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

hold in bondage. He will be wrathful; but ye are secure from him. He’s this moment in the farthest region of Earth, doing ill, as is his wont, and the wont of the stock of Eblis.”

So the Vizier said, “He’ll be no true helper, this genie, and I care not for his company.”

She answered, “O my father! leave thou that to me. What says the poet?⁠—

“ ‘It is the sapiency of fools,
To shrink from handling evil tools.’ ”

Now, while she was speaking, she suddenly inclined her ear as to a distant noise; but they heard nothing. Then, after again listening, she cried in a sharp voice, “Ho! muffle your mouths with both hands, and stir not from the ring of the circles, as ye value life and its blessings.”

So they did as she bade them, and watched her curiously. Lo! she swathed the upper and lower part of her face in linen, leaving the lips and eyes exposed; and she took water from an ewer, and sprinkled it on her head, and on her arms and her feet, muttering incantations. Then she listened a third time, and stooped to the floor, and put her lips to it, and called the name, “Karaz!” And she called this name seven times loudly, sneezing between whiles. Then, as it were in answer to her summons, there was a deep growl of thunder, and the palace rocked, tottering; and the air became smoky and full of curling vapours. Presently they were aware of the cry of a cat, and its miaulings; and the patch of red unguent on the floor parted and they beheld a tawny cat with an arched back. So Noorna bin Noorka frowned fiercely at the cat, and cried, “This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! for it serves not the purpose.”

The cat changed, and was a leopard with glowing yellow eyes, crouched for the spring. So Noorna bin Noorka stamped, and cried again, “This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! for it serves not the purpose.”

And the leopard changed, and was a serpent with many folds, sleek, curled, venomous, hissing.

Noorna bin Noorka cried in wrath, “This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! or thou’lt be no other till Eblis is accepted in Paradise.”

And the serpent vanished. Lo! in its place a genie of terrible aspect, black as a solitary tree seared by lightning; his forehead ridged and cloven with red streaks; his hair and ears reddened; his eyes like two hollow pits dug by the shepherd for the wolf, and the wolf in them. He shouted, “What work is it now, thou accursed traitress?”

Noorna replied, “I’ve need of thee!”

He said, “What shape?”

She answered, “The shape of an ass that will carry two on its back, thou Perversity!”

Upon that, he cried, “O faithless woman, how long shall I be the slave of thy plotting? Now, but for that hair of my head, plucked by thy hand while I slept, I were free, no doer of thy tasks. Say, who be these that mark us?”

She answered, “One, the Vizier Feshnavat; and one, Shibli Bagarag of Shiraz, he that’s destined to shave Shagpat, the son of Shimpoor, the son of Shoolpi, the son of Shullum; and the youth is my betrothed.”

Now, at her words the whole genie became as live coal with anger, and he panted black and bright, and made a stride toward Shibli Bagarag, and stretched his arm out to seize him; but Noorna blew quickly on the circles she had drawn, and the circles rose up in a white flame high as the heads of those present, and the genie shrank hastily back from the flame, and was seized with fits of sneezing. Then she said in scorn, “Easily, O Karaz, is a woman outwitted! Surely I could not guess what would be thy action! and I was wanting in foresight and insight! and I am a woman bearing the weight of my power as a woodman staggereth under the logs he hath felled!”

Now, at her words the whole genie became as live coal with anger, and he panted black and bright, and made a stride toward Shibli Bagarag, and stretched his arm out to seize him; but Noorna blew quickly on the circles she had drawn, and the circles rose up in a white flame high as the heads of those present, and the genie shrank hastily back from the flame, and was seized with fits of sneezing. Then she said in scorn, “Easily, O Karaz, is a woman outwitted! Surely I could not guess what would be thy action! and I was wanting in foresight and insight! and I am a woman bearing the weight of my power as a woodman staggereth under the logs he hath felled!”

So she taunted him, and he still sneezing and bent double with the might of the sneeze. Then said Noorna in a stern voice, “No more altercation between us! Wait thou here till I reappear, Karaz!”

Thereupon, she went from them; and the two, Feshnavat and Shibli Bagarag, feared greatly being left with the genie, for he became all colours, and loured on them each time that he ceased sneezing. He was clearly menacing them when Noorna returned, and in her hand a saddle made of hide, traced over with mystic characters and gold stripes.

So she cried, “Take this!” Then, seeing he hesitated, she unclosed from her left palm a powder, and scattered it over him; and he grew meek, and the bending knee of obedience was his, and he took the saddle. So she said, “ ’Tis well! Go now, and wait outside the city in the shape of an ass, with this saddle on thy back.”

The genie groaned, and said, “To hear is to obey!” And he departed with those words, for she held him in bondage. Then she calmed down the white flames of the circles that enclosed Shibli Bagarag and the Vizier Feshnavat, and they stepped forth, marvelling at the greatness of her sorceries that held such a genie in