The Shaving of Shagpat by George Meredith (good books to read in english .TXT) 📕

chief requisition for a noble palace, a palace to fill foreign kings and sultans with the distraction of envy; and it is, O Sovereign of the time, a site, this site I have chosen, to occupy the tongues of travellers and awaken the flights of poets!”

Shahpesh smiled and said, “The site is good! I laud the site! Likewise I laud the wisdom of Ebn Busrac, where he exclaims:

“ ‘Be sure, where Virtue faileth to appear,
For her a gorgeous mansion men will rear;
And day and night her praises will be heard,
Where never yet she spake a single word.’ ”

Then said he, “O Khipil, my builder, there was once a farm servant that, having neglected in the seedtime to sow, took to singing the richness of his soil when it was harvest, in proof of which he displayed the abundance of weeds that coloured the land everywhere. Discover to me now the completeness of my halls and apartments, I pray thee, O Khipil, and be the excellence of thy construction made visible to me!”

Quoth Khipil, “To hear is to obey.”

He conducted Shahpesh among the unfinished saloons and imperfect courts and roofless rooms, and by half erected obelisks, and columns pierced and chipped, of the palace of his building. And he was bewildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh; but now the King exalted him, and admired the perfection of his craft, the greatness of his labour, the speediness of his construction, his assiduity; feigning not to behold his negligence.

Presently they went up winding balusters to a marble terrace, and the King said, “Such is thy devotion and constancy in toil, Khipil, that thou shalt walk before me here.”

He then commanded Khipil to precede him, and Khipil was heightened with the honour. When Khipil had paraded a short space he stopped quickly, and said to Shahpesh, “Here is, as it chanceth, a gap, O King! and we can go no further this way.”

Shahpesh said, “All is perfect, and it is my will thou delay not to advance.”

Khipil cried, “The gap is wide, O mighty King, and manifest, and it is an incomplete part of thy palace.”

Then said Shahpesh, “O Khipil, I see no distinction between one part and another; excellent are all parts in beauty and proportion, and there can be no part incomplete in this palace that occupieth the builder four years in its building: so advance, do my bidding.”

Khipil yet hesitated, for the gap was of many strides, and at the bottom of the gap was a deep water, and he one that knew not the motion of swimming. But Shahpesh ordered his guard to point their arrows in the direction of Khipil, and Khipil stepped forward hurriedly, and fell in the gap, and was swallowed by the water below. When he rose the second time, succour reached him, and he was drawn to land trembling, his teeth chattering. And Shahpesh praised him, and said, “This is an apt contrivance for a bath, Khipil O my builder! well conceived; one that taketh by surprise; and it shall be thy reward daily when much talking hath fatigued thee.”

Then he bade Khipil lead him to the hall of state. And when they were there Shahpesh said, “For a privilege, and as a mark of my approbation, I give thee permission to sit in the marble chair of yonder throne, even in my presence, O Khipil.”

Khipil said, “Surely, O King, the chair is not yet executed.”

And Shahpesh exclaimed, “If this be so, thou art but the length of thy measure on the ground, O talkative one!”

Khipil said, “Nay, ’tis not so, O King of splendours! blind that I am! yonder’s indeed the chair.”

And Khipil feared the King, and went to the place where the chair should be, and bent his body in a sitting posture, eyeing the King, and made pretence to sit in the chair of Shahpesh, as in conspiracy to amuse his master.

Then said Shahpesh, “For a token that I approve thy execution of the chair, thou shalt be honoured by remaining seated in it up to the hour of noon; but move thou to the right or to the left, showing thy soul insensible of the honour done thee, transfixed thou shalt be with twenty arrows and five.”

The King then left him with a guard of twenty-five of his bodyguard; and they stood around him with bent bows, so that Khipil dared not move from his sitting posture. And the masons and the people crowded to see Khipil sitting on his master’s chair, for it became rumoured about. When they beheld him sitting upon nothing, and he trembling to stir for fear of the loosening of the arrows, they laughed so that they rolled upon the floor of the hall, and the echoes of laughter were a thousand-fold. Surely the arrows of the guards swayed with the laughter that shook them.

Now, when the time had expired for his sitting in the chair, Shahpesh returned to him, and he was cramped, pitiable to see; and Shahpesh said, “Thou hast been exalted above men, O Khipil! for that thou didst execute for thy master has been found fitting for thee.”

Then he bade Khipil lead the way to the noble gardens of dalliance and pleasure that he had planted and contrived. And Khipil went in that state described by the poet, when we go draggingly, with remonstrating members,

“Knowing a dreadful strength behind,
And a dark fate before.”

They came to the gardens, and behold, these were full of weeds and nettles, the fountains dry, no tree to be seen⁠—a desert. And Shahpesh cried, “This is indeed of admirable design, O Khipil! Feelest thou not the coolness of the fountains?⁠—their refreshingness? Truly I am grateful to thee! And these flowers, pluck me now a handful, and tell me of their perfume.”

Khipil plucked a handful of the nettles that were there in the place of flowers, and put his nose to them before Shahpesh, till his nose was reddened; and desire to rub it waxed in him, and