Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (Classics) by

Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1973-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

THE TALE OF KAFUR THE BLACK EUNUCH

KNOW, my friends, that when no more than eight years of age I had already cultivated a remarkable habit of telling one big lie a year.

Unable to bear with me any longer, my old master, who was a slave merchant, decided to sell me. He took me to his broker and ordered him to cry through the market-place: ‘Who will buy a little slave with one fault?’

While the broker was thus declaiming the terms of the bargain, a certain merchant came forward and inquired what my fault might be. He was told that I lied once a year, and he finally agreed to buy me, fault and all, for the moderate sum of six hundred dirhams. Thereupon the broker took me to the merchant’s house, and departed after receiving his commission.

My new master clad me in a fine suit of clothes, and I remained in his service for the rest of that year. With the new year the merchants hailed a season of fruitfulness and abundance, regaling each other at convivial feasts. When his turn came, my master made elaborate preparations for a pleasure-trip to a garden not far from the city. On the appointed day he and his guests went there and sat eating and carousing till noon, when my master, having forgotten something at his house, ordered me to ride back and return with it posthaste.

At once I mounted my mule and set out on my errand. But as soon as I drew near the house, I began to cry out and to shed a flood of tears. The neighbours, old and young, flocked around me; and, hearing my cries, my master’s wife and daughters rushed to the door and asked me what had happened. With tears running down my face, I sobbed: ‘My master and his guests were sitting in the garden beneath an old wall, and the wall fell down on them and crushed them to death. I mounted my mule and came with all speed to tell you.’

When they heard this, my master’s wife and daughters shrieked and rent their clothes and beat their faces, while the neighbours thronged around to comfort them. My mistress proceeded to mourn her husband’s death in a noble fashion. She set the entire house in chaos, smashing up the furniture, tearing down the doors and the windows, and smearing the walls with mud and soot. When half the business of destruction had been accomplished, she cried out to me to help her in the mourning rites. I gladly offered my services, setting myself the task of making havoc of all that remained. I knocked out the cupboards, pulled down the shelves with all that stood upon them, shattered to fragments the vessels and the china, and went around battering at the walls and the ceilings until the whole house lay in ruin. And all the while I cried: ‘My master, oh, my master!’

Then my mistress rushed out into the street, with face unveiled and tresses flowing, followed by all her sons and daughters.

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