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

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. As he disappears YASMIN peeps inquisitively, unveiled, through the little window in the partition.)
SELIM What an impudent little beauty.... Why, she had a widow's scarf on. She must be the princess! (Rocks with laughter) The unattainable ideal! And I have her address. It requires a frenzied lover to pay cash for a flask of coloured water. But I doubt if Hassan's sweets mingled with coloured water will do aught but can make her sick. Whereas a cake stuffed with those very dinars.... Allah, the dinars would not choke her! O thou fool Hassan!
Tell not thy shirt who smiled and answered "Yes": Dream not her name, nor fancy her address.
(Enter Hassan, pale and staggering.)
HASSAN Selim, in the name of friendship, take these ten dinars and buy me that philtre, and return with speed.
SELIM (Feigning irritation) Allah! Am I your messenger? Go yourself to the Jew.
HASSAN I must prepare the sweetmeats this very hour, to send them to her before sunset. In the name of friendship, Selim, take the dinars and purchase me that