Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand Part 5

(Jafar having ascended, MASRUR ascends, and the basket is let down for Ishak.)

ISHAK (Alone) Go on thy way without me, Commander of the Faithful.

I will follow you no further. Find one more adventure if you will.

For me the break of day is adventure enough--and water splas.h.i.+ng in the fountain. Find out, Haroun, the secret of the lights and of the music, of a house that has no door, and a master that will admit no citizen. Drag out the mystery of a man's love or loss, then break your oath and publish his tale to all Bagdad, then fling him gold, and fling him gold, and dream you have made a friend!

Those bags of gold you fling, O my generous master, to a mistress for night, to a poet for a jest, to a rich friend for entertainment, to a beggar for a whim, are they not the revenues of cities, wrung by torture from the poor? But the sighs of your people, Haroun, do not so much as stir the leaves in your palace garden!

And I--I have taken your gold, I, Ishak, who was born on the mountains free of the woods and winds. I have made my home in your palace, and almost forgot it was a prison. And for you I have strung glittering, fulsome verses, a hundred rhyming to one rhyme, ingeniously woven, my disgrace as a poet, my dishonour as a man. And I have forgotten that there are men who dig and sow, and a hut on the hills where I was born.

(Perceives Ha.s.san.) Ah, there is a body, here in the shade.

Corpses of the poor are very common on the streets these days.

They die of poison or the knife, but most of hunger. Mashallah, but you have not died of hunger, my friend, and there is that on your face that I do not like to see. By his clothes this was a common man, a grocer or a baker, his person ill-proportioned and unseemly, but by his forehead not quite a common man. I think--

JAFAR (From above) Ishak, are you coming up?

ISHAK (Shouting back) Wait a minute, I will come.

(To himself) What has curved his mouth into that bitter line?

He is an ugly man, but I maintain there is grace in his countenance.

What? A lute? Take my hand, O brother. You loved music too, and you could sing the songs of the people, which are better than mine-- the songs I learnt from the mother of my mother.

(Taking the broken lute mechanically) What was that one?

"The Green Boy came from over the mountains, Joy of the morning, joy of his heart"?

I have forgotten it, and the lute is broken. Or that other:

"Come to the wells, the desert wells!

The caravan is marching down; I hear the camel bells."

(Resumes Ha.s.sAN's hand) Ah, brother, your hand is warm and your heart beating, you are not dead.

(Bathing Ha.s.sAN's forehead with water from the fountain) I shall know after all what has twisted your mouth awry.

CALIPH Ishak, Ishak, we wait and wait.

ISHAK May I not be free one hour, to breathe the dawn alone! Ah!...

(Takes Ha.s.sAN's body and drags it to the basket.) I come, my master!

(Puts Ha.s.sAN in the basket.) There, take my place, brother, and find your destiny. I will be free to-night, free for one dawn upon the hills!

(As Ha.s.sAN is drawn up in the basket, ISHAK walks rapidly away.)

CURTAIN

ACT II

SCENE I

A great room. To the left three arches lead out onto the balcony where the personages CALIPH, JAFAR and HOST are collected.

The interior of the room is blazing with lights, but empty.

The architecture of the room is curious on account of the wide, low arches which cut off a square in the centre. The furniture of the room is in rich, rather vulgar Oriental taste.

CALIPH Ishak, Ishak, we are waiting and waiting.

JAFAR Ishak! Ishak! Perhaps he is faint.

CALIPH Faint!

JAFAR Let me go down and see what he is doing. I think I hear him talking.

CALIPH He is talking to shadows. He has one of his evil fits tonight.

Do not trouble your head or mine about him. He presumes on our friends.h.i.+p, and forgets the respect due to us. Am I to be kept waiting like a Jew in a court of justice, I the Master...

JAFAR (Quickly) We are not in Basra, Sir. But see, the rope has tightened.

(To MASRUR.) Haul, thou whose soul is white.

RAFI (Helping with ropes to CALIPH who stands idle) G.o.d restore to you the use of your arms, my brother from Basra.

(Ha.s.sAN rolls out of the basket, filthy and the inanimate.) Yallah, Yallah, on what dunghill did this fowl die?

Is this your man of honour?

JAFAR (Astonished) Host of the house, this is not our companion, and we have never set eyes on him before.

RAFI Then what is this?

CALIPH Our friend has played a trick on us--may Allah separate him from salvation!--and sent up this body in place of himself.

Come let us tip it out into the street.

RAFI (Feeling Ha.s.sAN'S pulse) Wait; this man is by no means dead, and the mill of his heart still grinds the flour of life.

Ho, Alder!

(Enter ALDER, a young and pretty page.)

ALDER At his master's service.

RAFI Ho, Willow!