Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand | Page 5

her house shut fast
against me, like the gate of paradise against an infidel. Eywallah!
(Recommences moaning.)
SELIM And where was the house of this widow who bought

sweetmeats and had none to sell?
HASSAN In the street of Felicity, by the fountain of the Two Pigeons.
SELIM (Musing) It must be the widow of that Achmet they hung last
year by the Basra Gate.
HASSAN Which Achmet?
SELIM The hairy one.
HASSAN Istagfurallah! He fluttered like a bird. May I never soar so
high.
SELIM Istagfurallah! May I see you! I should burst with laughter and
vultures with repletion. But tell me, you who have fallen so deeply in
love, do you rejoice in your misfortune like a dervish in his dirt, or do
you honestly desire satisfaction?
HASSAN I desire satisfaction Selim. But I pray you talk no more of
this.
SELIM Well, take courage, faint heart, since all things can be cured
save perversity in asses. Perhaps I can cure you of love.
HASSAN By the Prophet, Selim, do not cure my love, cure her
indifference.
SELIM (With sudden alertness) There is only one way of doing that.
HASSAN Which way?
SELIM Do you believe in magic, Hassan?
HASSAN Men who think themselves wise believe nothing till the
proof. Men who are wise believe anything till the disproof.
SELIM What do we know if magic be a lie or not? But since it is
certain that only magic can avail you, you may as well put it to the test.
You can buy a philtre that can draw her love, and send her a jar of
magic sweets.
HASSAN I am ready to all things, ingenious Selim; but do you know a
good magician?
SELIM Zachariah, the Jew, has but lately arrived from Aleppo: he is
the talk of all the market place, and a wonderful man if tales be true.
HASSAN Have you the tales?
SELIM I have this among many. They say that in Bokhara a man called
him an offensive Jew and flung a stone at his head: and he caused the
stone to be suspended in the air and the man too, so that the man
walked all round Bokhara over the heads of the passers-by, who were
astonished, and was constrained to enter his house by the upper

window.
HASSAN (Incredulous) Mashallah!
SELIM And stranger than that. At Ispahan men say he took off the
dome of the Great Mosque and turned it round and had a bath in it, and
put it back again.
HASSAN Mashallah!
SELIM And strangest of all, at Cairo, for the amusement of the Sultan,
he turned the whole population into apes for half an hour.
HASSAN A very trifling change if you knew the Egyptians. I don't
believe a word of all these tales. Yet, doubtless he is as good enough
physician to make a love philtre. But are philtres any good?
SELIM There can be no doubt that there are philtres which drive
women to love, though their hearts be as strong and their heads as cold
as the mountains of Qaf. But as for this Zachariah, I know he sells
philtres at ten dinars the bottle: his shop is crowded with rich old
women.
HASSAN Eywallah, Salim, I am sick of love; but no damsel is worth
ten dinars. And sages have remarked, "the ideal is expensive!" And
philosophers have observed, "There are a thousand figs on the fig-tree
and all as like as like."
SELIM What! All the smooth, shining hills and well-wooded valleys in
that country of love...All going for ten dinars!... And this is the man
whose love is like Mejnun's! What is ten dinars to a man in love? You
gave thrice that sum for this carpet.
HASSAN A carpet is a carpet, and a woman is is a woman. It is not
only the ten dinars. But you know that in this market I have a character.
"Hassan", men say, "is a safe man. Hassan will not leave his jacket on
the wall, or buy peas without prodding the sack." But if they hear: "A
stranger came to Bagdad and no Mussulman and said he would do this,
and Hassan has paid him ten dinars and got no gain", they will nudge
each other when I walk abroad at evening, and say: "A sad end"; and
another "Look at him, Saadet, my son, and drink no wine"; and another,
"God preserve me from the friends of such a one!" and they will call
out to me as they pass, "Ya Hassan, give me ten dinars that I may build
a mosque!" and I will be shamed where I was honoured, and abased
where I was exalted....
(A loud knocking on the floor of the adjacent shop causes HASSAN to

retire thither hurriedly.