Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand | Page 7

for a fairer Yasmin than me, I fear, you have strung these pearls.
HASSAN There is no Yasmin but Yasmin, and you are Yasmin.
YASMIN Can this be Hassan, the Confectioner?
HASSAN I am Hassan, and I am a confectioner.
YASMIN Mashallah, Hassan, your words are sweeter than your sweets.
HASSAN Gracious lady, your eyes look down through your veil like angels through a cloud. Dare I ask to see your face, O bright perfection?
YASMIN (Roguishly) Do you take me for a Christian, father of impertinence? And since when do the daughters of Islam unveil before strangers?
HASSAN It is said: he who speaks to the heart is no stranger.
YASMIN (Unveiling her eyes) Are you satisfied, O importunate!
HASSAN Never, till I have seen perfection to perfection.
YASMIN You would shrivel, my poet. What about "the glory too far shed, Yasmin"?
HASSAN Let me see you unveiled, Yasmin.
YASMIN Anything to close the portal of your face. (Unveiling.) There. Do I please thee, my Sultan?
HASSAN (Rapturously) Oh, you are beautiful!
YASMIN Prince of poets, is that all you have to say! Not a stanza, not a trope, not a turn, not a twist, not even a hint that the heavens are opened, or that there are two moons in the sky together?
HASSAN There is but one.
YASMIN Well confectioned, my confectioner! And now, Good-night.
HASSAN O stay, Yasmin, you are too beautiful, and I too bold. I am nothing, and you are the Queen of the Stars of Night. But the thought of you is twisted in the strings of my heart; I burn with love of you, Yasmin. Put me to the proof, my lady; there was nothing I could not do for your bright eyes. I would cross the salt desert and wrest a cup of the water of life from the Jinn that guards it; I would walk to the barriers of the world and steal the roc's egg from its diamond nest. I would swim the seven oceans, and cross the five islands to rob Solomon ben Dawud of his ring in the palace where he lies sleeping in the silence and majesty of uncorrupting death. And I would slip the ring on your finger and make you mistress of the spirits of the air-- but would you love me? Could you love me, do you love me, Yasmin?
YASMIN There is love and love and love.
HASSAN (Passionately) Oh, answer me!
YASMIN I think I have been enchanted, Hassan; how, I cannot tell. Till this afternoon the thought of your appearance made my heart narrow with disgust. But since I ate your present of comfits-- and they were admirable comfits, and I ate them with speed-- my heart is changed and inclined toward you, I know not why or how, except it be through magic.
HASSAN (Aside) She is mine, and magic rules the world! (Aloud) Yasmin, shall I possess you, O Yasmin?
YASMIN Am I not the desert waiting for the rain? Was I not born for passion, Hassan? Is not my bosom burning for kisses? Were not these arms made smooth and hard to fight the battle of love?
HASSAN Are not your lips love's roses, your cheeks love's lilies, your eyes love's hyacinths?
YASMIN Ya, Hassan, and my hair the net of love, and my girdle the chain of love that breaks at a lovers touch?
HASSAN I am drowning in a wave of madness. Let me in, Yasmin; let me in!
YASMIN Ah, if I could!
HASSAN Why not?
YASMIN Ah, if I dared!
HASSAN What do you fear? It is night, and the street is silent.
YASMIN: Ah, dear Hassan, but I am not alone.
HASSAN (Whispering) Not alone? Who is there? Your mother?
YASMIN No! One who you sent here.
HASSAN I sent no one.
YASMIN One of your friends.
HASSAN A man?
SELIM (Poking his head out of the window) Ya, Hassan, Salaam aleikum. I thank you for directing my steps to this rose-strewn bower.
HASSAN (Astonished) Selim!
SELIM Thy servant always.
HASSAN (Wildly) Selim!
SELIM Be advised, O Hassan, go and seek the enchanted egg.
HASSAN Selim, what do you here?
SELIM Plunge not the finger of enquiry into the pie of impertinence, O my uncle.
HASSAN Since when have I become your uncle, Selim, and how did I cease to be your friend?
SELIM Since when did you aspire to poetry, O Hassan? But I have heard these lines:
As from the eagle flies the dove So friendship from the claw of love.
HASSAN Love. What love do you mean, scum of the market?
SELIM This. (Puts a hand on YASMIN's shoulder.)
HASSAN May God strike thee blind, Selim, and shut the door of his compassion against thee!
SELIM What is my crime, Uncle? How have I sinned against thee, or merited the solemn imprecation?
HASSAN Do not touch her, you dog, do not touch her!
SELIM Is it a crime to touch Yasmin, my Uncle? Am I not to be excused? Is not her neck a pillar of the marble of Yoonistan?