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_ ACT I - SCENE I
A room "behind the shop" in Old Bagdad. In the background a large caldron steaming, for the shop is a sweet-stuff shop and the sugar is boiling. The room has little furniture beyond the carpet, old but unexpectedly choice, and some Persian hangings
[geometrical designs, with crude animals and some verses from the Koran hand-printed on linen].
A ramshackle wooden partition in one corner shuts off from a living room what appears to be the shop.
Squatting on the carpet--facing each other:
HASSAN, the Confectioner, 45, rotund, moustache, turban, greasy grey dress.
SELIM, his friend, young, vulgarly handsome, gaudily clothed.
HASSAN.
(Rocking on his mat)
Eywallah, Eywallah!
SELIM.
Thirty-seven times have you made the same remark,
O father of repetition.
HASSAN.
(More dolefully than ever)
Eywallah, Eywallah!
SELIM.
Have you caught fever?
Is your chest narrow, or your belly thunderous?
HASSAN.
(With a ponderous sigh)
Eywallah!
SELIM.
Is that the merchant of sweetmeats, that sour face?
O poisoner of children, surely it would be better
to cut the knot of reluctance and uncord the casket
of explanation. And the poet Antari has justly remarked:
Divide your sorrow and impart your grief, O fool.
That good man comforteth beyond belief, O fool.
HASSAN.
(Inclining towards the mat)
None is good, save God.
And Abou Awas has excellently sung:
The importunate
Are seldom fortunate.
Nevertheless, know, Selim, that I am in love.
SELIM.
In love! Then why sit moaning on the mat? Are there not
beauties at the barbers, and lights of love at the bazaar?
HASSAN.
(Angrily)
Hold your tongue, Selim, or leave me. I was in earnest when I said I loved, and your coarseness is ill-fitting to my mood. And well I know I am Hassan, the Confectioner, yet I can love as sincerely as Mejnun; for assuredly she of whom my heart is bent is not less fair than Leila.
SELIM.
(Ironically)
Alas! I mistook the particular for the general, and did not recognise the purity of your intentions. But I would not mention Mejnun. Mejnun was young, and you are old, and he was a prince, and you are a Confectioner, and he was beautiful, and you are not, and he was very thin because of his sorrow, and you are fatter than those four-legged I mention not-- God curse their herdsmen!
HASSAN.
And if it be as you say, Selim, if I am indeed a fat, old, ugly tradesman, have I not good reason to be sorry and rock upon my mat, for how shall maintain my heart's desire?
SELIM.
Listen to me, Hassan, why is it that in this last year you have become different from the Hassan that was Hassan? From time to time you talk strangely in your cups, like a mad poet; and you have bought a lute and a carpet too fine for your house. And now I feel you are losing your senses when I hear this talk of love from one who is past the age of folly.
HASSAN.
It may be so, young man. Indeed, a think I am a fool.
It is the affliction of Allah.
SELIM.
Tell me, at least, who she is. It may be she is not so unattainable
as you imagine, unless indeed you have set eyes on the Caliph's
daughter, or on the Queen of all the Jinn.
HASSAN.
Listen, Selim, and I will tell you my affair. Three days ago
a woman came here to buy loukoum of me, dressed as a widow,
and bade me follow her to her door with a parcel. Alas, Selim!
I could see her eyes beneath her veil, and they were like
the twin fountains in the Caliph's garden; and her lips
beneath her veil were like roses hidden in moss,
and her waist was flexible as a palm-tree swaying in the wind,
and her hips were large and heavy and round, like water melons
in the season of water melons. I glanced at her but she would
not smile, and I sighed but she would not glance, and the door
of her house shut fast against me, like the gate of paradise
against an infidel.
Eywallah!
(Recommences moaning.)
SELIM.
And where was the house of this widow who bought
sweetmeats and had none to sell?
HASSAN.
In the street of Felicity, by the fountain of the Two Pigeons.
SELIM.
(Musing)
It must be the widow of that Achmet they hung last year
by the Basra Gate.
HASSAN.
Which Achmet?
SELIM.
The hairy one.
HASSAN.
Istagfurallah!
He fluttered like a bird. May I never soar so high.
SELIM.
Istagfurallah! May I see you! I should burst with laughter
and vultures with repletion. But tell me, you who have fallen
so deeply in love, do you rejoice in your misfortune like
a dervish in his dirt, or do you honestly desire satisfaction?
HASSAN.
I desire satisfaction Selim. But I pray you talk no more of this.
SELIM.
Well, take courage, faint heart, since all things can be cured
save perversity in asses. Perhaps I can cure you of love.
HASSAN.
By the Prophet, Selim, do not cure my love, cure her indifference.
SELIM.
(With sudden alertness)
There is only one way of doing that.
HASSAN.
Which way?
SELIM.
Do you believe in magic, Hassan?
HASSAN.
Men who think themselves wise believe nothing till the proof.
Men who are wise believe anything till the disproof.
SELIM.
What do we know if magic be a lie or not? But since it is certain
that only magic can avail you, you may as well put it to the test.
You can buy a philtre that can draw her love, and send her a jar
of magic sweets.
HASSAN.
I am ready to all things, ingenious Selim; but do you know
a good magician?
SELIM.
Zachariah, the Jew, has but lately arrived from Aleppo:
he is the talk of all the market place, and a wonderful
man if tales be true.
HASSAN.
Have you the tales?
SELIM.
I have this among many. They say that in Bokhara a man
called him an offensive Jew and flung a stone at his
head: and he caused the stone to be suspended in the
air and the man too, so that the man walked all round
Bokhara over the heads of the passers-by, who were
astonished, and was constrained to enter his house
by the upper window.
HASSAN.
(Incredulous)
Mashallah!
SELIM.
And stranger than that. At Ispahan men say he took
off the dome of the Great Mosque and turned it round
and had a bath in it, and put it back again.
HASSAN.
Mashallah!
SELIM.
And strangest of all, at Cairo, for the amusement
of the Sultan, he turned the whole population into
apes for half an hour.
HASSAN.
A very trifling change if you knew the Egyptians. I don't believe a word of all these tales. Yet, doubtless he is as good enough physician to make a love philtre. But are philtres any good?
SELIM.
There can be no doubt that there are philtres which drive women to love, though their hearts be as strong and their heads as cold as the mountains of Qaf. But as for this Zachariah, I know he sells philtres at ten dinars the bottle: his shop is crowded with rich old women.
HASSAN.
Eywallah, Salim, I am sick of love; but no damsel is worth ten dinars. And sages have remarked, "the ideal is expensive!" And philosophers have observed, "There are a thousand figs on the fig-tree and all as like as like."
SELIM.
What! All the smooth, shining hills and well-wooded valleys in that country of love...All going for ten dinars!... And this is the man whose love is like Mejnun's! What is ten dinars to a man in love? You gave thrice that sum for this carpet.
HASSAN.
A carpet is a carpet, and a woman is is a woman. It is not only the ten dinars. But you know that in this market I have a character. "Hassan", men say, "is a safe man. Hassan will not leave his jacket on the wall, or buy peas without prodding the sack." But if they hear: "A stranger came to Bagdad and no Mussulman and said he would do this, and Hassan has paid him ten dinars and got no gain", they will nudge each other when I walk abroad at evening, and say: "A sad end"; and another "Look at him, Saadet, my son, and drink no wine"; and another, "God preserve me from the friends of such a one!" and they will call out to me as they pass, "Ya Hassan, give me ten dinars that I may build a mosque!" and I will be shamed where I was honoured, and abased where I was exalted....
(A loud knocking on the floor of the adjacent shop
causes HASSAN to retire thither hurriedly. As he
disappears YASMIN peeps inquisitively, unveiled,
through the little window in the partition.)
SELIM.
What an impudent little beauty.... Why, she had a
widow's scarf on. She must be the princess!
(Rocks with laughter)
The unattainable ideal! And I have her address.
It requires a frenzied lover to pay cash for a flask
of coloured water. But I doubt if Hassan's sweets
mingled with coloured water will do aught but can
make her sick. Whereas a cake stuffed with those
very dinars.... Allah, the dinars would not choke
her! O thou fool Hassan!
Tell not thy shirt who smiled and answered "Yes":
Dream not her name, nor fancy her address.
(Enter Hassan, pale and staggering.)
HASSAN.
Selim, in the name of friendship, take these ten
dinars and buy me that philtre, and return with speed.
SELIM.
(Feigning irritation)
Allah! Am I your messenger?
Go yourself to the Jew.
HASSAN.
I must prepare the sweetmeats this very hour, to
send them to her before sunset. In the name of
friendship, Selim, take the dinars and purchase
me that philtre.
SELIM.
(Rising and taking dinars)
Do not make me chargeable, O Hassan,
if the philtre is without effect.
I only repeat what I have heard.
HASSAN.
No, I will not blame you. But go quickly for
the magic that nothing may be left unsampled
that may prove beneficial.
(Exit SELIM; HASSAN makes up the fire
and prepares his caldron, saying meanwhile)
That young man weareth out my carpet apace. I begin to think also he doth fray the braid of my affection. But if he buys me a good philtre I will forgive him. Oh, cruel destiny, thou hast made me a common man with a common trade. My friends are fellows from the market, and all my worthless family is dead. Had I been rich, ah me! how deep had been my delight in matters of the soul, in poetry and music and pictures, and companions who do not jeer and grin, and above all, and in the colours of rich carpets and expensive silks. But be content, O artist: thou hast one carpet; be content, O confectioner: thou hast one love--one love, but unattained...yet hadst thou been rich, O confectioner, never hadst thou found her.
Now I will make her sweets, such sweets, ah me! as never I made in my life before. I will make her sweets like globes of crystal, like cubes of jade, like polygons of ruby. I will make her sweets like flowers. Great red roses, passionate carnations, raying daisies, violets, and curly hyacinths. I will perfume my roses
(may they melt sweetly in her lips)
with the perfume of roses, so that she shall say "a rose"! and smell before she tastes. And in the heart of each flower I will distil one drop of the magic of love. Did I not say "they shall be flowers"? _
Read next: Act 1 - Scene 2
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