blue, red, yellow, and white. Towards the end, in a fit of generosity, the painter adorned the cage with a wide golden border all round, exclaiming at his handwork:

“Now, boy, you have but to catch the fire-bird with a diamond feather in her tail!”

“I have caught her already,” answered Nasreddin. “A fire-bird the like of which has never yet been seen in Bokhara—one with four feet and black fur.”

Bringing the cage to the old woman (she threw her hands up in amazement at such splendour), little Nasreddin hied to the bazaar once more.

This time he did not return until noon.

“Come, grandma, all is ready,” said he.

The old woman got up, grunting, and took the sleepy cat in her arms, who half opened a yellow eye, while the boy took the cage, and they all went forth.

They stopped at Chinese Square, at the crossing of three roads. Here began the three busiest trading rows— the Weaving, Shoemaking, and Hardware rows. A little to one side of the crossroads the old woman perceived a small tent made of reed mats fastened to four poles. The two openings, one facing the other, were covered with curtains of coarse unbleached linen. Outside the tent sat its architect, an old man of the bazaar, who, upon receiving two tangas from Nasreddin, withdrew with voluble expressions of gratitude.

The boy ushered the old woman into the tent. A post driven into the ground with a wide bit of board nailed on top of it, served as a stand for the cage. The tent contained nothing else. The light fell from a hole in the roof.

“Stay here awhile, grandma,” said Nasreddin. “I have another matter to see to—my last.”

Leaving the old woman, he plunged into Shoemakers’ Row, and thence, by a by-street, to the cistern of Yeski-Hauz, where the bazaar scriveners, composers of all kinds of petitions and complaints, but mostly informers’ missives, used to sit in those days.

It was the most strident, the most discordant, and quarrelsome place in the bazaar. Here men were for ever disputing, bickering, swearing, accusing, and boasting, and the very air here was thick with monstrous barefaced lies, such as confounded the imagination. Of the scriveners who abided here there was not a man but had occupied in the past an official post lower than that of Master of the Court Rolls somewhere in Istanbul, Teheran, or Khoresm, not a man but had once given the king momentous advice at the very moment when his viziers and all the lords of his court had been stricken dumb with confusion, not a man but had been awarded with aught lower than the decoration of the Great Lion. . . .

The clients usually assembled at the water cistern after noon, and then the noise here somewhat abated, as the scriveners busied themselves with their affairs. Little Nasreddin, however, came before noon, that is, at the hour of greatest commotion, when all was hubbub and confusion, and it was impossible to make out who was disputing with whom and who was swearing at whom, for everyone was cursing everybody else, and everybody else cursing everyone, and there was such a wild uproar that it was a wonder the water of Yeski-Hauz could remain smooth and unruffled under such a hurricane of vituperation and execration.

O son of a scabby hyena!” shouted a puny old man, as gaunt and twisted as the letter “mim,” to his neighbour. “O despised ignoramus, who can not even write the letter ‘alif’ properly! All remember the petition that you filed in court last winter. Instead of ‘The lamp of authority and piety’ you wrote ‘The damp author of poetry’—that is what you wrote!”

“Who wrote ‘damp author of poetry’? I did?” his neighbour cried choking with fury. This neighbour resembled the letter . . . but it is difficult to say what letter he did resemble, rather did he resemble the whole Arabic alphabet at once, for he kept changing his shape by reason of constant palsied twitchings in every single part of his body—his head, his legs, his arms, his hands and his back; it seemed as if his very entrails were shifting and shuffling about in his belly. “Did you forget how you very nearly ruined your client last year by writing a petition to the Emir in which you addressed him as ‘More Yajestv’ instead of ‘Your Majesty’?”

All around began to giggle, snicker, snort, and cackle in a variety of keys. The scrivener, who resembled a twisted “mim,” was, with distorted countenance and gnashing teeth, preparing to return a fit retort, but little Nasreddin waited not to hear it and walked past.

Amid this simoom of rancorous wrangling, he descried, not without difficulty, an elderly scrivener, who took no part in the general squabble—not by reason of wisdom or mildness of temper, but for quite a different and more subtle reason. He was listening. With his long neck craned forward and his huge hairless skull shining in the sun—a skull whose weight seemed to have squashed his bony face—he sat listening, pouncing upon every word dropped unguardedly in the heat of mutual recrimination that could be made use of for the purpose of informing. He wrote it down secretly there and then in foreign characters so that none of the other scriveners should by any chance discover it. When little Nasreddin approached him he was busy writing down “More Yajesty.” He whispered the words as his reed pen scratched away, and such a malicious, snake-like, ugly little smile lurked in the corners of his thin lips that one could unerringly savour beforehand the taste of that pungent peppery dish which he was going to prepare for somebody in the not distant future.

He looked up at little Nasreddin and asked, “What do you want, boy?”

“I want a short little sign in Indian ink on Chinese paper. A very short one.”

“A short little sign!” exclaimed the scrivener, delighted at having a client, and such a callow and inexperienced one at that, before whom he could spread the peacock tail of lies and boasting to its full span without fear of exposure. “Thank your lucky stars, boy, for having guided you to me, for there is not a man in all Bokhara who can vie with me in writing with the brush in Indian ink and upon Chinese paper. When I was the Chief Clerk of the Grand Divan of Bagdad and wore upon my robe of state the sign of the Great Lion— a gold badge studded with diamonds, conferred upon me by the Caliph. . . .”

Little Nasreddin was obliged to hear out all his boastful lies, but we have no need to do so, all the more that each of us has heard their like on many an occasion. Such boastful lying about their past grandeur is ever the way of men who have been cast down to the bottom of life, and it follows all generations without ever changing its essential pattern. After having related all the vicissitudes of fate and the treacheries of his enemies, the scrivener left it at that, then asked:

“What kind of sign do you desire, boy? Speak—I shall make you happy.”

“Just three words in big letters,” said Nasreddin. “ ‘Beast Called Cat.’ ”

“What? Repeat it. ‘Beast Called Cat’? H’m. . . .”

The scrivener pursed up his mouth and gave the boy a piercing glance out of his sharp little eyes.

“Tell me, pray, what do you want such a sign for?” he asked.

“He who pays knows what he pays for,” little Nasreddin answered evasively. “What is your price?”

“A tanga and a half,” came the reply.

“So dear? For only three words?”

“But what words!” returned the scrivener. “Beast!” —he made a mysteriously ominous face. “Called!”—he whispered the word, imparting to it a felonious conspiratorial tone. “Cat!”—he shuddered and recoiled as if he had touched a snake. “Who would charge you anything less than that?”

Little Nasreddin was obliged to agree to the price of one and a half tangas, albeit he failed to grasp the dangerous import of his sign.

The scrivener pulled out a piece of yellowish Chinese paper from under his mat, trimmed it with a knife, armed himself with a brush and proceeded to his task, inwardly regretting that of the three words with which he had been entrusted he was unable, for all his dexterity, to carve out a single informer’s report.

On his way back little Nasreddin tarried only at the Shoemakers’ Row, where, with shoemaker’s glue, he pasted the sign to a smoothly planed little board.

Hung up outside the tent, it looked quite enticing.

“Now collect the money, grandma,” said little Nasreddin.

The caged cat, installed within the tent, wauled drearily and lonesomely.

The old woman seated herself at the entrance with her crock.

Little Nasreddin took up a position three paces away, nearer to the road, then, filling his lungs with air, he let it out in such a piercing voice that the old woman’s ears began to itch dreadfully.

“Beast called cat!” screamed Nasreddin, his face red with exertion. “Sitting in a cage! He has four paws! Four paws with sharp claws, like needles! He has a long tail that bends freely right and left, up and down, and is capable of assuming any shape or form—that of a hook, or even a ring! Beast called cat! He curves his back and twitches his whiskers! He has a black coat! He has yellow eyes that burn in the dark like smouldering coals! He makes unpleasant noises when he is hungry, and nice ones when he is well fed! Beast called cat! Sitting in a cage, a strong reliable cage! Anyone can see him for two coppers without the slightest risk or danger! A strong reliable cage! Beast called cat!”

But three minutes had elapsed when his zeal was rewarded. A bazaar loiterer, who had come out of the Hardware Row, stopped, listened, and turned towards the tent. In appearance he was the exact double of the Big Bokhara Man, albeit on a smaller scale—his younger brother, one might say—just as fat, and ruddy, and with the same dull sleepy look. He came close up to Nasreddin and gazed stupefied at him, his arms sticking out from his body. A fatuous blissful grin spread slowly over his face and his eyes became glassy and staring.

“Beast called cat!” Nasreddin screamed right into his face. “Sitting in a cage! To be contemplated for two coppers!”

The Small Bokhara Man stood there for a long time, listening to these cries with an air of quiet imbecilic rapture, then he went up to the old woman, rummaged in his girdle with fat fingers and tossed two coppers into her crock.

The coins tinkled. The voice of little Nasreddin broke with excitement. This was victory!

The Small Bokhara Man drew the curtain aside and walked into the tent.

Nasreddin fell silent, waiting with bated breath for him to reappear.

The Small Bokhara Man remained within the tent a very long time. What he was doing there no one knew; probably contemplating. When he came forth again there was written upon his face perplexity, annoyance and bewilderment—as though someone in the tent had tried to fit a boot on to his head or feed him with soap. He went up once more to little Nasreddin, who had renewed his cries, and stared at him again dumbstruck with his arms wide apart, the former blissful grin having now given place to an air of troubled perplexity. He guessed that he had been fooled, but in what way he could not exactly make out.

Thereat the Small Bokhara Man withdrew. Three others now stood by the tent, quarrelling noisily among themselves as to who was to be the first to contemplate the beast.

These had more wits; coming out of the tent, the last one held his sides with laughter. Since it is the way of every dupe to desire that others should not be cleverer, none of the three mentioned a single word to the two others who were already awaiting their turn at the entrance.

The contemplation of the beast continued throughout the day. It was contemplated by merchants, by craftsmen, by visiting farmers, and even by learned men of Islam in white turbans with the ends turned up. It was contemplated before feeding time, when it emitted noises unpleasant, and after a liver repast, when it emitted of noises none at all, but fell to licking itself and catching fleas.

The tent did not close until drumbeat. The old woman counted the day’s receipts. Nineteen tangas! The very first day had more than covered all expenses, and the morrow promised a clear profit.

The life of the old woman underwent a marvellous change. She now had even a roof of her own, for the tent was her inalienable property. She spent the night in it. The cat, let out of his cage, walked around the corners, tail erect, sniffing out his new dwelling.

Little Nasreddin cried outside the tent for three more days, then told the old woman that she would have to hire someone else, as he had other affairs at home to attend to. For three tangas a day they hired an old man, a former muezzin. This one shouted loud enough, but in a drawn-out prayerful voice, so that they had to buy him a drum, which he beat at intervals for the greater attraction of the public.

The boy did not forget the old woman, and visited her every week. This meeting was always a joyful event for both. The old woman informed the boy of her increasing wealth and every time offered him a half. And every time he refused, taking only one tanga for sweetmeats in order not to offend her.

Before going away, the boy looked into the tent and contemplated. Fed daily with liver, the cat had grown amazingly sleek and fat and lazy, and always slept on a cushion, specially acquired for him. The boy opened the cage and stroked the cat, marvelling at his silky fur. The cat slightly opened one eye, barely wagged the tip of his tail, and went to sleep again.

When winter came the boy and old woman parted. She moved to Namangan, where she had some Gypsy kinsfolk. She rode away in a covered waggon—to such a degree of wealth had she attained! And how she wept, embracing little Nasreddin at parting! For the last time the boy filled his gaze with the sight of the beast sitting on a cushion in his cage—and the waggon moved off.

 

In the course of time, finding himself one day in Shiraz, the birthplace of the great Saadi, Khoja Nasreddin (he was Khoja Nasreddin by that time!) suddenly heard the loud shouts of a crier at the bazaar, “Beast called cat! Beast sitting in a cage!” With agitation in his heart he hastened towards the cries and beheld a tent on the square. At the entrance sat a young Gypsy— a merry beautiful damsel in earrings and beads, with a burnished copper tray for money in front of her. And opposite, at the other entrance, the old woman sat dozing; she was utterly decrepit, having already passed through that portal of earthly existence, beyond which dreams and reality merge together indefinably. Khoja Nasreddin tossed a large silver rupee into the tray on purpose so as to linger before the beautiful young Gypsy while she counted out the change. She understood it, of course, and took her time with the change, which she counted out in small copper, her eyes demurely shadowed by velvety eyelashes which failed, however, to conceal the smile that hovered upon her fresh rosy lips. Khoja Nasreddin entered the tent and beheld the cat— the very same cat, only aged and decrepit like its mistress. Khoja Nasreddin called it, but received no response; belike it had grown deaf with old age.

Coming out at the other end of the tent, Khoja Nasreddin returned to the entrance. The young Gypsy thought it was because of her, and laughed frankly with a flash of white teeth. But to her great chagrin, puzzlement and even indignation, Khoja Nasreddin preferred converse with the old woman. He bent over her and said softly:

“Good morning, grandma. Do you remember Bokhara, do you remember the bazaar boy by the name of Nasreddin. . . .”

The old woman started and a sudden light burst upon her face. Gasping, she cried out softly and leaned forward, clutching at the air with eager trembling hands. But Khoja Nasreddin withdrew, saying within himself, “Let this be to her a fleeting echo from the past, an airy transient dream before the eternal sleep that soon will close those eyes.” He looked round. The old woman was still grasping, embracing the air with trembling hands, while the young one, utterly bewildered and alarmed, cast swift glances now at the old woman, now at the crowd into which the strange visitor had disappeared.

He looked back no more, and the bazaar engulfed him in its seething clamorous cauldron.

Another incident happened to him in his childhood at the Bokhara bazaar.

He was wandering between the rows of shops. The unbearable heat drove him to the pool. A woman, covered with a thick veil, followed him. Hearing steps behind him, he looked round.

“Wait!” the woman said in an odd voice, and advancing towards him she threw back her veil and bent over him. She laid dry hot hands on his cheeks, brought her emaciated grief-stricken face close to his, and fastened her eyes upon his as though she would pour something from her soul into his, or, on the contrary, drink from his. He was confused. What did the woman want? Her eyes were big and black, and wet with tears.

“Go!” she whispered at last, pushing him gently. “May Allah preserve you always and everywhere. Go!”

She lowered her veil and walked away down a bystreet with swift steps, as though someone were pursuing her. He gazed after her in perplexity, understanding naught. Within an hour, in the motley turmoil of the bazaar, he had already forgotten the woman, and remembered her no more.

Many years later, when he was a grown-up man, he was spending the night in a roadside caravanserai somewhere between Beirut and Basra, and saw the woman in a dream—he recognized her face, her eyes, the voice, saying, “May Allah preserve you always and everywhere.”

He awoke with an aching heart, realizing that that woman was his real mother. This was not a mere guess, but exact knowledge, clear and incontestable, which had come to him in some mysterious way. He bethought himself that he had never spoken a word to her; moved by a great compassion and a great love for her, he wept, repeating without end words of love and tenderness, such as children use to their mothers. It was as if a door had suddenly been opened in his long past babyhood, and the words came to him of themselves, and he repeated them, kissing the dark night air, convinced that she could hear him and responded to him with the palpitant, suffering, but living heart of a mother.

Thus did he meet his mother in his dreams, but her name he never discovered, and never visited her grave. Indeed, where could he seek that nameless grave, and wherefore should he seek it when she was ever alive and living to him!

 

We have come to the end of our story about the childhood of Khoja Nasreddin.