The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment. Complete. George Meredith

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in this world is the darkness of oblivion to me.’

      When it was the next morning, Almeryl rose to go forth again. Ere he had passed the curtain of the chamber Bhanavar caught him by the arm, and she was trembling violently. Her visage was a wild inquiry: ‘Thou goest?—and again? There is something hidden from me!’

      Almeryl took her to his heart, and caressed her with fond flatteries, saying, ‘Ask but what is beating under these two pomegranates, and thou learnest all of me.’

      But she stamped her foot, crying, ‘No! no! I will hear it! There’s a mystery.’

      So he said, ‘Well, then, it is this only; small matter enough. I have a business with the captain of the vessel that brought us hither, and I must see him ere he setteth sail; no other than that, thou jealous, watchful star! Pierce me with thine eyes; it is no other than that.’

      She levelled her lids at him till her lustrous black eyelashes were as arrows, and mimicked him softly, ‘No other than that?’

      And he replied, ‘Even so.’

      Then she clung to him like a hungry creature, repeating, ‘Even so,’ and let him go. Alone, she summoned a slave, a black, and bade him fetch to her without delay Ukleet the porter, and the porter was presently ushered in to her, protesting service and devotion. So, she questioned him of Almeryl, and the Prince’s business abroad, what he knew of it. Ukleet commenced reciting verses on the ills of jealousy, but Bhanavar checked him with an eye that Ukleet had seen never before in woman or in man, and he gaped at her helplessly, as one that has swallowed a bone. She laughed, crying, ‘Learn, O thou fellow, to answer my like by the letter.’

      Now, what she heard from Ukleet when he had recovered his wits, was that the Prince had a business with none save the lenders of money. So she spake to Ukleet in a kindly tone, ‘Thou art mine, to serve me?’

      He was as one fascinated, and delivered himself, ‘Yea, O my mistress! with tongue-service, toe-service, back-service, brain-service, whatso pleaseth thy sweet presence.’

      Said she, ‘Hie over to the broker opposite, and bring him hither to me.’

      Ukleet departed, saying, ‘To hear is to obey.’

      She sat gazing on the Jewel and its counterchanging splendours in her hand, and the thought of Almeryl and his necessity was her only thought. Not ten minutes of the hour had passed before the women waiting on her announced Ukleet and the broker Boolp. Bhanavar gave little heed to the old fellow’s grimaces, and the compliments he addressed her, but handed him the Jewel and desired his valuation of its worth. The face of Boolp was a keen edge when he regarded Bhanavar, but the sight of the Jewel sharpened it tenfold, and he tossed his arms, exclaiming, ‘A jewel, this!’

      So Bhanavar cried to him, ‘Fix a price for it, O thou broker!’

      And Boolp, the old miser, debated, and began prating,

      ‘O lady! the soul of thy slave is abashed by a double beam, this the jewel of jewels, thou truly of thy sex; and saving thee there’s no jewel of worth like this one, and together ye be—wullahy! never felt I aught like this since my espousal of Soolka that ‘s gone, and ‘twas nothing like it then! Now, O my Princess, confess it freely—this is but a pretext, this valuation of the Jewel, and Ukleet our go-between; and leave the rewarding of him to me. Wullahy! I can be generous, and my days of favour with fair ladies be not yet over. Blessed be Allah for this day! And thinkest thou those eyes fell on me with discriminating observation ere my sense of perception was struck by thee? Not so, for I had noted thee, O moon of hearts, from my window yonder.’

      In this fashion Boolp the broker went on prating, and bowing, and screwing the corners of his little acid eyes to wink the wink of common accord between himself and Bhanavar. Meantime she had spoken aside to one of her women, and a second black slave entered the chamber, bearing in his hand a twisted scourge, and that slave laid it on the back of Boolp the broker, and by this means he was brought quickly to the valuation of the Jewel. Then he named a sum that was a great sum, but not the value of the Jewel to the fiftieth part, nay nor the five-hundredth part, of its value; and Ukleet remonstrated with him, but he was resolute, saying, ‘Even that sum leaves me a beggar.’

      So Bhanavar said, ‘My desire is for immediate payment of the money, and the Jewel is thine for that sum.’

      Now the broker went to fetch the money, and returned with it in bags of gold one-half the amount, and bags of silver one-third, and the remainder in writing made due at a certain period for payment. And he groaned and handed her the money, and took the Jewel in his hands; ejaculating, ‘In the name of Allah!’

      That evening, when it was dark and the lamps lit in the chamber, and the wine set and the nosegay, Almeryl asked of Bhanavar to see her under the light of the Jewel. She warded him with an excuse, but he was earnest with her. So she feigned that he teased her, saying, ‘‘Tis that thou art no longer content with me as I am, O my husband!’ Then she said, ‘Wert thou successful in thy dealings this day?’

      His arm slackened round her, and he answered nothing. So she cried, ‘Fie on thee, thou foolish one! and what is thy need of running over this city? Know I not thy case and thine occasion, O my beloved? Surely I am Queen of Serpents, a mistress of enchantments, a diviner of things hidden, and I know thee. Here, then, is what thou requirest, and conceal not from me thy necessity another time, my husband!’

      Upon that she pointed his eye to the money-bags of gold and of silver. Almeryl was amazed, and asked her, ‘How came these? for I was at the last extremity, without coin of any kind.’

      She answered, ‘How, but by the Serpents!’

      And he exclaimed, ‘Would that I might work as that porter worketh, rather than this!’

      Now, seeing he bewailed her use of the powers of the Jewel, Bhanavar fell between his arms, and related to him her discovery of his condition, and how she disposed of the Jewel to the broker, and of the scourging of Boolp; and he praised her, and clave to her, and they laughed and delighted their souls in plenteousness, and bliss was their portion; as the poet says,

           Bliss that is born of mutual esteem

           And tried companionship, I truly deem

           A well-based palace, wherein fountains rise

           From springs that have their sources in the skies.

      So were they for awhile. It happened that one day, that was the last day of the year since her wearing of the Jewel, Ukleet said to them, ‘Be wary! the Vizier Aswarak hath his eye on you, and it is no cool one. I say nothing: the wise are discreet in their tellings of the great. ‘Tis certain the broker Boolp forgetteth not his treatment here.’

      They smiled, turning to each other, and said, ‘We live innocently, we harm no one, what should we fear?’

      During the night of that day Bhanavar awoke and kissed the Prince; and lo! he shuddered in his sleep as with the grave-cold. A second time she was awakened on the breast of Almeryl by a dream of the Serpents of the Lake Karatis—the lake of the Jewel; and she stood up, and there was in the street a hum of voices, and she saw there before the house armed men with naked steel in their hands. Scarce had she called Almeryl to her, when the outer door of their house was forced, and she shrieked to him, ‘‘Tis thou they come for: fly, O my Prince, my husband! the way of the garden is clear.’

      But he said sadly, ‘Nay, what am I? it is thou they would win from me. I’ll leave thee not in this life.’

      So she cried, ‘O my soul, then СКАЧАТЬ