The Drowned Book by Coleman Barks

Author:Coleman Barks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

1:368–369

THE CHAIN OF EVIDENCE

Klave,26 a wanderer and a watcher, comes to the gate of a town and finds it controlled by a group of mean-looking characters. He decides not to enter the town but rather to go back the way he came.

That will cost you one dinar, they say, to go back that way.

I will stay then and see the town.

That will cost you two.

I’ll contest the fee.

That will cost you three.

So he pays the two dinars and enters the town to seek justice inside the walls. In the public square a man is cutting off the tail of a bear. There is much commotion and flailing about, so that the man’s pregnant wife falls and has a miscarriage.

The wandering man, the crow-commentator on such scenes, continues to the judge’s courtroom where a case is being tried, a man demanding compensation. His father was working in a house with a precariously hung door, a heavy wooden panel which has fallen on the father and killed him.

The carpenter is called. He says a beautiful young woman was passing by. She distracted him into doing the shoddy work.

The young woman says it was the lady of the house where she works who sent her out on an errand to have a shoe repaired.

The cobbler blames the blacksmith for selling him a tool that did not perform as it should have.

The blacksmith admits the fault does lie with him, but if he is punished, the whole community will suffer. There is only one other blacksmith in town and more than enough work for the two of them. On the other hand, he suggests, there are two launderers in town and not enough laundering work for even one. Following this logic, the judge orders one of the laundry men executed.

Now it’s the turn of the cutter of the bear’s tail and his un-pregnant wife. With his rationality honed by the former chain of evidence, the judge rules quickly. The tail-less bear shall be awarded to the tail-cutter until such time as it may grow a new tail. Likewise the tail-cutter’s wife shall be given to the bear-owner to have sex with until she is found to be pregnant again.

Court is adjourned.

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