The Shaving of Shagpat, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> The Shaving of Shagpat, Complete

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While he was prating Noorna took the dish in her lap, and folded her
silvery feet beneath her, and commenced whipping into it the drug: and
she whipped it dexterously and with equal division among the grain,
whipping it and the flea with it, but she feigned not to mark the flea
and whipped harder. Then took she colour and coloured it saffron, and
laid over it gold-leaf, so that it glittered and was an enticing sight;
and the dish was of gold, crusted over with devices and patterns, and
heads of golden monsters, a ravishment of skill in him that executed it,
cumbrous with ornate golden workmanship; likewise there were places round
the dish for sticks of perfume and cups carved for the storing of
perfumed pellets, and into these Noorna put myrrh and ambergris and rich
incenses, aloes, sandalwood, prepared essences, divers keen and sweet
scents. Then when all was in readiness, she put the dish upon the knee of
Baba Mustapha, and awoke him from his babbling reverie with a shout, and
said, 'An instrument verily, O Baba Mustapha! and art thou a cat to shave
Shagpat with that tongue of thine?'

Now, he arose and made the sign of obedience and said, ''Tis well, O lady
of grace and bright wit! and now for the cap of Shiraz and the Persian
robe, and my twenty slaves and seven to follow me to the mansion of
Shagpat. I'll do: I'll act.'

So she motioned to a slave to bring the cap of Shiraz and the Persian
robe, and in these Baba Mustapha arrayed himself. Then called he for the
twenty-and-seven slaves, and they were ranged, some to go before, some to
follow him. And he was exalted, and made the cap of Shiraz nod in his
conceit, crying, 'Am I not leader in this complot? Wullahy! all bow to me
and acknowledge it.' Then, to check himself, he called out sternly to the
slaves, 'Ho ye! forward to the mansion of Shagpat; and pass at a slow
pace through the streets of the city--solemnly, gravely, as before a
potentate; then will the people inquire of ye, Who't is ye marshal, and
what mighty one? and ye will answer, He's from the court of Shiraz,
nothing less than a Vizier--bearing homage to Shagpat, even this dish of
pomegranate grain.'

So they said, 'To hear is to obey.'

Upon that he waved his hand and stalked majestically, and they descended
from the roof into the street, criers running in front to clear the way.
When Baba Mustapha was hidden from view by a corner of the street, Noorna
shrank in her white shoulders and laughed, and was like a flashing pearl
as she swayed and dimpled with laughter. And she cried, 'True are those
words of the poet, and I testify to them in the instance of Baba
Mustapha:

"With feathers of the cock, I'll fashion a vain creature;
With feathers of the owl, I'll make a judge in feature";

Is not the barber elate and lofty? He goeth forth to the mastery of this
Event as go many, armed with nought other than their own conceit: and
'tis written:

"Fools from their fate seek not to urge:
The coxcomb carrieth his scourge."'

So Feshnavat smoothed his face, and said, 'Is't not also written?--

"Oft may the fall of fools make wise men moan!
Too often hangs the house on one loose stone!"

'Tis so, O Noorna, my daughter, and I am as a reed shaken by the wind of
apprehensiveness, and doubt in me is a deep root as to the issue of this
undertaking, for the wrath of the King will be terrible, and the clamour
of the people soundeth in my ears already. If Shibli Bagarag fail in one
stroke, where be we? 'Tis certain I knew not the might in Shagpat when I
strove with him, and he's powerful beyond the measure of man's subtlety;
and yonder flies a rook without fellow--an omen; and all's ominous, and
ominous of ill: and I marked among the troop of slaves that preceded Baba
Mustapha one that squinted, and that's an omen; and, O my daughter, I
counsel that thou by thy magic speed us to some remote point in the
Caucasus, where we may abide the unravelling of this web securely, one
way or the other way. 'Tis my counsel, O Noorna.'

Then she, 'Abandon my betrothed? and betray him on the very stroke of the
Sword? and diminish him by a withdrawal of that faith in his right wrist
which strengtheneth it more than Karavejis and Veejravoosh wound round it
in coils?' And she leaned her head, and cried, 'Hark! hear'st thou?
there's shouting in the streets of Shiraz and of Shagpat! Shall we merit
the punishment of Shahpesh the Persian on Khipil the builder, while the
Event is mastering? I'll mark this interview between Baba Mustapha and
Shagpat; and do thou, O my father, rest here on this roof till the King's
guard of horsemen and soldiers of the law come hither for thee, and go
with them sedately, fearing nought, for I shall be by thee in the garb of
an old woman; and preserve thy composure in the presence of the King and
Shagpat exalted, and allow not the thing that happeneth let fly from thee
the shaft of speech, but remain a slackened bow till the strength of my
betrothed is testified, fearing nought, for fear is that which defeateth
men, and 'tis declared in a distich,--

"The strongest weapon one can see
In mortal hands is constancy."

And for us to flee now would rank us with that King described by the
poet:

"A king of Ind there was who fought a fight
From the first gleam of morn till fall of night;
But when the royal tent his generals sought,
Proclaiming victory, fled was he who fought.
Despair possessed them, till they chanced to spy
A Dervish that paced on with downward eye;
They questioned of the King; he answer'd slow,
'Ye fought but one, the King a double, foe."'

And, O my father, they interpreted of this that the King had been
vanquished, he that was victor, by the phantom army of his fears.'

Now, the Vizier cried, 'Be the will of Allah achieved and consummated!'
and he was silenced by her wisdom and urgency, and sat where he was,
diverting not the arch on his brow from its settled furrow. He was as one
that thirsteth, and whose eye hath marked a snake of swift poison by the
water, so thirsted he for the Event, yet hung with dread from advancing;
but Noorna bin Noorka busied herself about the roof, drawing circles to
witness the track of an enemy, and she clapped her hands and cried,
'Luloo!' and lo, a fair slave-girl that came to her and stood by with
bent head, like a white lily by a milk-white antelope; so Noorna clouded
her brow a moment, as when the moon darkeneth behind a scud, and cried,
'Speak! art thou in league with Karaz, girl?'

Luloo strained her hands to her temples, exclaiming, 'With the terrible
Genie?--I?--in league with him? my mistress, surely the charms I wear,
and the amulets, I wear them as a protection from that Genie, and a
safeguard, he that carrieth off the maidens and the young sucklings,
walking under the curse of mothers.'

Said Noorna, 'O Luloo, have I boxed those little ears of thine this day?'

The fair slave-girl smiled a smile of submissive tenderness, and
answered, 'Not this day, nor once since Luloo was rescued from the wicked
old merchant by thy overbidding, and was taken to the arms of a wise kind
sister, wiser and kinder than any she had been stolen from, she that is
thy slave for ever.'

She said this weeping, and Noorna mused, ''Twas as I divined, that
wretched Kadza: her grief 's to come!' Then spake she aloud as to
herself, 'Knew I, or could one know, I should this day be a bride?' And,
hearing that, Luloo shrieked, 'Thou a bride, and torn from me, and we two
parted? and I, a poor drooping tendril, left to wither? for my life is
round thee and worthless away from thee, O cherisher of the fallen
flower.'

And she sobbed out wailful verses and words, broken and without a
meaning; but Noorna caught her by the arm and swung her, and bade her
fetch on the instant a robe of blue, and pile in her chamber robes of
amber and saffron and grey, bridal-robes of many-lighted silks,
plum-coloured, peach-coloured, of the colour of musk mixed with pale
gold, together with bridal ornaments and veils of the bride, and a
jewelled circlet for the brow. When this was done, Noorna went with Luloo
to her chamber, attended by slave-girls, and arrayed herself in the first
dress of blue, and swayed herself before the mirror, and rattled the gold
pieces in her hair and on her neck with laughter. And Luloo was
bewildered, and forgot her tears to watch the gaiety of her mistress; and
lo! Noorna, made her women take off one set of ornaments with every
dress, and with every dress she put on another set; and after she had
gone the round of the different dresses, she went to the bathroom with
Luloo, and at her bidding Luloo entered the bath beside Noorna, and the
twain dipped and shouldered in the blue water, and were as when a single
star is by the full moon on a bright midnight pouring lustre about. And
Noorna splashed Luloo, and said, 'This night we shall not sleep together,
O Luloo, nor lie close, thy bosom on mine.'

Thereat, Luloo wept afresh, and cried, 'Ah, cruel! and 'tis a sweet
thought for thee, and thou'lt have no mind for me, tossing on my hateful
lonely couch.'

Tenderly Noorna eyed Luloo, and the sprinkles of the bath fell with the
tears of both, and they clung together, and were like the lily and its
bud on one stalk in a shower. Then, when Noorna had spent her affection,
she said, 'O thou of the long downward lashes, thy love was constant when
I stood under a curse and was an old woman--a hag! Carest thou so little
to learn the name of him that claimeth me?'

Luloo replied, 'I thought of no one save myself and my loss, O my lost
pearl; happy is he, a youth of favour. Oh, how I shall hate him that
taketh thee from me. Tell me now his name, O sovereign of hearts!'

So Noorna smoothed the curves and corners of her mouth and calmed her
countenance, crying in a deep tone and a voice as of reverence,
'Shagpat!'

Now, at that name Luloo drank in her breath and was awed, and sank in
herself, and had just words to ask, 'Hath he demanded thee again in
marriage, O my mistress?'

Said Noorna, 'Even so.'

Luloo muttered, 'Great is the Dispenser of our fates!'

And she spake no further, but sighed and took napkins and summoned the
slave-girls, and arrayed Noorna silently in the robe of blue and bridal
ornaments. Then Noorna said to them that thronged about her, 'Put on,
each of ye, a robe of white, ye that are maidens, and a fillet of blue,
and a sash of saffron, and abide my coming.'

And she said to Luloo, 'Array thyself in a robe of blue, even as mine,
and let trinkets lurk in thy tresses, and abide my coming.'

Then went she forth from them, and veiled her head and swathed her figure
in raiment of a coarse white stuff, and was as the moon going behind a
hill of dusky snow; and she left the house, and passed along the streets
and by the palaces, till she came to the palace of her father, now filled
by Shagpat. Before the palace grouped a great concourse and a multitude
of all ages and either sex in that city, despite the blaze and the heat.
Like roaring of a sea beyond the mountains was the noise that issued from
them, and their eyes were a fire of beams against the portal of the
palace. Now, she saw in the crowd one Shafrac, a shoemaker, and
addressed him, saying, 'O Shafrac, the shoemaker, what's this assembly
and how got together? for the poet says:

"Ye string not such assemblies in the street,
Save when some high Event should be complete."'

He answered, ''Tis an Event complete. Wullahy! the deputation from Shiraz
to Shagpat, and the submission of that vain city to the might of
Shagpat.' And he asked her, jestingly, 'Art thou a witch, to guess that,
O veiled and virtuous one?'

Quoth she, 'I read the thing that cometh ere 'tis come, and I read danger
to Shagpat in this deputation from Shiraz, and this dish of pomegranate
grain.'

So Shafrac cried, 'By the beard of my fathers and that of Shagpat! let's
speak of this to Zeel, the garlic-seller.'

He broadened to one that was by him, and said, 'O Zeel, what's thy mind?
Here's a woman, a wise woman, a witch, and she sees danger to Shagpat in
this deputation from Shiraz and this dish of pomegranate grain.'

Now, Zeel screwed his visage and gazed up into his forehead, and said,
''Twere best to consult with Bootlbac, the drum-beater.'

The two then called to Bootlbac, the drum-beater, and told him the
matter, and Bootlbac pondered, and tapped his brow and beat on his
stomach, and said, 'Krooz el Krazawik, the carrier, is good in such a
case.'

Now, from Krooz el Krazawik, the carrier, they went to Dob, the
confectioner; and from Dob, the confectioner, to Azawool, the builder;
and from Azawool, the builder, to Tcheik, the collector of taxes; and
each referred to some other, till perplexity triumphed and was a cloud
over them, and the words, 'Danger to Shagpat,' went about like bees, and
were canvassing, when suddenly a shrill voice rose from the midst,
dominating other voices, and it was that of Kadza, and she cried, 'Who
talks here of danger to Shagpat, and what wretch is it?'

Now, Tcheik pointed out Azawool, and Azawool Dob, and Dob Krooz el
Krazawik, and he Bootlbac, and the drum-beater shrugged his shoulder at
Zeel, and Zeel stood away from Shafrac, and Shafrac seized Noorna and
shouted, ''Tis she, this woman, the witch!'

Kadza fronted Noorna, and called to her, 'O thing of infamy, what's this
talk of thine concerning danger to our glory, Shagpat?'

Then Noorna replied, 'I say it, O Kadza! and I say it; there's danger
threateneth him, and from that deputation and that dish of pomegranate
grain.'

Now, Kadza laughed a loose laugh, and jeered at Noorna, crying, 'Danger
to Shagpat! he that's attended by Genii, and watched over by the greatest
of them, day and night incessantly?'

And Noorna said, 'I ask pardon of the Power that seeth, and of thee, if I
be wrong. Wah! am I not also of them that watch over Shagpat? So then let
thou and I go into the palace and examine the doings of this deputation
and this dish of pomegranate grain.'

Now, Kadza remembered the scene on the roofs of the Vizier Feshnavat, and
relaxed in her look of suspicion, and said, ''Tis well! Let's in to
them.'

Thereupon the twain threaded through the crowd and locked at the portals
of the palace, and it was opened to them and they entered, and lo! the
hand that opened the portals was the hand of a slave of the Sword, and
against corners of the Court leaned slaves silly with slumber. So Kadza
went up to them, and beat them, and shook them, and they yawned and
mumbled, 'Excellent grain! good grain! the grain of Shiraz!' And she beat
them with what might was hers, till some fell sideways and some forward,
still mumbling, 'Excellent pomegranate grain!' Kadza was beside herself
with anger and vexation at them, tearing them and cuffing them; but
Noorna cried, 'O Kadza! what said I? there's danger to Shagpat in this
dish of pomegranate grain! and what's that saying:

"'Tis much against the Master's wish
That slaves too greatly praise his dish."

Wullahy! I like not this talk of the grain of Shiraz.'

Now, while Noorna spake, the eyes of Kadza became like those of the
starved wild-cat, and she sprang off and along the marble of the Court,
and clawed a passage through the air and past the marble pillars of the
palace toward the first room of reception, Noorna following her. And in
the first room were slaves leaning and lolling like them about the Court,
and in the second room and in the third room, silent all of them and
senseless. So at this sight the spark of suspicion became a mighty flame
in the bosom of Kadza, and horror burst out at all ends of her, and she
shuddered, and cried, 'What for us, and where's our hope if Shagpat be
shorn, and he lopped of the Identical, shamed like the lion of my dream!'

And Noorna clasped her hands, and said, ''Tis that I fear! Seek for him,
O Kadza!'

So Kadza ran to a window and looked forth over the garden of the palace,
and it was a fair garden with the gleam of a fountain and watered plants
and cool arches of shade, thick bowers, fragrant alleys, long sheltered
terraces, and beyond the garden a summer-house of marble fanned by the
broad leaves of a palm. Now, when Kadza had gazed a moment, she shrieked,
'He's there! Shagpat! giveth he not the light of a jewel to the house
that holdeth him? Awahy! and he's witched there for an ill purpose.'

Then tore she from that room like a mad wild thing after its stolen cubs,
and sped along corridors of the palace, and down the great flight of
steps into the garden and across the garden, knocking over the
ablution-pots in her haste; and Noorna had just strength to withhold her
from dashing through the doors of the summer-house to come upon Shagpat,
she straining and crying, 'He's there, I say, O wise woman! Shagpat!
let's into him.'

But Noorna clung to her, and spake in her ear, 'Wilt thou blow the fire
that menaces him, O Kadza? and what are two women against the assailants
of such a mighty one as he?' Then said she, 'Watch, rather, and avail
thyself of yonder window by the blue-painted pillar.'

So Kadza crept up to the blue-painted pillar which was on the right side
of the porch, and the twain peered through the window. Noorna beheld the
Dish of Pomegranate Grain; and it was on the floor, empty of the grain,
and Baba Mustapha was by it alone making a lather, and he was twitching
his mouth and his legs, and flinging about his arms, and Noorna heard him
mutter wrathfully, 'O accursed flea! art thou at me again?' And she heard
him mutter as in anguish, 'No peace for thee, O pertinacious flea! and my
steadiness of hand will be gone, now when I have him safe as the hawk his
prey, mine enemy, this Shagpat that abused me: thou abominable flea! And,
O thou flea, wilt thou, vile thing! hinder me from mastering the Event,
and releasing this people and the world from enchantment and bondage? And
shall I fail to become famous to the ages and the times because of such
as thee, flea?'

So Kadza whispered to Noorna, 'What's that he's muttering? Is't of
Shagpat? for I mark him not here, nor the light by which he's girt.'

She answered, 'Listen with the ear and the eye and all the senses.'

Now, presently they heard Baba Mustapha say in a louder tone, like one
that is secure from interruption, 'Two lathers, and this the third! a
potent lather! and I wot there's not a hair in this world resisteth the
sweep of my blade over such a lather as--Ah! flea of iniquity and
abomination! what! am I doomed to thy torments?--so let's spread! Lo!
this lather, is't not the pride of Shiraz? and the polish and smoothness
it sheddeth, is't not roseate? my invention! as the poet says,--O
accursed flea! now the knee-joint, now the knee-cap, and 'tis but a hop
for thee to the arm-pit. Fires of the pit without bottom seize thee! is
no place sacred from thee, and art thou a restless soul, infernal flea?
So then, peace awhile, and here's for the third lather.'

While he was speaking Baba Mustapha advanced to a large white object that
sat motionless, upright like a snow-mound on a throne of cushions, and
commenced lathering. When she saw that, Kadza tossed up her head and her
throat, and a shriek was coming from her, for she was ware of Shagpat;
but Noorna stifled the shriek, and clutched her fast, whispering, 'He's
safe if thou have but patience, thou silly Kadza! and the flea will
defeat this fellow if thou spoil it not.'

So Kadza said, looking up, 'Is 't seen of Allah, and be the Genii still
in their depths?' but she constrained herself, peering and perking out
her chin, and lifting one foot and the other foot, as on furnaces of fire
in the excess of the fury she smothered. And lo, Baba Mustapha worked
diligently, and Shagpat was behind an exulting lather, even as one pelted
with wheaten flour-balls or balls of powdery perfume, and his hairiness
was as branches of the forest foliage bent under a sudden fall of
overwhelming snow that filleth the pits and sharpeneth the wolves with
hunger, and teacheth new cunning to the fox. A fox was Baba Mustapha in
his stratagems, and a wolf in the fierceness of his setting upon Shagpat.
Surely he drew forth the blade that was to shear Shagpat, and made with
it in the air a preparatory sweep and flourish; and the blade frolicked
and sent forth a light, and seemed eager for Shagpat. So Baba Mustapha
addressed his arm to the shearing, and inclined gently the edge of the
blade, and they marked him let it slide twice to a level with the head of
Shagpat, and at the third time it touched, and Kadza howled, but from
Baba Mustapha there burst a howl to madden the beasts; and he flung up
his blade, and wrenched open his robe, crying, 'A flea was it to bite in
that fashion? Now, I swear by the Merciful, a fang like that's common to
tigers and hyaenas and ferocious animals.'

Then looked he for the mark of the bite, plaining of its pang, and he
could find the mark nowhere. So, as he caressed himself, eyeing Shagpat
sheepishly and with gathering awe, Noorna said hurriedly to Kadza, 'Away
now, and call them in, the crowd about the palace, that they may behold
the triumph of Shagpat, for 'tis ripe, O Kadza!'

And Kadza replied, 'Thou'rt a wise woman, and I'll have thee richly
rewarded. Lo, I'm as a camel lightened of fifty loads, and the glory of
Shagpat see I as a new sun rising in the desert. Wullahy! thou'rt wise,
and I'll do thy bidding.'

Now, she went flying back to the palace, and called shrill calls to the
crowd, and collected them in the palace, and headed them through the
garden, and it was when Baba Mustapha had summoned courage for a second
essay, and was in the act of standing over Shagpat to operate on him,
that the crowd burst the doors, and he was quickly seized by them, and
tugged at and hauled at and pummelled, and torn and vituperated, and as a
wrecked vessel on stormy waters, plunging up and down with tattered
sails, when the crew fling overboard freight and ballast and provision.
Surely his time would have been short with that mob, but Noorna made
Kadza see the use of examining him before the King, and there were in
that mob sheikhs and fakirs, holy men who listened to the words of Kadza,
and exerted themselves to rescue Baba Mustapha, and quieted the rage that
was prevailing, and bore Baba Mustapha with them to the great palace of
the King, which was in the centre of that City. Now, when the King heard
of the attempt on Shagpat, and the affair of the Pomegranate Grain, he
gave orders for the admission of the people, as many of them as could be
contained in the Hall of Justice: and he set a guard over Baba Mustapha,
and commanded that Shagpat should be brought to the palace even as he
then was, and with the lather on him. So the regal mandate went forth,
and Shagpat was brought in state on cushions, and the potency of the drug
preserved his sedateness through all this, and he remained motionless in
sleep, folded in the centre of calm and satisfaction, while this tumult
was rageing and the City shook with uproar. But the people, when they saw
him whitened behind a lather, wrath at Baba Mustapha's polluting touch
and the audacity of barbercraft wrestled in them with the outpouring of
reverence for Shagpat, and a clamour arose for the instant sacrifice of
Baba Mustapha at the foot of their idol Shagpat. And the whole of the
City of Shagpat, men, women, and children, and the sheikhs and the
dervishes and crafts of the City besieged the King's palace in that
middle hour of the noon, clamouring for the sacrifice of Baba Mustapha at
the feet of their idol Shagpat.

THE BURNING OF THE IDENTICAL

Now, the Great Hall for the dispensing of justice in the palace of the
King was one on which the architect and the artificers had lavished all
their arts and subtleties of design and taste and their conceptions of
uniformity and grandeur, so that none entered it without a sense of
abasement, and the soul acknowledged awfulness and power in him that
ruled and sat eminent on the throne of that Hall. For, lo! the throne was
of solid weighty gold, overhung with rich silks and purples; and the hall
was lofty, with massive pillars, fifty on either side, ranging in
stateliness down toward the blaze of the throne; and the pillars were
pillars of porphyry and of jasper and precious marble, carven over all of
them with sentences of the cunningest wisdom, distichs of excellence,
odes of the poet, stanzas sharp with the incisiveness of wit, and that
solve knotty points with but one stroke; and these pillars were each the
gift of a mighty potentate of earth or of a Genie.

In the centre of the Hall a fountain set up a glittering jet, and spread
abroad the breath of freshness, leaping a height of sixty feet, and
shimmering there in a wide bright canopy with dropping silver sides. It
was rumoured of the waters of this fountain that they were fed
underground from the waters of the Sacred River, brought there in the
reign of El Rasoon, a former sovereign in the City of Shagpat, by the
labours of Zak,--a Genie subject to the magic of Azrooka, the Queen of El
Rasoon; but, of a surety, none of earth were like to them in silveriness
and sweet coolingness, and they were as wine to the weary.

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