The Shaving of Shagpat, George Meredith [popular e readers TXT] 📗

them, and lo! they were in a lofty court, built all of marble, and in the middle of it a fountain playing, splashing silvery. Shibli Bagarag would have halted here to breathe the cool refreshingness of the air, but the old woman would not; and she hurried on even to the opening of a spacious hall, and in it slaves in circle round a raised seat, where sat one that was their lord, and it was the Chief Vizier of the King.

Then the old woman turned round sharply to Shibli Bagarag, and said, “How of thy tackle, O my betrothed?”

He answered, “The edge is keen, the hand ready.”

Then said she, “ ’Tis well.”

So the old woman put her two hands on the shoulders of Shibli Bagarag, saying, “Make thy reverence to him on the raised seat; have faith in thy tackle and in me. Renounce not either, whatsoever ensueth. Be not abashed, O my bridegroom to be!”

Thereupon she thrust him in; and Shibli Bagarag was abashed, and played foolishly with his fingers, knowing not what to do. So when the Chief Vizier saw him he cried out, “Who art thou, and what wantest thou?”

Now, the back of Shibli Bagarag tingled when he heard the Vizier’s voice, and he said, “I am, O man of exalted condition, he whom men know as Shibli Bagarag, nephew to Baba Mustapha, the renowned of Shiraz; myself barber likewise, proud of my art, prepared to exercise it.”

Then said the Chief Vizier, “This even to our faces! Wonderful is the audacity of impudence! Know, O nephew of the barber, thou art among them that honour not thy art. Is it not written, ‘For one thing thou shalt be crowned here, for that thing be thwacked there?’ So also it is written, ‘The tongue of the insolent one is a lash and a perpetual castigation to him.’ And it is written, O Shibli Bagarag, that I reap honour from thee, and there is no help but that thou be made an example of.”

So the Chief Vizier uttered command, and Shibli Bagarag was ware of the power of five slaves upon him; and they seized him familiarly, and placed him in position, and made ready his clothing for the reception of fifty other thwacks with a thong, each several thwack coming down on him with a hiss, as it were a serpent, and with a smack, as it were the mouth of satisfaction; and the people assembled extolled the Chief Vizier, saying, “Well and valiantly done, O stay of the State! and suchlike to the accursed race of barbers.”

Now, when they had passed before the Chief Vizier and departed, lo! he fell to laughing violently, so that his hair was agitated and was as a sand-cloud over him, and his countenance behind it was as the sun of the desert reflected ripplingly on the waters of a bubbling spring, for it had the aspect of merriness; and the Chief Vizier exclaimed, “O Shibli Bagarag, have I not made fair show?”

And Shibli Bagarag said, “Excellent fair show, O mighty one!” Yet knew he not in what, but he was abject by reason of the thwacks.

So the Vizier said, “Thou lookest lean, even as one to whom Fortune oweth a long debt. Tell me now of thy barbercraft: perchance thy gain will be great thereby?”

And Shibli Bagarag answered, “My gain has been great, O eminent in rank, but of evil quality, and I am content not to increase it.” And he broke forth into lamentations, crying in excellent verse:⁠—

“Why am I thus the sport of all⁠—
A thing Fate knocketh like a ball
From point to point of evil chance,
Even as the sneer of Circumstance?
While thirsting for the highest fame,
I hunger like the lowest beast:
To be the first of men I aim
And find myself the least.”

Now, the Vizier delayed not when he heard this to have a fair supply set before Shibli Bagarag, and meats dressed in diverse fashions, spiced, and coloured, and with herbs, and wines in golden goblets, and slaves in attendance. So Shibli Bagarag ate and drank, and presently his soul arose from its prostration, and he cried, “Wullahy! the head cook of King Shamshureen could have worked no better as regards the restorative process.”

Then said the Chief Vizier, “O Shibli Bagarag, where now is thy tackle?”

And Shibli Bagarag winked and nodded and turned his head in the manner of the knowing ones, and he recited the verse:

“ ’Tis well that we are sometimes circumspect,
And hold ourselves in witless ways deterred:
One thwacking made me seriously reflect;
A second turned the cream of love to curd:
Most surely that profession I reject
Before the fear of a prospective third.”

So the Vizier said, “ ’Tis well, thou turnest verse neatly.” And he exclaimed extemporaneously:

“If thou wouldst have thy achievement as high
As the wings of Ambition can fly:
If thou the clear summit of hope wouldst attain,
And not have thy labour in vain;
Be steadfast in that which impell’d, for the peace
Of earth he who leaves must have trust:
He is safe while he soars, but when faith shall cease,
Desponding he drops to the dust.”

Then said he, “Fear no further thwacking, but honour and prosperity in the place of it. What says the poet?⁠—

“ ‘We faint, when for the fire
There needs one spark;
We droop, when our desire
Is near its mark.’

“How near to it art thou, O Shibli Bagarag! Know, then, that among this people there is great reverence for the growing of hair, and he that is hairiest is honoured most, wherefore are barbers creatures of especial abhorrence, and of a surety flourish not. And so it is that I owe my station to the esteem I profess for the cultivation of hair, and to my persecution of the clippers of it. And in this kingdom is no one that beareth such a crop as I, saving one, a clothier, an accursed one!⁠—and may a blight fall upon him for his vanity and his