Offensive Selections from Christoph Martin Wieland's Dcschinnistan
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Transcript of Offensive Selections from Christoph Martin Wieland's Dcschinnistan
Offensive Selections fromChristoph Martin Wieland’s
Dschinnistan
Translated by
Jonathan Tuttle
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Introduction
This work began with an interest in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The
Magic Flute, one of his most popular operas. Librettist Emmanuel
Schikaneder based the libretto on a short story titled “Lulu, or the Magic
Flute” by Jakob August Liebeskind, which appeared in a collection edited
by Christoph Martin Wieland titled Dschinnistan, oder auserlesene Feen-
und Geister-Mahrchen, published between 1786 and 1789. Curious about
the origins of the opera, I attempted to find a copy of the story in English.
Sadly, this did not appear to exist, and I had no understanding of German,
so all I could rely on was the occasional second-hand accounts of the story.
This state of affairs would have continued indefinitely except that
translation software advanced enough to halfway do the job. Laboriously I
began putting the story through the computer, supplemented with
dictionaries and grammar aids. The result halfway made sense, and I felt
very pleased with it. This may be the first translation of the story into
English ever published.
Buoyed, I decided to translate the rest of Dschinnistan in this
manner. This turned out to be a giant mistake. Two more stories and I lost
all taste for the project. As it turns out, Dschinnistan contains material that
is offensive by current standards: racist, sexist, and several -ists that
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probably have yet to be named. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising given
when it was written, but the bigotry is excessive and more than just casual
thoughtlessness. I don’t know if anyone suggested it during his lifetime,
but Wieland should be ashamed of himself.
These stories are presented here solely for historical and literary
interest only, much as others have presented certain other documents. I do
not endorse or condone anything found in these stories. (If you did
condone the bigotry, I don’t think I’d care for you either.) Because of their
offensive content, I have no interest in gaining any profit from them. No
guarantee is made on the accuracy of these contents either. After all, I
needed a computer, dictionary, and grammar aids to translate these stories.
This document is free for all noncommercial uses. If you use this
document, please make a donation to an organization that works for the
equality of all people, or do something yourself to make this world a better,
fairer place. Wieland would probably be ticked off, and that’s the way it
should be.
—Jonathan Tuttle, 2011
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Contents
Adis and Dahy . . . . . . . . . 3
Aboflede . . . . . . . . . . 57
Lulu, or the Magic Flute . . . . . . . 83
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Adis and Dahy
In the district of Machilipatnam, in a town of the kingdom of
Golkonda, lived a good woman whom her late husband had left in limited
circumstances, supporting two very well behaved daughters. The older,
named Fatimah, was seventeen years old, and Khadijah, the younger,
barely twelve. They lived in a lonely, isolated hut and fed themselves only
by the work of their hands. A brook, which originated not far from their
hut, gave them water to wash the linen garments of some people in
Machilipatnam, whom she had known already for a long time. As soon as
the good peasant and her daughters had a piece of laundry rather nicely
washed and dried, they were in the habit of covering it with flowers so it
would be fragrant.
One day, as the mother, with the intention of picking flowers in the
meadow, by accident grabbed an adder, which lay hidden under a hyacinth.
The venomous worm took revenge right away and bit the poor woman so
violently on the finger that she had to squeal loudly. Her daughters came
running up, startled, and found her finger immensely swollen already. In
less than a quarter of an hour the poison had already penetrated into the
vital parts, and it worked so quickly that there was no recovery.
While the unfortunate woman felt so close to her end, she still wanted
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to fulfill the last duty of a good mother and spoke to her daughters, “Dear
children, I am sorry that I must depart from you at a time when you still
need me, but my hour has come. I see the angel of death is approaching,
and we must separate. What comforts me is that I have no regrets over
your education, and that I have left you, thanks to the loving God, good-
natured, devout children. Always remain on the right path to which I have
led you, and have the commandments of our great prophets before your
eyes. He feeds you by your small labors, as we have done so far; the loving
God will not leave you. Especially, I recommend you, to live together in
peace and, where possible, never be separated, for your happiness is based
on your unity. You, dear Khadijah, are still a child. Obey your sister
Fatimah; she will never give you a bad advice.”
After this warning, the good woman felt her strength leave her; she
embraced her children for the last time and died in their arms. The pain,
which fell over the poor girls, was beyond all expression, for they saw their
mother lying without life before them. They burst into tears and filled the
whole district with their wailing.
Finally, as they had almost wept their eyes out, they sank into a kind
of numbness, from which they were woken by the need to do the last honor
to the corpse of their mother. They each took a graveyard spade, which
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they otherwise used themselves to make a small kitchen garden by their
hut. They dug a grave about fifty steps away from it; with a lot of effort they
hauled the corpse in and covered it with earth and flowers. With that they
returned to their hut; there sleep, which the fatigue provided for them
through this sad work, lowered upon them some hours in a refreshing
forgetting of their grief.
On the following day Fatimah, being more sensible than her sister,
said that they must now get back to work, and told her to fill two baskets
with the laundry they had washed the day before her accident. Then they
set the baskets on their heads and took the road to Machilipatnam together.
They had hardly gone back a hundred steps when they were met by a small,
very ugly, bald-headed and humpbacked old man. However, he was
dressed quite richly, and looked at them with great interest. He seemed
close to a hundred years old and was supported by a staff, with the help of
which he nevertheless, for his great age, still plodded along stately enough.
The old man found both sisters to his taste. “Where to, you beautiful
children?” he said with a tone he sought to make as soft and sweet as
possible.
“We are going to Machilipatnam,” said the older girl.
“May I ask you, without all too much intrusiveness,” he shifted, “what
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is your way of life and whether one could not possibly perform some
services for you?”
“Oh, good sir,” answered Fatimah, “we are only simple-minded
country girls and poor orphans. Only yesterday we lost our mother by the
unhappiest chance.” And with that she told him the story with all
circumstances, not without pouring many tears anew.
“Oh, what suffering does it to me”, said the old man, “that I had not
yet seen your mother before her death! I could have given her a secret
against all venomous wounds, which should have made her healthy again in
two days. My dear children,” he continued, “your sorrow goes to the heart,
and I offer myself to act in your father’s place for you. If you can put so
much trust in me, then leave the providing for your fate to my experience
and my good will. I confess you,” he added as he threw a look at young
Khadijah, “that I find a strong affection for this kind girl in myself. Her
first sight has excited feelings in me which I have never felt. If both of you
want to come with me, then I want to put you into a situation that is far
above your station. And you will find a reason to praise the day, eternally
happy, that you have met me.”
Here the little hunchbacked old man ended his speeches, waiting with
visible unrest for the response to him. He had, admittedly, all the reason to
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be worried. His age and his body were not so provided that they could
make these young people want to listen to a proposal. Nevertheless, even
Fatimah already knew enough to realize that, in circumstances such as
theirs, this would not be the worst position.
The old man noticed her indecision with sadness. “My beautiful
child,” he said to her, “if you had seriously considered the danger to live
alone in such a remote area, you would not consider long to accept my
offer. Without any protection, as you are, do you believe yourselves able to
escape the traps which one will lay for your innocence? If you have enough
virtue to refuse your consent to depraved requests, then you will
nevertheless be missing the power to hold back attacks by force. With me
you have to fear no such thing. My age protects you from challenges to
myself, and my experience should guarantee you against those of other
people. Give up a tedious job that can barely provide the scantiest
maintenance for you. You should find everything with me that you could
require for the necessity and the convenience of life. And I want to say
things that will make you understand; the proposal that I make to you will
be fortunate for both you and me. Come, dear girls; you can do no better.
If your mother still lived, she would certainly give way to my reasons and
believe you safer under my protection than in the hut you inhabit.”
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In short, the small old man spoke so well that Fatimah started being
persuaded. “Good sir,” said she, “I believe I partially understand you and I
am inclined to make use of your goodness for me and my sister. But since
your request mostly concerns her, after the confession of your special
inclination, then I must nevertheless know her disposition beforehand,
before I can give you an exact answer. So speak, Khadijah: Do you feel
inclined to give this man’s request a hearing and to accept him for your
husband? For I consider him too honest, as he could want to deceive a few
innocent orphans to make them entrust their honor to him.”
“No, sister,“ answered Khadijah, blushing. “He is too old and too
ugly.”
The childish openness of this young girl placed Fatimah in some
embarrassment. “Dear sister,” said she, “one probably sees that you are
still at an age where one has little consideration, because you consider the
honor that this gentleman wants to show you is wrong. Instead of telling
him such impoliteness, you should consider it fortunate that you pleased
him.”
“Yes, really,” answered Khadijah weeping. “This is also something for
which one has to be glad a lot! I do not know if it is an honor for me, but I
know quite well that it is a poor delight to always have a man like this there
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in sight.”
“You must not talk so,” said her sister.
“I cannot talk differently,” answered the younger. “If it is such a great
joy to like him, why does he not come along to you, because you are more
beautiful, nevertheless, and more sensible than me? I would probably like
to see, if he loved you, whether you would love him also.”
The little hunchbacked old man played no role during this pleasant
exchange of words. “How unlucky, nevertheless, my fate is,” he cried out in
suffering. “I have seen the most famous beauties of all the Orient and now
live to the age at which you see me, without ever letting my heart be
surprised. And now I must fall at this moment into the strongest passion
for a person who has an insurmountable dislike for me! I can see how I
prepared myself so much, and nevertheless my fate makes me follow an
inclination which pulls me away against my will.”
The eyes of the old man were full of tears as he said this, and he
seemed so moved that Fatimah, who was very tenderhearted by nature, had
to have pity on him. “Dear sir,” said she, “stop saddening yourself so! You
can’t be disturbed by the first speeches of a child who does not yet know
what feels good to it. Her mind will become riper with the years.
Admittedly you do not have the comfort of the young people any more, but
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I take you for a valiant gentleman. Your love as your favors will still win her
indeed. In the meantime, we want to go with you, and I promise you that I
will do my best with her.”
“Fine, sister,” the little one interrupted her peevishly. “But if he
torments me and wants me to love him, then for you I will be good if I do
not run away instead.”
“No, beautiful Khadijah,” said the old man, “you should not be
tormented; I swear it by all that is holy in the world! I do not want to put
the slightest obligation on you. You should have unrestricted mastery over
everything I have. If you would like an expensive dress or any other finery,
then you will have it on the spot. Even more, if I notice that you are
annoying in my sight, then I want to spare you of it, as burdensome as I will
always find it.”
Fatimah took the floor again and said to the old man, “Then, as my
sister does not seem disinclined to go with you on the promised terms, only
let us carry this laundry first to the people it belongs to. We want to be with
you again soon.”
“Oh, I beg you please!” shouted the old man. “If you do not want to
take the life from me, do not take from me your lovely sister! It is now
caution or punishment enough; I fear to never see again you if you both
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leave me, and that I would hurt myself to death. Will you come back again
soon? So leave her with me now, until you come back again! What do you
have to get? Could you have a suspicion…”
“No, no,” Khadijah cried in a hurry. “I go with my sister; I will not
stay alone with him.”
“And why not?” said Fatimah, who wanted to give a sample of their
promised good services to the old man. “Why don’t you want to stay with
him? I will be back here in a moment. I ask you, sister, remain and wait
here for me. You are the proof to the gentleman of your guilty confidence,
in order to comfort him over the unpleasant things that you have said to
him.”
Khadijah, as difficult as it was for her stay with him, nevertheless did
not dare oppose the will of her older sister, whom she regarded as a second
mother. Fatimah took both baskets and got herself on the path. Afterwards
she happily recommended he proceed carefully, due to the stubbornness of
the small person who she left behind with him.
Instead of coming back soon as she had promised, she did not come
again the whole day. Khadijah’s unrest had nothing to compare to, and as
she saw the night finally fall, she lost all patience and overwhelmed the
poor old man with accusations.
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“You alone bring us misfortune,” said she. “Without your annoying
acquaintance I would now be with my sister. Whatever accident might
happen to her, I would rather it keep me from her than to be here with
you.”
These words were painful to the old man. He did not know how he
should answer, he was so afraid of enraging the young person even more.
As he was well aware, she had only too much cause to have bad feelings
against him. Nevertheless, he did his best to calm her, but everything he
did only heightened her unrest and strengthened her dislike of him. She
told him he should be quiet, that she wanted to go to Machilipatnam in
spite of the darkness of the night and a great rain that had occurred in the
meantime. Ultimately it was even more not to have to spend the night with
the old man, rather than from desire to get news from her sister, however
much this might be.
However, he eventually dissuaded her from it by suggesting this to
her: Fatimah will probably come back, as she saw the thunderstorm
coming, stayed with one of her acquaintances, and tomorrow morning will
infallibly come back. In short, he was finally able to, despite her dislike and
stubbornness, so much over her, that she followed after him to her hut.
There, over a light meal of dry dates and well water, they could talk of
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nothing but the unlucky events of the day. The young girl did nothing the
whole night but cry and cry; one can imagine how to her old lover felt
nearby.
As soon as the day began, they left the hut and went together to
Machilipatnam. They asked everywhere about Fatimah where Khadijah
knew that she had brought laundry, but nobody could tell her what had
become of her. They were not content with this. They searched for her
from lane to lane and asked in all houses for her, but their search was futile.
This darkness above Fatimah’s fate put them in extreme distress. They
could not doubt that the poor girl must have met something extraordinary.
Her younger sister remained completely inconsolable and said the hardest
things in the world to the old man, as much as he wanted to try to calm her.
They spent seven or eight days more going through the whole
neighboring area. There was no castle, no house, and no hut for four miles
around where they would not have looked, but always with equally bad
result. Finally, because they did not know how to help themselves
differently, they returned to the hut, completely in low spirits. As the little
old man saw now, Khadijah grieved without measure over the loss of her
sister. He swore to her with tearful eyes that she leave and to follow him
into the city where he usually stayed, from a place where everything fed
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their pain and where he could not have protected her either.
He put forth all possible reasons to her, and since she gave him no answer,
he started again from scratch and did so long and so urgently with her until
she explained herself, more from despair than good will; he would like to
bring her forth, to where he is popular. They got on the road, but before
they went away, the old man wrote on the door with a coal where he lead
Khadijah, so Fatimah would have news of them if she possibly came back.
After that they locked the door and put the key in a neighboring hollow tree
as they always otherwise did with it before.
The town where the humpbacked old man thought to lead Khadijah
to was only a three-day journey from Machilipatnam, but a man of a
hundred years and a girl of twelve cannot make daylong journeys. They
spent seven days on it and both were completely exhausted by fatigue and
hunger when they arrived. The first thing that Dahy did (so the old man
was called) was send someone into the city in the greatest hurry to obtain
the best that one could find, to refresh his young friend and himself. After
their hunger was satisfied, he led her to a very fine room that he had
selected for her, and he himself went to rest in another room.
On the next day he went to the shops and bought an abundance of
beautiful trinkets with clothes for Khadijah, and to serve her an old slave,
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one recommended to him as a great master in art of styling women’s hair.
Khadijah could not be surprised enough at the change of her circumstances.
Though she certainly noticed what attitudes of the old man had for her, she
did not understand how she had gotten such unlimited rule over him. Now
and again, if she thought that she nevertheless was guilty of all the
advantages she possessed, a flow of gratitude rose in her heart. Meanwhile,
she herself could nevertheless also say that concerning this, the fondness of
a decrepit lover towards her did not decrease disgust for his body. What
she meanwhile liked most of all about him was the large difference from
how he first met her, and that he, recalling his promise, she spared him
from being unpleasant before him as much as possible.
Several weeks had already passed before Khadijah only seemed to
collect herself again to some extent. The memory of her sister embittered
everything that could have made her present situation pleasant, and always
the last words of her dying mother occurred to her, who had so severely
instructed her to never separate from her sister. Nevertheless, the feeling
of her pain meanwhile became bit by bit a little duller, and probably
contributed to pleasant diversions which her Dahy sought to provide, no
less than did time and the vivacity of youth.
One day, as she had tired herself by going for a walk, she lay down
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earlier than usual. She fell into a deep sleep, and towards the morning,
when the images that represent the soul are the purest and most vivid, she
had a dream that made a very strong impression upon her. In her dream,
there appeared to her a young man of extraordinary beauty, whose
expression and curly blond hair enchanted her. While she looked at him
with great attention, he spoke to her, “Where do you think are, Khadijah?
Could you forget your Fatimah so soon? Do you believe the beautiful
dresses that Dahy has for you to admire relieve you of the duty to find her?
No, certainly not, and I say to you, you cannot otherwise be happy unless
you come and seek her on the island of Sumatra. Look at me well, for you
see he who fate has intended for your husband.”
With these words the handsome young man disappeared, and
Khadijah awoke. She could hardly convince herself against the notion that
it has been real and no dream, so deeply the lovely picture had been
imprinted in her soul. She believed the handsome young man with his
curly-curled blond hair was still before her to see, and his voice still
sounded like music in her ears. She could not believe that there could be a
mortal of such beauty in the whole world. Regardless, her faith in her
dream was so strong that she immediately told old Dahy and even expected
him, on the very same day, to begin the journey to Sumatra.
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He also had been made to be afraid, perhaps now from real conviction
or from obligation towards the little visionary. Her vision seemed
somewhat more than a mere game of fantasy, and he himself might have
some cause against the handsome competitor. Nevertheless, he explained
himself thus, that he had no other desire than to satisfy hers, and that he
was ready to go with her to the island of Sumatra.
Khadijah prepared for the departure with such impatience that she
hardly gave him time to make the necessary arrangements. Before they
went by ship, however, they wanted to make a journey back to the hut to see
whether they would find any trace that Fatimah had returned in the
meantime. But they found everything as they had left it, and they
confirmed this fact with the resolution to obey the instructions of the
dream. Thus they went back to Machilipatnam, where Dahy rented a small
cabin on a ship from Achem, which was contracted to go with a rich load
under sails. It provided all comforts that can lighten the hardship of a long
sea voyage.
Little Khadijah’s eyes opened wide, for she saw for the first time in
her life nothing but sky and water. But the longing for her sister bolstered
her courage. A certain feeling, made of curiosity and love for the handsome
young man that appeared to her in the dream, probably also contributed to
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it. She herself did not want to confess that she brooded hopes in her little
heart, which she herself sometimes found absurd. But she was still curious,
how this all would end itself, and every moment she asked the old man how
long they still had until they arrived at Sumatra.
To distract her impatience as much as possible and to turn her
attention to other things, he looked out everywhere, such as his knowledge
gave him and the great journeys that he had made, he used for her
immediate amusement. And as her habit had made the nastiness of his
form and his great age somewhat bearable, so she listened to him gladly
and found even more pleasure at his association, the more she came to her
own understanding by herself and in that he became ever fairer. The new
commitment, in which she thus became guilty over him, increased with the
new virtues that she received with her own eyes. The attention and
admiration that instilled in her the virtues of his spirit increased even in
those circumstances with her ability to become more aware of it.
One also included now the trust as well, that he was always kind to
her and had inspired proper conduct towards her from the finest feelings,
and an assured friendliness that no one can break, to support each one who
is extraordinarily loved, however disinclined we may feel ourselves to
return their love.
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So one will find it understandable, as this all unexpectedly became a
kind of friendship that sometimes expressed itself in such an affectionate
way. The good old man almost had to apologize if he himself sometimes
pretended with the excessive hope that he could arguably be loved in the
end—a hope that he in his special situation, despite all its unlikelihood,
could forgive himself over as it was the only one that made his existence
bearable for him.
In this sweet delusion he persuaded himself that it would now be the
time to leave her ignorant no longer of whom he might be, how a strange
fate had made him her lover and how much he earned her compassion.
“Would it be then the first time,” he said to himself, “that compassion had
been in the heart of a girl in love?” The good Dahy forgot how he looked at
this moment, his small hunchbacked body, his watery eyes, his bald head,
and his hundred years!
“Khadijah love,” he said to her one day on a beautiful, clear evening.
She was taking in with her eyes the descending sun, which made a
completely delightful pageant on the sea. With that they withdrew
themselves into their little room. “As decrepit and dilapidated I must seem
to you also in this form, you will be not a little surprised still if I tell you
that I am immortal.”
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“Immortal?” said Khadijah as she looked at him very carefully, with a
tone and a look of such astonishment and disbelief blended together in very
equal parts. “If you were not him who said it to me…” she continued and
paused all at once.
“Nothing is more certain,” ventured Dahy and was silent again in
order to notice what happened in the soul of the young girl from such an
unexpected confession.
“As I deplore you from the heart,” she replied sadly, “it would be cruel
to wish you luck for an advantage in such circumstances, a property that
yourself may treat as impossible.”
“It would also be,” continued Dahy, “the most intolerable burden for
me, if I was actually what I seem. But you will be even more surprised,
beautiful Khadijah, if I tell you that you see me wearing a foreign form. My
own is, without glory to report, nicer, instilling your sex with love instead of
horror, and is all the more certain to always please as it has the advantage
of an eternal youth. Lilies and roses bloom on my cheeks, and, in a word,
everything that one calls handsome and charming is poured out over my
face and about my whole person.”
“Dear heaven,” cried the girl (in this instant the beautiful young man
from her dreams appeared again before her eyes), “how can you hesitate
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even a moment to take such an favorable shape again?”
“Unfortunately, this is not in my power,” replied Dahy with a deep
sigh. “It is just my misfortune, but I've never felt so sad, dear Khadijah,
than since it has brought me before your eyes in such a repulsive disguise.”
“And it will never stop, this misfortune?” she said.
“That is only up to you,” he replied.
“To me?” ventured Khadijah with new astonishment. “How should I
understand this? What can I do to make such an incomprehensible miracle
happen?”
“Nothing, as dear it is to me,” answered Dahy as he looked at her with
an expression of tenderness, which in a face like his own became the
horrible grimace and so had just the reverse effect.
“If this is,” she said, “so I gain very much, you will remain as you are
forever. But, my good sir, how can you want me to put faith in such
incomprehensible things?”
“If you will only listen to me, my queen, you will doubt no longer the
truth of my statements.
“I have already told you enough to notice that I belong to the kind of
beings they call ‘genies.’ I have a brother who is as handsome by nature
and as mighty as I am. We are twins; his name is Adis, mine Dahy. Our
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inborn level of ability let us control everything on this side of the moon, but
this would not prevent us from being subject to the whim of a certain
Brahmin of Visapur, who has acquired an unlimited rule over our kind
himself by his wisdom.
“To our misfortune, he showed a special affection for me and my
brother, and as evidence of his confidence, he appointed us to be guardians
of a wench, who he fiercely loved but whose loyalty to him seemed a little
unsure. Perhaps he would have better done to trust her without guards or
at least to admit none to her person. Meanwhile everything went well for a
very long while. We provided our service most punctually, the lady always
had one of us at her side, and we did not note the slightest thing, neither in
her inclinations nor in her manner, which could make us suspicious of her
loyalty to the Brahmin.
“But unexpectedly she fell into a kind of the melancholy which soon
changed into soft, sad languishing. She sighed in midst the festivities that
the Brahmin threw for her sake. Now and again she looked at us, at me and
my brother, as if she wanted to ask us for pity with a secret grief that
consumed her. We were both so far from thinking of illness as we asked
each other about the cause of this change, under which her beauty already
began to noticeably suffer. Despite all our genie understanding of almost
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everything, we were under the delusion that we ourselves could be the
innocent cause of her concealed illness.
“And yet, it was not otherwise. The poor lady, who had us daily
before her eyes, maybe just from boredom, finally herself could not fight off
being attentive to our form, and this attention became her misfortune. She
herself might even talk about what she wanted. She herself knew how to do
(she confessed us later) her beautiful blond hair, which fell in large
naturally frizzy curls off her shoulders and flowed downwards. This did not
bring out our sensibility.”
Young Khadijah, who herself remembered her dream through this
train of thought, regarded the little old man with large eyes and felt that his
story started to interest her.
“In short,” continued the old man, “the lady fell in love with us
without us noticing any of it, and time, from which one always hopes the
best, did little to lessen her problem, which was much more worse every
day with her. It would be incomprehensible, as Kansu (as the Brahmin was
called), with all his great wisdom, did not see more clearly in the matters of
his mistress, if one did not know that even the greatest minds are people
who never see what lies before their feet.
“Finally the Brahmin noticed as little of it as we did and went on a
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journey by himself past the borders of Greater Tartary, where he presided
over a meeting of wise masters, without showing the least concern for his
beloved Farsana. We decided, whatever it might cost, Adis and I, for us to
use his absence to find out her secret. The shortest way seemed to us to
make her unlock her heart to us independently. Therefore we talked about
it so. We pleaded with her to make her illness no longer a mystery to us.
And we offered, all in the strongest terms, what would always be in our
power, to restore her peace of mind.
“What Adis first said, when he started speaking in our two names,
seemed to make her greatly embarrassed. Alone, as she had a reason to
open herself to us, she received what she sought for a long time. Thus she
took hold of herself on the spot and decided to leave the great opportunity
we presented unused.
“ ‘You are too noble, kind Adis,’ she answered him, ‘for you to worry
about an unfortunate one who feels unworthy of this honor. Leave me, I
beg you, the poor comfort to weep in secret over an illness which cannot be
helped.’
“ ‘What are you saying, beautiful lady?’ I shouted, completely
surprised. ‘Your illness should not be helped? Thus I do not understand
really what illness can this be, for I know no incurable one.’
27
“ ‘Mine,’ she answered, ‘is of such a special kind that if it could be
cured by something in the world, your compassion would be the only one
that I might hope could do this.’
“ ‘Oh, if it lies only in our compassion,’ I shouted a little too rashly,
‘you can count on it! But how could our very compassion help you? We will
not be very content until this deep melancholy, which wears you down bit
by bit, is helped. If any concealed physical illness is the cause, you know
that the secret healing powers of nature are available to us, or should the
manner of the Brahmin is not enough to deserve your value and your love
around him. Also it is not unknown to you how much we are capable of
over him. So speak, kind mistress. Put the condition on us, to prove our
busy eagerness to you and to us thereby together about the Brahmin, our
master, and deserving to be around a person who is so dear to him.’
“Farsana sighed out with these words. ‘My health is not affected,’ she
replied, ‘and Kansu has given me no reason me to complain about him.
Nevertheless I suffer in the cruelest way, and I do not know, my dear Dahy,
whether you, with all the eagerness that you assured me, would be so ready
to treat my suffering, if you knew it.’
“ ‘Ah, my mistress,’ shouted my brother, ‘you do us the greatest
injustice. If you put us to the test, then you will soon think more favorably
28
of us!’
“ ‘And if I told you know,’ she answered blushing, ‘that you both all
alone are the cause of the illness you want to heal…?’
“ ‘Who? Us?’ we both cried at the same time in total astonishment,
but still far from understanding due to the strangest blindness. ‘How can it
be possible,’ I added in, ‘that we could be sources of a cause which so totally
against our intention?’
“ ‘Such a question, after that, which I already told you, should
admittedly close my mouth forever,’ ventured the lady. ‘But I already let
myself out too far, in order not to complete my confession. Know then, it is
because you want to know, overly gracious brothers, that I was not strong
enough to stand against the effect of your irritation. I have exerted all my
powers in vain to put a halt to your daily growing symptoms, and this
resistance finally brought me here, to where you see me.’
“She accompanied these words with a stream of tears which seemed
to fan the fire of her eyes only stronger. Our dismay with such an
unexpected confession is indescribable, but we recovered soon enough to
convince her that she dared not hope she could tempt us to join in her
misdeed against the Brahmin, our master. We ourselves were insistent in
the gamble to make her consider how she should really feel about her
29
injustices against Kansu, and the terrible consequences that her passion for
her and us would have. But it had come already too far with her. She heard
us with serenity, as the confession, so she seemed to us, had relieved her
heart from an oppressive burden, but our ideas did not make the slightest
impression on her mind. She flattered herself for a while with the hope to
receive by her persistence and by constant repetitive attacks the victory
over us finally; but as she saw herself cheated in her expectation from one
day to the next, so she went to ruin again in her previous state.
“Unfortunately, the explicit order of the Brahmin obliged us not to let
her out of our sight. So her longings always received new food, and every
day and every hour we found her complaints and criticisms set out for us.
The strangest of all was that her passion was not just for one of us, but was
directed with the same ferocity towards both. Also about this, as shocking
it always was to us, it did not help her perception. She cast the blame on
her disaster and on the impossibility of preferring one of us to the other.
She could and would never be calm, she said, unless we both divided her
boundless love between us.
“With the intimate friendship that made us almost like one person, no
jealousy could take place between us. In short, no resistance would help
here. If we could be cruel enough to let her languish even longer without
30
helping, no other comfort would remain to her but that we would see soon
enough at the end of her wretched life.
“It was not a light thing, dear Khadijah, to be against the combined
effect of the irritations of the beautiful Farsana. The sight of her suffering
inspired compassion in us, and we endured the unending storms that she
had against our constancy. Nevertheless I always remained firm, though I
deplored the blindness and the stubbornness of the poor unfortunate one
wholeheartedly. But who could dare that he, in such a situation, under
such temptations, always would remain master over his senses?
“One evening, as I was alone with her and saw her in low spirits even
more than usual, I asked what new cause she could probably have to grieve
so.
“ ‘Cruel Dahy,’ she answered me, ‘how can you ask me such a
question? Do I need another reason to be all on edge when this unrelenting
strength is used against me?’
“ ‘Unlike my brother?’ I asked, surprised. ‘How should I understand
this?’
“ ‘He has done everything for me that I expected from him,’ she
ventured in a languishing voice.
“I believed I heard wrongly. ‘How?’ I cried. ‘My brother Adis? He
31
would satisfy your desires?’
“ ‘Yes,’ she ventured quite coldly. ‘And what is it about that fact that
puts you in such astonishment? Do you think everyone should be so
hardhearted as you? He could be softened by my tears, he has opened his
heart to love, and he is happy and now only regrets that he lost so much
time where it could have been him.’
“ ‘And you are not contented yet?’ I shouted with fierceness. ‘Do you
not have enough of a victim of battle and hope you would also seduce me
too, just as you seduced the all-too-yielding Adis?’
“ ‘Yes, my dear Dahy,’ she answered as she shot a look at me where
every arrow of the most fiery passion was pushed together. ‘Yes, I still lack
only your heart to be happy. Woe is me! Has all the suffering I have
endured for you for so long finally not able to earn a little pity from you?’
“ ‘O Farsana,’ I answered, ‘what you tell me persuades me that you do
not love my brother. Impossible, for if you loved him, could you still also
sigh for another?’
“ ‘I adore him,’ she ventured. ‘A hundred times I wanted to devote my
life to prove my love to him. But even this boundless love that I feel for him
has again kindled the strength of that which I carry for you. How often I
have already told you it: I cannot love one of you less than the other.
32
Everything that Adis feels for me is so dear to my heart cannot make me
happy if I am not able to inspire you with the received sensations. With a
word, dear worthy Dahy: I die if you yourself do not let me ask. Can you be
more unfeeling than your brother or are you ashamed to follow his
example? Oh, listen again to stop me if you do want me to stab myself now
with a dagger before your eyes!’
“With these words she collapsed in a stream of tears at my feet and
showered me with such vivid displays of the hottest passion that I had to
fear she would make good on her threat if I opposed her wishes any longer.
I confess it, I was overpowered; I lost the strength to resist any longer. In
short, I became as weak as my brother, whose seduction to her the cunning
Farsana (as he confessed to me afterwards) had served the trick on both of
us. A natural consequence of the victory she gained over us was that her
health restored itself in a short time. She got her whole liveliness back,
became more beautiful than ever and would give us a wealth of love, that
was large enough for both of us, maybe made both of us happy, if she could
have brought the accusations, with which our hearts punished our
disloyalty to the Brahmin, to silence. With all this, for a few days we had a
pleasant life, when our carelessness plunged us at once into disaster, the
consequences of which I must bear up to this hour.
33
“Among the servants of the Brahmin was a very ugly black slave called
Torgut, whose usual task was to groom a Tartar mare which Farsana was in
the habit to ride if she wanted to travel by herself outside. This ugly
monster arrived boldly, raised his eyes up to his mistress and made a
declaration of love to her. So badly built was he in his body, as nature had
given him instead a very amusing spirit. If he walked along thus beside his
mistress sitting on horseback, he was in habit to care for her with the all
kinds of droll little stories in which Farsana found great pleasure.
“One day it occurred to him to gossip with her about several maidens
which he pretended to have enjoyed pleasures. ‘How, Torgut,’ said the lady
with laughter, ‘can someone with a body like yours boast about his luck
with the ladies?’
“ ‘Why not?’ answered the black person. ‘Am I possibly not as good as
another? Oh, truly, if that were, as I miscalculated, for I got it into my
head, beautiful lady, to increase the list of my conquests also with your
name.’
“With these words of the black person, Farsana broke out in a still
greater laughter, as she did not think any differently, as if he said it only to
give her pleasure. ‘You have intentions on me?’ she said. ‘It is good for me
to know that. I come before such a dangerous man as you are, I take care to
34
know.’
“Torgut answered in the taken tone, and so it came to nothing but
jokes. The crude fellow made seriousness from joke and acted such that
Farsana saw herself forced. He was not only very serious and with the
contempt that he was entitled to refuse, but, as he was impudent enough,
he took her indignation still for joke, even should she threaten to complain
about his gall to the Brahmin.
“The black person became vicious over an encounter that his
supposed merits so poorly matched. The good opinion he had of himself
did not let him understand that Farsana could have resisted him if her
heart had not been already captured by another favored lover. He planned
to watch her thoroughly, and he succeeded so well that soon our secret
understanding with her was no more a secret for him.
“From envy and thirst for revenge he revealed it to the Brahmin. The
thing seemed so unbelievable that he only wanted to believe the testimony
of his own eyes. In order to make sure about us, he pretended again to take
a journey, but he came back untimely enough for us, to surprise me and my
brother Adis with Farsana in the bath. The precautions we had made so no
one could discover us were of no help against the wisdom of the Brahmin.
All doors opened to him, the magic fog that surrounded us melted away,
35
and all at once Kansu stood there as the most dreadful judge before us.
“ ‘Unworthy,’ he spoke as he threw at look at me and my brother. He
was already at the beginning of his revenge. ‘The cruelest torments would
be too light a punishment for your crime. But I want you to fall down into
such a miserable condition as you are not able to die, that privilege of the
nature of your kind, when you should mourn for the extreme misfortune!’
“And immediately, without wanting to listen to a word of our apology,
he began his incantations. In an instant, the chamber where we were filled
with the thickest darkness. We heard the thunder rolling with awful noise
overhead, the earth trembled under our feet, and dreadful, roaring
whirlwinds seemed to announce the downfall of nature. We remained of
two whole hours in this gruesome darkness and in shaking expectation of
the punishment that would be prepared for us. Finally it became as
cheerful as before. But how great was our astonishment when we both, I
and my brother, instead of in a magnificent palace and the exquisite bath,
found ourselves in the middle of a dry heath, both covered in rags and in
the form of two small misshapen old men, such as I, beautiful Khadijah,
appear before you in this instant.
“ ‘Thankless,’ said Kansu. ‘From this moment you are robbed of all
privileges of your nature and are lowered to the state of usual people, as you
36
seem to be. You will not know any more, not be capable of any more than
they, and death alone excluded, you will be subjected to all chances and all
hardship of the mortals.’
After the Brahmin had pronounced this judgment over us, he now
demanded to know from us the circumstances we committed treason
towards him. We told him everything from the outset with the greatest
sincerity: into what confusion Farsana’s explanation set us, what trouble he
brought ourselves to bring her into other thoughts, how long and seriously
we resisted against her and our own inclination, what the lady uses for a
trick to seduce us, and as painful the thought is to us, to have so badly
betrayed his trust.
“This account and the sincerity of our regret changed the Brahmin to
milder attitudes towards us. He seemed to blame himself that he had
exposed our loyalty to such a dangerous test. And as we had been always
very dear to him, he could hardly restrain himself from looking at us with
compassion.
“ ‘My children,’ he spoke, ‘it is no longer in my power to return to you
your previous figure unconditionally, but I want you to so much that I can
try to make the harshness of your destiny bearable. You will regain your
natural body with all its abilities as soon as each of you has found a girl less
37
than twenty years who loves him.’
“Discouraged, we turned our eyes down low at these words, for he
needed only one view of us under such a condition to banish all hope for us
forever. Kansu guessed our thoughts.
“ ‘As unlikely it may also always be,’ he said, ‘that you could inspire
love in this form, nevertheless, it is not impossible. Live with this hope and
be assured that in no other way can you return to your previous conditions!
Now go, children, and fulfill your destiny! You must separate, so that
everyone can search on his side that he necessarily has.’
“Here he assigned a certain place to each of us for the usual residence,
about sixty miles from each other, allowed us to keep respectable clothes
and each the value of fifty thousand sequins he gave in gold and jewels from
his treasure, so that we could live out our banishment in leisure. Here he
embraced us and wished us a quick end of our unhappy state.
“But against the poor Farsana he remained relentless. He
transformed her into a frog and exiled her to a marsh. After he had
discovered by his art that this had happened out of bare thirst for revenge
by the traitor towards his mistress, he gave her the slave Torgut for her
misfortune companion. In such a way the accuser and the accused were
both condemned and transformed into frogs, to spend her remaining life in
38
the solitary marsh where the hope of tormenting each other was, at most,
the only wretched consolation which was left to them.
“Without stopping you, dearest Khadijah, by describing the sad
parting, where we brothers had with so little hope of seeing each other
again in the next millennium, we left independently. I want to begin the
continuation of my story right from the city, where Kansu had directed me
to the main residence. My first concern was fifty thousand sequins (as the
capital on which I might live longer than I wished) to support the task.
Then it succeeded there so well for me that I was able in less than three or
four years, without disadvantage of my main funds, to make a completely
good profit.
“If the prophecy of the Brahmin should come true, I had to find a
young person who would have such odd taste to have an affectionate
inclination for me. Fortunately the beautiful sex was not as locked up in
our city as in most Eastern countries, but lived in a decent freedom. Every
day I had opportunities to see ladies. I made nice little gifts to them,
delivered them honors in small portions and with every public
entertainment. In short, I did my best, under the influence of the unlucky
star that pursued me, to distinguish myself. In this way I quickly made
myself popular with everyone.
39
“ ‘The good honest skin!’ one said. ‘He is made of nothing but
cheerfulness and good mood. What he must have only been in his youth, as
he, with a foot in the grave, is still such a great lover of pleasure!’
“The women raised me sky-high, above all, and presented me to their
men as an example. The grumblers among the men were the only ones who
scoffed at my conduct.
“ ‘But what a fool the man must be,’ they said, ‘who still chases after
pleasure he can no longer enjoy at his age!’
“I, who best knew my place, how and why, let the people say what
they wanted, and went on my way. Meanwhile, though I also did such and
though I gave myself much trouble, I did not want to be at all with the love-
afflicted. I did not limit myself to the city where I lived, although it there
was no lack of young ladies. I made journeys of more than fifty miles
around.
“But all that I gained there was the belief I could not like, an idea that
made me almost senseless without nevertheless overwhelming my patience.
More than two hundred years have already passed in this vain search. One
did not finally know anymore what one should think of me. I have already
seen the world young again and bury four times all those who have seen me
in her childhood just so old and died as her great-grandchildren. Everyone
40
said in each other’s ears, ‘What kind of person is this? One sees no change
in him.’ The oldest men pointed me out to their grandchildren with their
finger. ‘See there the good old Dahy,’ they said. ‘Don’t you pretend any
that I have ever known him young. I think he was always as old and frail as
you see him now, and in my youth I heard my grandfather say he had never
seen him different.’
“You can easily imagine, my love, that I took little pleasure in being
such a miracle in the eyes of the people. The hope, which Kansu had left
me, meanwhile continued to strengthen, for it already had deceived me ever
longer. I always made new, similar, likely always futile journeys, and so it
finally happened, as I was at the point even of turning from Machilipatnam
again towards home that I came to you and your sister on the path. What I
said to you at the time, lovely Khadijah, showed you clearly enough how
much your sight enchanted me. But unfortunately, I saw at the same time
only too well how unpleasant mine was to you!”
The voice of the good old man broke with this idea. The talking left,
and Khadijah, who was very stirred by his misfortune, would have gladly
told him such comfortingly, and told him really everything, what her pitiful
and perceptive heart could know of him, not only the only one on which his
luck depended. And nevertheless, this alone was what he longed to hear.
41
They sometimes had small arguments about it, in which both their patience
threatened to break more than once. Dahy lamented himself over her
severity and Khadijah over his unfairness, and their fight always ended
itself with the fact that both were annoyed at themselves: he, that he
wanted the impossible from her, she, that it was impossible for her to love a
man she had gladly helped and yet might see.
Incidentally, if the lovely girl sighed (which happened often enough),
it did not always happen out of compassion with poor Dahy. Her small
heart had its very own anxieties. It was impossible for her to get the
handsome young man with the tightly curled blond hair out of her mind;
his image stole some hours from her sleep. His similarity with the
description that the old Dahy had made of what he was before his
transformation, and the words “Treat me well, for you see him, the fate
your husband intended for you” aroused her thoughts, from which she did
not know how to help herself. “Could it really be,” she sometimes thought,
“that Dahy is even the husband who is fated for me?” How friendly she
found him in the form that he had appeared to her in the dream!
But then she needed only one single look at the Dahy who actually
stood before her to feel that it would always be impossible for her to fulfill
the condition under which she could return his original figure and
42
everlasting youth to him. And nevertheless a youth with this form was
fated to be her husband! And Kansu had made hope for the unfortunate
brothers, that they would finally find the girls who would put an end to
their enchantment!
Meanwhile the ship they were on had put back in fourteen days more
than five hundred nautical miles, and, according to Dahy’s calculation, they
could not be very far from the coast where their course was directed. Then
the wind shifted itself suddenly and a violent storm drove her with such
force into the wide sea that it was impossible for her to hold a certain
course any longer. She was driven far back and forth for several days and
finally thrown to an island that was known to neither the ship’s captain nor
one of his people.
They saw a big town that rose in the form of half a moon about the
shore and formed a spacious and comfortable harbor. They had hardly
arrived at the same when they saw themselves surrounded from all sides by
a multitude of small boats, from which an infinite multitude of manlike
things swarmed forth which scrambled upon their ships with unbelievable
agility.
Our travelers had not seen such strange creatures in their lives. They
were all small, ugly, and badly built and were ridiculously distorted in the
43
facial formation, such a grotesque liveliness in their movements and
gestures. In a word, they were somewhat part-ape in their whole nature, so
if they had not spoken a language that was known our travelers, one would
have considered them a kind of forest demon instead of people. Their
clothes were as strange as their bodies and their manners. They had tall
three-cornered hats of multicolored cardboard on their heads and carried
long skirts of cotton stuff that were painted over and over with yellow, blue,
and green blobs and grotesque figures and increased the outrageous
appearance of these odd islanders not a little.
In few moments the whole ship was so filled with them that the
people in the ships could hardly move and, as opposition here would not
have helped, they all had to start being allowed what they liked. It soon
appeared that they, by virtue of the laws of their island, treated everything
that was on the ship as their earned property. Accordingly, what they did
first was put all members of the crew in a long row to look at one after the
other one from the front and in the back. They very attentively examined
the hair and teeth and especially the wrinkles if they found them on a face,
which they counted with great accuracy. The people would have died
laughing over the grimaces they made as well, if the astonishment and the
uncertainty of what would become of them in the hands of such monsters
44
had not been made earnestly against their will.
They soon started selecting some old sailors, and seemed to pick them
out with special esteem when they saw Dahy, Khadijah, and the old slave
appear, who had still been hidden up to now in the cabin and had not
arrived in the rows. At this sight the commander came, one who held a
substantial position at the court of the queen of this island, over the delight
of all but himself. Particularly his eyes stayed on the old slave, who he
found so kind at first sight, that he decided on the spot to send him to the
forefront of his harem. He threw himself at their feet, explained to them his
passion in the fieriest expressions, and urged them to receive the offerings
of his heart favorably. Since it would have been in vain here to want to
create ill will, the old slave surrendered with good style and made himself
thereby, so it seemed, the happiest of all men. He immediately handed over
to them the closest among his servants, told him that he would stand
among them, and suggested to him over all to be careful that nobody should
take the slightest freedom with him.
The wise Dahy did not know how he himself could explain such a
perverted taste. “Women must be very rare on this island,” he said to
himself, “for even an old piece of furniture is more capable than this slave
of making such a strong impression.”
45
This thought, because of Khadijah, put him in great discomfort, the
irritations of which would have inevitably disastrous consequences for him.
But it soon appeared that he himself had worried in vain. His young lover
did not have anything that gave her value in the eyes of the islanders, and if
she ran some risk with them, then it was not the least like that which he
feared. The commander had hardly allowed the old slave to be led away to
his harem when by chance he let fall a look at the young person. Surprised
to see her so richly dressed, he said in a rough tone to her, “For such an ugly
little animal you are dressed well enough, small girl!” And immediately he
ordered to one of his servants to lead away the nasty thing to his servants’
quarters and to consign her to the lowest service.
Such an unworthy treatment was more than the good girl, who had
always been used to the most affectionate encounters, could endure. She
broke out in a stream of tears and asked her old, destitute protector with
lifted hands to take care of her. The motion that he made at this moment
towards her, and his nervous shouting, as he saw them dragging away by
force, all at once attracted the attention of the islanders to him. His small,
totally crooked body, his short outward-bent legs, his wrinkles and watery
eyes, his green-yellow, shriveled skin, the hairy warts which covered his
face—in short, everything that was revolting to Khadijah and disgusting
46
about his person—became the object of the admiration of these absurd
people.
For a moment the commander forgot the affluence of his dignity and
let himself be carried away by the general enthusiasm. But he immediately
took control of himself again, threw himself to the feet of the admired old
man’s feet, tossed his pointed hat of cardboard against the ground, and
asked him in the most respectful terms for forgiveness that he had not yet
shown him the honor he was due.
“I, in my place, admit,” he continued, “that, more than your
attendants, I was too strongly dazzled by the brilliance of the beautiful lady
who is now in my harem, too powerful for myself to remain. But however
much I’m used to it, I must confess that all your beauty surpasses what this
island has ever seen. Allow one to lead you into the palace of our queen
Shahrbanu. I am certain that this great princess will be charmed by the
sight of you and will show you every compliment to which you are entitled.”
The commander wanted to continue, to tout to him the good fortune
that he expected, when Dahy, losing his patience, cried out to him and said,
“Instead of chatting before me such vulgar things, give me the young person
again, who you’ve taken away from me!”
“Who?” replied the commander. “The little changeling? Ah, nice old
47
man, you believe that yours are worthier. You now think only about it as
you want to please our great queen, before whom we are in the process of
leading you to.”
With these words he and his lieutenant grabbed the good old man
under the arms, and led him, however much he himself also resisted,
towards the palace of the queen.
Dahy regarded the force that one needed against him as a thoughtless
mockery of his body and his age laid on through painful observations.
“What an unfortunate fate!” he said to himself as one dragged him away.
“Who would think that a genie of this weakness and imperfection could be
so humiliated? It is indeed not the most bearable outcome of my
misfortune that must leave me fallen, to serve the children of Adam as a
musical instrument.”
So natural this thought of his was, though up until now it had been
missing, that it had been appreciated by the islanders as their right. For in
fact what they said to him was, for them, always completely serious. The
queen herself, as soon as she saw him, could not contain herself, to admire
him and to reveal to him in the most flattering expressions the passion that
she began to feel for him. She happily praised the day on which her
empire’s salvation would happen, to have a visit from such a wonderful
48
person. And if she forced herself not to immediately show him the whole
range of tenderness that he inspired in her, then she said just enough
around the courtiers of what came from her heart not to leave them in
uncertainty. And these understood their trade too well, for they would
approve of the first sign of the attitudes of the queen.
The old Dahy was overwhelmed after this by the most excessive
marks of respect that were showered and, finally the great ones of the
empire paid homage to him, with bent knees and caps taken off, on the
instruction of the queen, tremendously, as one towards the highest official
of an administrative district. She accompanied him to the dwelling she had
instructed, into a magnificent furnished chamber with multicolored straw
mats that she chose completely by herself for him.
Once the courtiers had again departed, the good queen could not wait
any longer to give her charming guest a secret visit and for him, by virtue of
her royal privilege, to do a dear request. The old man, as weak as the
supposed mockery also was, with all reverence he replied at first that a lady
of her rank was guilty of a mild joke. As he saw from her answers that it
was really serious and her majesty became even more fiery and urgent, the
more he withdrew himself. So the bile overflowed on him finally; with
disregard of all respect, he could no longer keep himself from saying things
49
to her that no queen yet would be told and no queen, as much she also
might be possessed by the speaker, could listen to with composure.
Nevertheless, she held back her displeasure and made various attempts to
bring him gently to better ideas. But as nothing at all would catch and
Dahy became ever more insulting in his expressions, so she left to call the
captain of her guard.
“Take for me,” she said to him, “this old man into the black tower,
where he may provide companionship for the other, who has defamed the
tenderness of my sister Mulkara. She will find opportunity there to let him
regret that they wanted to play cruelly with us.” With these words her
majesty with proper pride went away, and her order was carried out
immediately.
Dahy let himself be lead away completely willingly towards the black
tower; he imagined it no small consolation for his misfortunes that he
would have another equally unhappy old person there for his companion.
But how great was his astonishment as he recognized his brother Adis with
the first sight in his misery! They went with open arms and held each other
with tearful eyes for a long time embraced, without being able to bring a
word out.
Meanwhile they found their speech again at last, and one can easily
50
imagine oneself how much two brothers who so tenderly loved each other,
for more than two-hundred years had not seen each other, and now were
again united by the old regularity of their fate to all the same suffering,
saying they must have each other. Their present state and the absurd taste
of the inhabitants of this island naturally betrayed their present condition,
the first material of their talks.
“What do you understand of it?” said Dahy to his brother. “There is,
admittedly, a stupid riff-raff character about these people. I arguably know
people with a flat nose, piggy eyes, a pointed head, and a paunch who are
considered beauties. But how one can find delight in bodies like ours, I
have no idea.”
“I will resolve the mystery with two words,” returned Adis. “These
islanders have a big ugly monkey for their god, and this god has priests. If
you do not understand the thing now, I cannot help you. Where a monkey
is the archetype of perfection and has temples and priests, then it happens
quite naturally if its followers gradually become monkeys. Each people
takes shape implicitly after its god.”
Dahy had nothing to argue against this conclusion, as their fate had
not improved by it. They started here asking each other what had
happened to everybody in the long time of their separation. Dahy did not
51
neglect to tell his brother the whole story of his acquaintance with Khadijah
and everything that had happened to him since the same without leaving
out the slightest fact.
As soon as he was finished with it, Adis said, “What you have told me
here leaves me no doubt that our misfortune will soon come to an end. Yes,
my dear brother, we are near the moment that will return to us our own
form and with them the rights of our kind that we have already been robbed
so long. You will doubt this just as little as I do if you have heard what I
want to tell you.
“I myself had lived in the country which the Brahmin Kansu had
instructed me already for more than two-hundred years in vain, done
everything in the world to find a young beauty who could fall in love with
my hideous body. Then one time there appeared to me in a dream a young
peasant woman of seventeen to eighteen years who said to me, ‘You hope in
vain to come to the end of your exile in this town. If you want to experience
this miracle, then set sail towards the island of Sumatra. Look at me well,
for you see in me what destiny has chosen for your spouse.’ The maiden
was exceptionally beautiful. I felt my heart break out in love from her sight;
I wanted to say it to her, but she disappeared, and I awoke.
“This dream seemed to me to be more than a usual dream. I looked at
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it as a secret hint, set sail for Sumatra, and became, like you, by a storm
that I do not consider natural, thrown upon this island. Here I met with the
princess Mulkara, who ruled at that time in absence of her sister,
everything that you have encountered is with the queen Shahrbanu. She
explained her love to me. I believed she had her joke with me; she
persuaded me of the opposite and received the answer that you can
imagine. She became urgent, I became impatient. Finally we both got hot,
and the end of it was that I was thrown in this tower for so long until I find
myself bowing at the feet of my princess to make up for the insults added to
the irritations.
“In this condition I could have languished forever in this tower. But
the fact that we meet so unexpectedly here and the means that brought us
together, and the miraculous resemblance of my dream with the dream of
your lovers and the resemblance of the young peasant woman whose image
since then has not come from my soul, with her sister Fatimah, all that
persuades me that a concealed hand is at work, and that we…”
Before Adis could complete his speech, the door of their dungeon
opened, and the captain of the bodyguard came in. He bumped again
against the floor with his pointed cap and addressed the two brothers
thusly: “Most glorious among all old men, I come in the name of our
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illustrious and gentle-hearted princess by marriage, to announce to you
that they have sunk everything that could have been disparaging to them in
you manner into the abyss of the oblivion. As evidence of this and from
conviction, that such a superhuman beauty as yours can only be from the
portion of the family of the great apes, she has decided with the approval of
the venerable priesthood that its temple shall be your apartment from now
on and that all honor shall happen to you there, including the same her
close relatives are entitled to.”
Both brothers were very concerned about this new outbreak of the
strange folly of these adventurous people, and had bad feelings about being
the central figures of the new mockery that they wanted to play with them.
Meanwhile, dungeon against dungeon, a temple was nevertheless better
compared with the black tower and they were resolved to give in to their
destiny in all things. They followed the captain willingly towards the
pagoda, where they were received by the hierophant and the remaining
servants of the temple in the gate with great solemnity.
The queen, her sister, the court, and the whole city were already
present. They began singing hymns in honor of both cousins of the great
apes, and after one of them, after many comical ceremonies and
genuflections, sang well and had burned incense, let one of them climb on a
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large, seven-foot-high scaffolding, where two splendid thrones were
prepared from colored straw mats for them. Both brothers patiently took
their seats. While the priests made preparations for the sacrifice that would
be offered on the altar behind which the scaffolding was erected, a choir of
singing young maidens danced around the altar. The eyes of all present
were directed in enthusiastic joy towards the new gods in the robes of
multicolored straw which one had draped them, a very comical appearance
it made. Thus they looked as if they found no particular pleasure in all this
nonsense.
But suddenly song and dance and victims were interrupted by an
event that suddenly put an awful end to the joy and devotion of the persons
present. Adis and Dahy lost the forms of decrepit old men and shone again
in their own. On the foreheads and cheeks bloomed again the flower of
some youth, thick blond hair flowed in big locks around their milk-white
necks; in short, they suddenly became again what they were when Farsana,
to their misfortune, cast too tender an eye at them.
What a terrible transformation in the eyes of the islanders! A general
monstrous cry announced the general dismay. The priests, who held such
an unnatural transformation for a miracle of bad omen, ran in the greatest
confusion from it. The maidens who danced around the altar turned in full
55
horror and fled. The queen and the princess, her sister, whose affection
was at once turned into disgust, rushed back to their palace. In a moment
the whole pagoda was empty, and only both genies remained and marveled
at each other. However, as they had also recovered their remaining powers
with their bodies, they immediately recognized that their enchantment had
been dissolved by two young people who had fallen in love during the
ceremonies with their old men’s forms, and had run away at their current
ones with the others in disgust.
They still testified their joy at this happy surprise to each other when
they saw the Brahmin Kansu with Fatimah in hand step into the pagoda. At
first sight Adis recognized the lovely peasant maiden of his dream.
“Ah!” he shouted with delight. “This is she, the lovely maiden whose
picture sits so firmly in my heart!”
“Yes, Adis, there she is,” said the Brahmin. “To make your fortune
complete, I have brought her. Since she was separated from her sister, she
has been under my protection. Finally, my children,” he continued, “I take
the pleasure to have pulled you again from the sad state in which I put you
through quick anger. It was painful to me to see you so long in it, but it was
impossible to do earlier what I have done for you. For I am the one, Dahy,
who allowed you to find both sisters, who are intended to compensate you
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for all your sufferings by their love. I am the originator of the dreams that
woke the thought of travel to Sumatra in you, and I have thrown you by
storms excited by me to this island, for I knew what would happen here.
Yes, I do not deny that I, to advance my plan, the usual folly of these apelike
islanders has been helped a little by my art. Now we lack only a person.
Dahy, go, get Khadijah, and give her the pleasure of seeing her sister again
and the handsome youth of her dream.”
Dahy flew like a flash into the kitchen of the captain of the bodyguard
and brought Khadijah into the pagoda. The embraces of both sisters, the
delight of both brothers, and the joy of the old Brahmin at the fortune of
this double pair, which was his work, made for a scene that goes beyond all
description. To make their fortune complete, Kansu also returned their
freedom to both genies and allowed to them to live with her lovers wherever
they liked. He vanished from their eyes, and the two brothers flew with the
beautiful sisters to an island of Jinnistan, which they lived on and
populated, being an image of the earthly paradise.
57
Alboflede
More than a hundred years before the invasion of the Franks in Gaul,
on a lonely little island, made by the Seine one mile above the town of
Troyes, lived an extraordinary woman named Alboflede. What was most
noticeable at first sight was her age and ugliness. Both exceeded anything
one could imagine. The ice-gray Fates were young and the ugliness of
Gorgons seemed just irritating next to her, which may be enough of it,
because I do not like to paint what one might see.
People told wonderful things of her power and the extent of her secret
sciences. The people considered her a great witch; if she had been as
beautiful as she was disgusting, they would have considered her a fairy.
Nevertheless she stood through the whole country in good reputation. The
common people feared her. However, the nobles sought her favor in hope
of foreseeing the future, making good use of her magic and her gift on
occasion.
She lived on the bank of the river in a small palace, which rose up on
a gallery of marble columns rather far over water, and the associated
gardens took up the rest of the small island. They were filled with the rarest
herbs and vegetation over the whole ground, and were always kept in the
most beautiful condition; nevertheless, no one saw any hands that waited
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on her. Those who wanted to visit Alboflede found a gilded gondola on the
farther shore that went by itself, and those whose visit would be pleasant to
her were taken over in a few moments; it would have been impossible for
anyone else to return it to its place. Those who received the admission were
taken very well; one could not be more wonderfully entertained, albeit
neither male nor female servants appeared in the whole house.
It happened one day that the gondola brought over a pair of young
lovers who were troubled by a fierce desire to learn the fate of their mutual
passion. Alboflede received them kindly, and after some preliminary
refreshments for them (because they seemed to be exhausted from the
discomfort of a long trip), she inquired the reason that motivated their visit.
“We came,” answered the young man, “for you, for whom no future
thing is hidden, in order to ask the fortune of our love. I love the beautiful
Selma, as I know her, and that she let herself ask me to accompany me
here. She has already revealed enough of the secret of our hearts to make a
formal confession. But powerful obstacles oppose our fortune. We are
afraid of being separated forever through the hard-heartedness of our
people. Advise us, wise woman, what are we to do!”
“Go home again and calmly await what fate and love have decided for
you,” answered Alboflede.
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The maiden sighed. “That is impossible,” cried the young man.
“Have pity on us, kind fairy! Strike open the page in the book of destiny on
which ours is written! Reveal to us whether we can escape the misery to be
condemned to hopeless loving, if we can overcome the obstacles that
threaten us with eternal separation!”
“Then suggest something better yourself,” said Alboflede, “and
suppress your meddling, the satisfaction of which does not change your
fate, but could probably make things worse. A charitable hand wove the
thick curtain that hides the future from the eyes of mortals, but inevitably it
punishes those who remove it and dare to intrude into the forbidden with
immodest glances. My children, without my being guilty, I am an
unfortunate example of this truth. And so that strange experience saves
you the agonies of someone who repented too late, I want to tell you my
story, if you desire to hear it.”
The young people thanked her for her kindness, as they wanted to
show her respect in this way. They followed her into the garden and went
through an arrangement of beds full of flowers; all at once the most
beautiful bouquet planted itself before the bosom of the young Selma,
without anyone seeing how it happened. Alboflede smiled over the pleasant
frightening of the maiden, but acted as if she had not noticed it. Soon
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thereafter she brought her two guests to curl up below a high place full of
blooming rose bushes and her narration began as follows:
“My father was a druid of this land in whose old age I was born. He
was so devoted to astrology that he was accustomed to contemplating the
sky and the stars without comment; he looked at all of India with contempt,
unworthy of his attention. He troubled himself little with my education;
but then he cast my horoscope for the instant of my birth, and found that I
would exceed all the women of my time in beauty and ability. So over the
connection of two such dangerous characteristics, thoughts rose into his
head that worried him from time to time, becoming worse as I grew up.
“Unbelievable as it is to you, my children, it can happen in a moment.
The first part of my horoscope had happened just as predicted, so my father
doubted even less, more than was dear to him, he would see the other part
realized as well. To my misfortune, he had taken the ability of the body,
giving me the ability to divine from the stars for the ability of my mind.
And this idea set itself down so firmly in his head that, from my early youth
on, he looked at me as a girl who ran the largest risk of becoming a stain on
his name and her sex.
“Meanwhile, my beauty seemed to receive new increases with each
day. Those who saw me were infatuated with my body, but nobody was
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more so than I myself. My father regarded this as the first sign of my
unfortunate tendency towards immodesty that he had discovered in the
stars. And with the good intention to take from my weakness some means
for preserving my honor, at once he took me aside, and with great
seriousness he uncovered for me what would be an important secret of the
fortune of my life: the sufferings, to which I attached such great
importance, depended only on my stubbornness, and the first victory one
man had over me would make me the ugliest person in the whole world.
“ ‘I don’t approve of you, my daughter,’ he added, ‘but it does not
stand in my power to erase what is written in the stars for you. Everything I
can do is done, so I can inform you of your fates and advise you, if you are
otherwise ready for it, that to remain as you are, to stay away from men. To
let them come so close that they could speak to you, or to stop and listen to
them, already would be dangerous. The safest thing is to run away before it
comes so far. A maiden with the imprudence to listen to the voice of these
lures is always in danger of getting stuck on bars of glue, and I have told
you what would be the consequence for you.’
“My good father could have saved half of his warnings if he had had a
notion of the degree that I was in love in myself, or what happened to me
back then was much the same; I had fallen in love with my body. However,
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I never doubted the truth of his words, and I took everything in the literal
sense. Nevertheless, all that indifference, as I always looked at my present
lovers, could not save me from the terrible danger my father had threatened
me, which he did from time to time in great fear.
“Naturally, it had to happen. My poor adorers, their number
increased with every day, and this all the more, because nobody among
them could boast about the smallest advantage with me. In vain they bore
their concern before me in only language they were permitted, in looks and
sighs. In vain they tired the poor echo with repetition of my name, day and
night. Pointlessly they scratched it in all the area’s trees. The mere thought
of these beautiful eyes, whose murderous shine men cursed in a thousand
odes and elegies, would please them enough to go out to see; I acted as if I
instead might have fossilized them all with a look. Bit by bit, this manner
removed all reverent lovers from me.
“But every now and then were also found daring ones who did not
want to let themselves stop, and who gave me so many opportunities to
show my swiftness that I could have quickly gotten into this playacting with
all Atalantas and Camillas of the writers. Finally, these opportunities came
too often. I became weary of it, always running without having any desire
for it, and letting the odious rivals disturb me from sweet preoccupation
63
with my own beauty, enjoying myself in any crystal brook with my viewing.
I withdrew myself to a wilderness to enjoy this pure pleasure all the more
quietly. But it was in this wilderness that the angry love god found the
means to exercise a cruel revenge on his thoughtless despiser.
“Of all the irritations that nature had so lavishly presented me for my
misfortune, my hair was maybe the least. It had the most beautiful color in
the world, and was so long and thick that I only needed to let it down to be
covered up by it to my feet. One day, I was by the edge of a river that I had
bathed in to comb out my hair, believing myself completely alone. A snow-
white deer appeared suddenly, persecuted by hunters that burst out
afterwards. It plunged into the water, swam to the shore on this side over
here and lay down, extremely jaded and with a look to my feet that seemed
to ask for my protection; its pursuers on the opposite shore looked for a
place in noisy confusion where they could land without danger across the
river. In my life I had never felt so much kindness for any creature than for
this nice animal, which knew how to excite my compassion in such a
moving way. I laid my hand on its back and started stroking it softly and
caressing. I hardly had touched it when it changed into a wonderful young
man who held himself entitled to answer this caress, and to start his
declaration of love with what one is in the habit to normally end them with.
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“I confess that my fright about such an unsuspected miracle at first
sight, as I do not know which feeling (being mixed) had been more pleasant
than aversive. But my inclination towards the other was mostly disgust;
what a man sees immediately once again got the upper hand. Besides, the
wonderful stranger had surprised me in a state that was little different from
my usual neglect of kindness.
“I hurried along on my feet, and as the shame of my natural ability
spurned a new degree of speed, I seemed to fly more than to run. But my
new lover who shamed me, made all the bolder, seemed have kept not only
his previous deer nature, but also had gotten many wings of love on his
heels. A lead of five or six paces was all I could get against him by the
highest exertion of my efforts. During the race, the wind blew my long,
thick hair that would have otherwise given me an adequate covering, came
apart. It became a traitor to me, and gave an advantage over me to my
pursuers, against which my speed was not enough. This fact left my reason
in such a mess that I buckled thoughtlessly into the first good bushes, then
just sped away from the accident I wanted to escape from. To make it
short, children: I got caught in a bush by my long hair, the nice stranger
caught up with me, and at the same time I sacrificed some of my odious
locks to break loose from him, yet it was impossible for me to escape my
65
fate.
“I confess that the wantonness with which the stranger took
advantage of me was not able to totally extinguish the likable feeling I had
at the first sight of him. My misfortune would have seemed to me less
intolerable than it actually was, if the thought that it cost me my whole
beauty had not made it the cruelest one which could meet me. The escape
from my lover might have released my horrific screams and fear of being
detected, and this seemed to me the first confirmation that the predictions
of my father about me had been fulfilled.
“My pain, my desperation was inexpressible. I did not have the heart
to have a look. The daylight became odious to me. I fled to the most
desolate wilderness, became hidden in the darkest gaps in rocks and did
not stop mourning about a misfortune that existed only in my imagination
anyhow. One single look in one of the brooks or springs, in which I tended
to be reflected with such intimate pleasure, would have deprived me of my
fatal mistake. But now a mirror was the most awful of all awful things in
my imagination, and the fear of my own sight meant that I avoided the
brook in thousand steps.
“Finally, to my misfortune, the fairies also interfered in my matters,
either from malice or compassion. At an unblessed hour, because my
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desperation had just risen so much, one of them came to me on the path
with the good idea to comfort me, and promised to grant to me every gift
for which I would ask them.
“ ‘Oh,’ I shouted without reflecting a moment, ‘if you want this,
compassionate fairy, then transform my body into the opposite of what it is
now. Make me as unlike myself as possible. This is the greatest kindness
that you can show to me.’
“The fairy looked at me some moments with astonishment, but she
had already given her word, and a fairy word is, as you know, irrevocable.
My request was granted to me. What before had been only a fancy, a well-
intentioned lie of my father that he had put in my head, now became real.
From the most beautiful maiden in the world, I was transformed right away
into such a hideous creature that the fairy herself could not stand my sight
and made off hurriedly.
“Alone, in joy at the supposed restoration of my beauty, I did not
notice the expression of loathing in her face, and imagined that she had
only vanished back to fairy kind again in order to save me from thanking
her for the incalculable gift, that I believed I had received.
“Soon afterwards another fairy met me as I just was about to look for
a brook in which I could view myself. Also she offered a gift to me, and I
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reflected even less than the first time.
“ ‘Give me,’ I shouted in the joy of my heart, ‘give me the gift, with all
the sufferings which I have now, to live as many years as I have hairs on my
head!’
“The small fairy looked at me with the astonishment in with which
one hears a person, whom one held for clever, speaking madness. She
twitched her shoulders and seemed undecided a moment whether she
should grant me such an incomprehensible wish. Only, because she had
given her word, was she herself able to do so, just as little as the first, for
she could not break from it. The fairy disappeared, and I unfortunately
believed myself suddenly in the possession of a beauty I considered
enormous; I thought it would last as long as the abundance of my hair was
great. So after such a long separation from myself, I went to a spring
nearby, to refresh my appearance to the fullest once more.
“But that puts the whole inability to express my horror before you,
since I am nothing but the ideal of ugliness, a caricature of everything old
and disgustingly shapeless and gruesome, in short, just the body I saw
therein, what you see before you! I could not possibly believe that I was
this monster. I looked around everywhere for the subject of that hated
picture that I cover myself with. But as I saw all the movements that I
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made myself, I found myself finally forced to admit the horrible truth, and
now recognized too late, how much I had been a plaything of envious stars,
and a victim of my father’s pious fraud and my own gullibility, self-love,
and hastiness.
“It would be cruelty, my children, if I wanted to torment you with a
description of the way this discovery fell on me. A thousand times the
desperation made me want to put an end to my life, but always an invisible
arm with stronger power held back me. Finally, time, whose blunting effect
on our senses makes us experience the most pleasant as boring and the
aversive as tolerable, finally did so much that I submitted to my destiny
with some calmness. But what contributed the most to it was the certainty
that my misery would last no longer than three years, which was just as
many years as the hairs the fairies left me on my bald head.
“Now my most pleasant employment was the hours and moments to
think over, which gave me an understanding of the final purpose of my
wishes. And while my odious existence wore on in this way, in the darkest
woods and the most lonesome wilderness, I had reached the twelfth month
of my last year when I arrived at a gloomy night in which I had wandered
for a long time between rocks and abysses on this very island where I have
since then pitched my dwelling.
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“I believed there, by the bushes which covered its shores, I saw a fire
which spread such a big clarity over everything around, as if it was a bright
day. Regardless, for me, after my own body, nothing was more hated than
the light. But I had a new longing I could not resist in that moment, and I
was seized nevertheless.
“I waded through a shallow part of the river, which I noticed shined in
this light. I was very surprised when I found in the bushes, where I thought
the pretty fire was burning, I found a small black person sleeping. I
discovered that a necklace of carbuncles, which he had around his black
neck, was the only cause of the bright and almost brilliant shine that
illuminated a part of the island so delightfully. I did not have the heart to
approach him for a good while, as he seemed to be even more nasty and
hideous than myself. But suddenly such a violent desire made me want to
be the owner of this wonderful jewelry that I felt strong enough to tear the
throat from the three-headed Cerberus itself. This desire was all the more
senseless as I had only a few days to live and the necklace, as priceless it
might also be in itself, could do nothing to help me but put my ugliness in a
more striking light. But it was stronger than my reason and my own love
taken together, and so I came, with fearful steps, to the small monster,
before whose sight I might have become helpless in an instant. Finally, I
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was near enough to note that the necklace was held together by only a weak
silk thread. I seized the same without trouble, and was about to make off
with my precious booty when the black person awoke and held me fast by a
corner of my skirt.
“ ‘Where are you going in such a hurry, beautiful Alboflede?’ he called
to me as he blew out his snout; before this sight I might have sunk. To want
to escape from him was not an option, for I had also lost the speed that
could save me with my body. My embarrassment and confusion seemed to
put the monster in a good mood. ‘If you only knew the value of the jewel
you wanted to steal from me,’ he spoke, laughing and unconcerned, such
that his laughter made him ten times uglier, as if he was angry. ‘But be of
good courage, beautiful Alboflede! I am not mad at you, and if you can
agree to only a little kindness from yourself, then the necklace should not
matter to me. Besides, for me is it only used for nothing but the lights at
night.’
“ ‘And what would that small favor be?’ I asked him with a turned-
away face, while I withdrew a few steps to not be reached by his breath.
“ ‘Almost nothing,’ he answered with a hideously friendly snarl. ‘To
love me and to become mine.’
“All bones on my whole body clattered together at this proposal and
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at the vision which my imagination connected with it, while it reminded me
to the contrary of the will of the snow-white deer. ‘Not for the whole world,
even if it was made of nothing but carbuncles,’ I shouted as I threw his
necklace with loathing at his feet.
“ ‘Let justice happen to me,’ returned the grinning changeling as he
lifted the necklace with great calmness from the earth. ‘I am not,
admittedly, the most kind, and I cannot blame a young lady of such
extraordinary beauty, as you are, to not be sad, if she winces a little at a
proposal like mine.’
“ ‘This inhuman mockery,’ I shouted out of my rage, ‘proves to me
that your soul is even more hideous than your outside.’
“ ‘It proves nothing, beautiful Alboflede,’ said the black person, while
he, despite my resisting, hung the sparkling jewelry over my scrawny black-
yellow throat. ‘I say nothing when this mirror would also say that to you!’
“With these words he held to me a big mirror before the face,
and—how should I express to you my astonishment, my confusion and my
delight?—I briefly saw myself again in my former body, in the full shine of
beauty and youth, so completely everything that I had been, that my eyes
dared me to believe neither the mirror nor myself.
“ ‘Is it possible?’ I shouted in stammering drunken delight, while I,
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from fear that the mirror could be enchanted, like a fool bumped it into the
middle of the river, reflected around me in its unsuspicious flow. The black
person, who might imagine that I wanted to be away from him, ran after me
so quickly that he caught me in mid-leap. But as he bent me down over so
quietly over a dark spot of the waters towards my own image, I saw it
became a lingering ghost. He was content to remove the necklace from me
again, all gentle from behind, and in this way made an end of my whole
delight all at once.
“For at the moment, as the necklace was again in his hands, I stood
there again as old and nasty as you see me, and looked with my totally
wrinkled and obliterated little piggy eyes in vain where my so intimately
beloved self would have been brought forward all at once. One would have
to be in such a situation oneself to get a real understanding of it. The
cursed black person went back again with his necklace in the claws quite
calmly, and I, as if I wanted to snatch away my robbed beauty from him
again, ran after him. I would have run after him as long as he had it in his
hands, in spite of my loathing of his revolting black person’s face, until the
end of the world had passed. He seemed to have compassion with my
oppressive situation, and his tone became more and more polite and
affectionate; because of this, I found his body more tolerable.
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“He led me into his small palace and showed me all his treasures and
rarities; he disclosed to me in confidence that he is the son of a fairy, and,
by means of knowledge his mother was gifted with, he was able to do
extraordinary things. But with all he has, it is not in his power to return to
me the necklace except in the way he announced.
“ ‘So you should want to really love me as I am,’ he put forward, ‘I
meant, perhaps, to ask a little of the impossible from you. But I am not so
unfair to want you to be happy through acting as if you love me, only to find
you also worked against me as soon as you received your beauty again from
me with the necklace. And so that your favor costs to you less, then know
that this is the only way to see again the snow-white deer, which might not
be unimportant to you.’
“I would have turned red if such parchmentlike skin as mine could
have blushed. It was incomprehensible to me how the little black person
could know so much about my history, and my embarrassment increased
with the desire for the necklace in plain sight. What should I tell you?
Basically there was no price for the goods that was, in my opinion, too large.
At least at that time I thought that way, and also maybe anyone else would
have thought so in my place. In short, I received the necklace with all my
beauty again as soon as I started to prove my gratitude to him, and to my
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great astonishment, the hideous little black person changed into the
wonderful youth who had won my heart in the form of a snow-white deer
and whose naughtiness had been the start of all my adventures.
“I learned from him then that a conflict with another fairy, as
powerful as she was jealous, was the cause of his transformation. He could
recover his own form under no other condition except by making the most
beautiful person in the world his own while in his ugly black person’s mask.
And who could he ever hope to get, other than someone who he gave the
advantage of knowing whether she would be the most beautiful or the
ugliest of her sex depended on it?
“Alquif (so my new husband was called) was a great magician, but the
necklace, which counts as a masterpiece of the magical arts, nevertheless
was able to totally destroy the work of the fairies. The strength of this
mighty talisman applied only to the hours of the night; as soon as the day
began, my beauty disappeared along with the wonderful shine of the
neckband, and I received once again all that ugliness that the first fairy had
given me. As soon as he saw me again in this condition, Alquif had no
priority except the only gray hair that I still had on my head, to make it so
firm and permanent by the strongest magical cures, that it could bear the
whole number of years which the extraordinary fullness of my hair in my
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state of my beauty had guaranteed. And as the day was the time when my
company could not be the most pleasant to a young man who loved
pleasure, he applied himself in the first weeks to draw me into the
mysteries of the art in which he was one of the greatest masters. But he
hardly saw me, for I made such rapid progress that I was able to do without
his assistance, so he surrendered to his natural instability and removed
himself from this island, and we have not seen each other ever since.
“I have told you this stories, my children,” continued Alboflede, “to
persuade you that the foreknowledge of our destinies is not only quite
useless to us in avoiding them, but that it will even lead us to the means to
bring us to our doom; without that impertinence and untimely activity and
interference in the work of the superior powers, we would never have
gotten into this mess. Had the druid, my father, not placed my nativity, I
would have been spared all the unspeakable sufferings and insults that he
drew to me only by the means by which he wanted to prevent my alleged
misfortune. So let yourselves be warned by Alboflede’s experience: Watch
yourselves, if you would foresee your fate without sanction. Let the gods
prevail and patiently await what they have decided about your love and
your luck!”
While that the old magician amused her young guests in such a way
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and her story rich in miracle (which they took for a fairy tale) crowned with
such wise teachings, the night had broken unnoticed. Alboflede had hardly
taken off the triple collar, which usually covered her neck with during the
days, when the sparkling necklace spread a new day a hundred steps in
diameter, and the old person stood there in a shine of beauty and youth
before the surprised eyes of both lovers, which they nearly turned to the
ground. “You see,” she said to them, “that I have told no fairy tale, as you
probably liked to imagine it.”
The young people blushed. They were not philosophers enough to
take the miracle they saw with the eyes for a fairy tale of her own
imagination, so they just let it be, and were content to stare at Alboflede
with big eyes, or rather the goddess of the beauty who had so unexpectedly
taken her place.
Suddenly an Adonis of sixteen years arrived, his appearance as
beautiful as the most beautiful angel whom Guido Reni has some day
painted. Between the two of them, they served the small group the most
delightful refreshments from golden bowls. Alboflede told them that he
was a sylph, and this sylph was the only being with which she shared the
pleasure of solitude on her small island. The young Selma herself confessed
that, except for the handsome Arbogast, her lover, she had never seen
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anything that compared with this sylph. But the truth of the matter was
that she considered her handsome Arbogast through the eyes of love, that
is, with blind or at least blinded eyes. Indeed, one had to be so taken in
order to find a comparison between them not ridiculous.
Hardly had the real or alleged sylph (they dared not decide ourselves
if he was one or the other) left himself again when the two lovers renewed
their first request so insistently, that Alboflede saw all the trouble she had
brought on herself had been for nothing. “Are you thus,” she said smiling,
“like all young people? The teachings and warnings of wisdom slither from
your ears, like tones without sense and meaning. You want to experience
everything and become wiser at your own expenses. Very well then! Step
in this circle,” she continued as she drew a circle around them with an ivory
rod. “I want you to strike the book of destiny, and you should hear the
outcome of your love.”
Immediately the beautiful sylph came again to his mistress, in one
hand a golden censer, and with the other he offered a large book that was
edged with golden studs and rich with precious stones. She took the book
from his hand, and when she had cast some grains from a diamond box into
the censer, a lovely, softly stunning steam rose from it and in a moment
filled the whole area. “Now hear your destiny,” she said to the lovers who,
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stood shaking before her, wrapped in a cloud of fragrance. She struck the
book and read in a loud voice, “You will be separated!”
The poor souls, who were already tormented with all these annoying
ceremonies a while ago, had to hold tightly to each other to keep from
sinking to the ground before the pain of this awful prophecy.
“But not for long? Not forever?” asked Selma in a suffocated voice.
“What can we do to get back together again?” asked Arbogast.
“While you seek each other on opposite paths, you will unexpectedly
find yourselves,” read Alboflede from another page. She then locked the
book again and returned it to the sylph, who disappeared with it.
The lovers fell at the feet of the beautiful magician and thanked her
for granting her request. “We submit to our destiny,” they said. “However
great we expect our suffering to be, whatever one desires, one also will
suffer for what one loves!”
“You will experience this,” said Alboflede.
“But we will get each other back,” shouted the lovers. “Such delight!
We will find each other and be happy!”
“We want to hope so,” said Alboflede.
“We must separate, so wants our unrelenting fate," cried the lovers as
they fell into each other's arms. "Every moment longer that we wait delays
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the blessed hour of reunion.”
“Romantic souls!” said Alboflede with a gentle, regretful look. “So
stand for your hike, you eastward while you head west out there, and trust
that Alboflede will be with you!”
She allowed to them here to embrace each other once again and
again. Finally they broke loose of each other with a stream of tears, and
after they had taken leave of Alboflede, they started with tottering steps
their suffering ways: eastward him, westward her, not without the other,
for as long as they were able, they looked around and threw each other
kisses at a distance.
But they had hardly gone away, each on their own winding road, a few
hundred steps in the forest, the garden of Alboflede. They embraced at the
stroke of midnight, walking away when something fell over from a mossy
bank. By the actions of the beneficent magician, they passed through all the
adventure in a magical dream, so their silly resolution would come to an
end if Alboflede had not found a way to defeat them. Arbogast and Selma
both dreamed the same dream. It started at the moment of their parting
from Alboflede and led them through muddled and mostly disagreeable
occurrences. After a ten-year separation (how it seemed to them), both
were in a big town where Selma had the unexpected pleasure of finding her
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beloved Arbogast again—in the arms of another.
The magician had so arranged it that both lovers believed they went
away from each other at the same time. On the winding roads of her forest
of desire, they were gathered again, so near that they were separated at the
moment because they were overpowered by the numbing of magic slumber;
only a light wall of myrtles and roses separated them. At her sign, the sylph
carried the sleeping Arbogast up the mossy bank, where Selma was dozing
alone. Indeed, the ten-year dream, in which they believed to have passed
an infinite number of romantic adventures, lasted no longer as a single
hour. Alboflede, who during this time always sat facing the dreaming
Selma, was the first person who fell in her view. Before the fright and
displeasure, she found her lover after such a long separation in a stranger’s
arms; now she awoke, and without noticing that she had only dreamed it
all, she broke into the most bitter complaints and reproaches about her
unfaithful lover. At this very moment Arbogast also awoke, but not without
great confusion. Selma and the magician were witnesses to the crime to
which he thought he pleaded guilty, but he was intent to not let himself be
thrown by the advantage his lover was assured to have on him.
“Avenge me of this unfaithful one, great fairy,” shouted the incensed
Selma as she threw herself at Alboflede’s feet.
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“Such impertinence!” shouted Arbogast, his passion for Selma also set
on fire. “You have the gall to accuse me of my infidelity, do you?”
“If I have you,” shouted Selma, “not in these accursed arms…”
“And without you wanting to know anything about me, was I not a
galley slave serving on the brigantine? Wasn’t it there that I saw with my
own eyes that you could be led without resistance by the captain of the
pirates into his cabin?” screamed Arbogast.
"How, my children,” cried Alboflede with a surprised smile, “in these
moments, as I have brought you together again after such a long and
painful separation, in the blessed moments of reunion, when my only fear
was that from love and delight that you would die in each other’s arms, are
your greetings the bitterest reproaches? ”
“Oh, if you knew only everything, great fairy,” both shouted as if from
one mouth.
“I know more than you imagine,” answered Alboflede. “And you can
only thank me that all of this was only dreamed by you. It would have
actually happened to you, in all honesty, if I had not been cleverer than you.
Your romantic journey, which you were about to take, would not go out of a
district of two hundred steps or the span of a single hour.
“Once again, my children, you have only dreamed and have not left
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this garden. Give each other your hands and forgive each other, not what
you have not done, but for how you would have acted, if I, less kindly,
would have revealed to you the results of your impertinence and your haste.
Turn back now to yourselves! Your dream will shortly leave behind only
weak traces in your soul. It protects you, as long as you live, from the
brainless impatience to want to pick the fruits of your destiny before they
are ripe. Love each other, be steadfast and faithful, suffer patiently what
you cannot change without exposing yourself to great ills, and always hope
the best for the invisible powers in whose lap the future lies.”
With these words Alboflede left both lovers by themselves. They
thanked her for her kindness and promised obedience. Soon after her
departure, they were actually separated, but they remembered of the words
of Alboflede and her dream, and waited as patiently as possible for what the
gods would have decided about them. In short, the obstacles they
considered insurmountable disappeared; they were again united, loved
each other, and were happy.
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Lulu, or the Magic Flute
In a forest not far from Mehru, the capital of the kingdom of
Khorasan, stood an old castle that hardly had its equals in glory. It was
built through sorcery, as the legend went, by the ancient king Jamshid, the
founder of the empire. However, since his death it had remained
unoccupied, for his successors, the spirits that hid in it, would not stop.
They preferred, in all fairness, a peaceful sleep in that exquisite dwelling in
which they were thrown from their beds at night.
This castle had been inhabited for many years by a fairy was feared by
the inhabitants of that area. Indeed, here some who wanted to spy out her
lonely dwelling from nosiness felt bad, as she was so cruel and cried out for
blood that even the walkers their forest stayed away.
She knew how to assume any shape, but liked to appear in a beam of
glory, which dazzled more strongly than the brightest sunlight. This was
her finest but also her most dangerous shape. Whoever she saw either lost
one’s mind for some time or, if one opened one’s eyes too far, probably
became totally blind on the spot. The people called her the radiant fairy,
and described her beauty as supernatural, although no one could say that
he had seen her face.
Meanwhile, at the Court of Mehru, there was, of course, one who did
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not believe most of this. However, just once in his long reign, he could not
remember, that the king had a fearful mind on the hunt in these woods.
The son of the king, called Lulu, took little after his father. He liked
to hunt, especially in these woods. This he did, not only from curiosity for
the opportunity to meet the radiant fairy, but because many of the wild
animals had become abundant since the time this miracle woman had lived
there. To avoid meeting her on the path, he kept far from her castle, that
one in the middle of the forest on a beautiful hill and clearly far away,
always at a proper distance.
“I do not fear her,” said he. “I want to provoke her, but not though
my nosiness. If she wants to prove to me what property is hers, she might
visit me.”
For one in the forest, only wandering out hunting, it was not hard to
avoid being close to the castle, as all animals inside the forest were shy
except for the songbirds. Even in the heat of the hunt, when they could no
longer escape, they stopped and preferred to kill than exceed the borders of
her tolerance, which surrounded the castle.
By this temperance Lulu spent some years in which the fairy’s
appearance of was avoided. He made such an example of courage for the
courtiers, they all wanted to accompany him. Even the king wanted to
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show that he was not afraid and spent a day on a large hunt. The whole
court went into the forest as soon as the morning dawned. One stretched
nets, one blocked all ways out, and made such a roar that some old rascal,
who for many years had guarded the harem, shook in his heart from fear.
Another relied on the large number of marksmen and believed, because the
spirits appeared only to people who were alone, then by this tumult the
whole court was in no danger.
Lulu, however, wanted on this solemn day to show his courage and
kill a lion or a tiger with own hands. He went deeper into the forest than he
ever had before. He seemed not to care about a lot of smaller animals such
as foxes, badgers, lynx, and let them run pass unhindered until he met a
huge tiger, which chased a cute white gazelle.
“That is death!” cried Lulu, and hurriedly ran behind them. The small
gazelle made leaps so clever, it hopped so quickly and easily, sometimes
left, sometimes right, that the great tiger arrived everywhere too late. It ran
uphill and downhill through various back roads that Lulu had not been on.
Often it seemed the tiger would catch it; however it was swifter than a bird,
soon before it, soon behind it. Lulu was always eager, and his companions
had lost him, and he himself did not know where he was or stood.
In any case, he was in the middle of the pleasure garden, not far from
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the fairy palace. The tiger and the gazelle had disappeared in the thicket.
He was still frightened, and wanted to just turn round again, when the
doors of the magic castle opened up and the fairy stepped out in her
garments of light.
Her outfit was whiter than the snow in bright sunshine and flashed,
flickering as a dazzling mirror; but more than all the rest, her face beamed.
Both her eyes poured out thick streams of a reddish light in all directions,
as if the morning sun, three times brighter than it is when rising in a clear
sky above the seas, floated dazzlingly before her forehead.
Lulu had hardly seen the first ray of the erupting clarity gush when he
covered his face with both hands and went towards the fairy with his eyes
closed. Then he noticed that she was near him by the rushing of her
garment. He knelt down and pleaded, "Great fairy, do not be angry at a lost
person, who desecrated your realm against his will with his footsteps. You
know, I did not come from curiosity, for I am shy of the heavenly maiden.”
“I like your modesty,” replied the fairy with a gentle voice, touching
his forehead with her hand. “Arise, my son! Open your eyes without fear,
for my glory is not perishable like yours. If you want to obey me, then you
must repent your errors, which you carry into the realm of fairy Perifirime.”
Lulu turned his eyes up and saw a woman full of majesty and quiet
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dignity, who smiled at him with loving, blessing seriousness. The mere
sight of her high beauty did him good, as if a spirit of new life flowed into
his veins. A resting army shined on her threatening brow. Her big, blue
eyes looked into hidden depths and frightened him with solemn shivers,
while the gentle smile of her mouth again was drawn up for him with
childlike love.
“Order your servant, you divine one,” he exclaimed, and laid his
hands folded on his chest. “My heart and my arm are yours.”
“I’ve known you for a long time, my son,” she said. “I was a trusted
friend of your mother, the one who sometimes visited me in my solitude.
Come with me so I can tell you what to do.”
She gave him her hand and led him in silence to the castle. The gate
opened itself. A carriage, shaped like a cloud, floated out and settled down
in front of them. They got in. The carriage rose, and flew as gently and fast
as a swallow over the forest.
“The service that I desire from you,” began the fairy, “does not require
strength as much as wisdom, for violence against my powerful enemies will
not injure them much. When I tell you the what’s most important about the
situation, you yourself will understand:
“Not far from here on a high cliff lives a magician who, many years
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ago, stole an exquisite little piece of jewelry, its value and strength beyond
all comparison. This jewelry is a piece of gilded fire-steel, which the spirits
of all elements and all the world obey. Any spark that I struck was a
powerful spirit, in an arbitrary shape as my slave who as for my orders. I
received it from the hand of you father’s tribe, of the wise king Jamshid,
and received absolute power; everything possible, what is only intended or
desired to be, was done in a few moments on my least hint.
“No enemy knew the security that I enjoyed. The magician
Dilsenghuin noticed this carelessness and found means, to steal the steel
from me through cunning fraud. Compared to me, his hand is far less
powerful than mine, so I have reason enough for this loss to be deplored,
especially as I know that only a male youth of age, whose heart has not yet
felt the power of love, can bring back this symbol of my authority.
“For a long time I have looked among the children of men of this age
for such a young man in vain. One lacked courage, wisdom from others,
most of innocence. You have passed the exam and you are proved as the
innocent, which I expected.”
Lulu shut his eyes and the fairy went on:
“This magician now, to whom I want to send you, despite all his
cunning arts is not perceptive; only the love of a maiden, whom he
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imprisoned against her will, made him so suspicious, vigilant, and cautious
that only the brightest can fool him. In your natural shape, he would never
trust you; he would grasp at once who you are and your efforts would be
lost. So take this flute. It has the power to win for each listener love and all
passions, which the player is able to excite or calm. Also take this ring; it
gives you any shape you want, young or old, after you turn its diamond in-
or outwards. If you’re in danger, and throw it from you; it will become a
flying messenger who calls for my help.
“The rest I must leave to your own wisdom, since I cannot predict
exactly the dangers and the behavior of the magician. See, over there
stands the house of the magician behind the mountains! I cannot
accompany you further; he would like to notice me otherwise in the
distance. Travel safely and be happy! The best of what I have is given to
the winner as a reward.”
When the fairy said this, she let down the carriage behind a
mountaintop. Lulu got out and walked boldly to the wizard's home, while
the fairy in her carriage vanished behind the clouds.
When he had climbed the mountain and stepped off the highest peak,
a graceful valley opened before him that resembled the gardens of paradise.
A wide stream, coming from the distant mountains, flowed from evening to
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morning in small and large curves through the flowery meadow, now
gently, now rushing down. On both sides stood small hills with fruit trees
like dense forests and covered wild bushes, around which the current
meandered like a snake and formed many small islands. The green knolls
and hills rose gradually higher and higher and were finally a series of
wooded mountains, the valley surrounded on all sides. The first thing his
eyes fell upon was a palace, standing in the middle of the valley on a hill,
and sparkling under the sun like smoothed steel against the mountains.
Lulu turned his ring inwards and got the appearance of an old, white-
bearded man whose back was bent like a crook. He climbed the mountain
and approached the front of the castle, which towered like a monster, on
which neither stairs nor entrance was found. The high steel rock on which
the buildings stood was so slick and rugged that one could not go one
moment without thinking about what might come up.
When he had seen it all around, he sat a few hundred paces from it
under a lemon tree, put the flute to his mouth, and began to blow. Almost
without noticing, he was enchanted by its sound, for he had never heard
such tones as it made with each breath. When he breathed softly, then it
sounded like the lisp of high peaks, where the evening wind whispers, or as
if every nightingale in the valley sang a sweet lullaby to the sounds of a
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crying nymph. He breathed again heavily, and like this a thousand
harmonious choirs swept down from all the mountains, as if the thunder
roared over their heads and a buzzing raged in all the depths.
Lulu loved the gentle thing. He soon piped like the gentle cooing of a
turtledove, attracting the love of her husband; then like the frightened
sound of a nightingale who sings a funereal song to the lost sweetheart.
The birds of the valley gathered on the surrounding trees and listened to
him. The deer and gazelles came from the nearby forests, gazing at him and
straining their ears, so friendly, as if they understood the meaning of his
playing.
Alone in the palace on the steel rocks everything still seemed to lie in
deep sleep. Lulu sought in vain with his eyes, but there was nobody to see
and the windows were all closed. “They may have hard ears,” he thought,
and breathed as if he was lost in his enthusiasm, several times greater into
his flute than before. Game and poultry were frightened by the rolling
echoes, and the castle window rattled loudly, as if an earthquake poured
from its foundation pillars.
The magician opened a window and cried out, “Why did a tooter wake
me up so early in the morning? Can you find somewhere else to whistle
than under my windows? Wait! Gray head, I will show you the way, if I
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come out!”
“Just come out,” thought Lulu, and he blew a lively little tune, as he
would to attract maidens at a merry dance.
The magician stood with an open mouth at the window, his brown
eyes closed, the ears up and sharpened, like a hare that hears the horn of
the hunter. The flute, meanwhile, had its effect. His suspicions vanished,
the little tune got to him without his knowing, always sweeter and more
alluring to him, until finally it became so merry around his heart, that he
could no long withstand his curiosity. “Whoever the local thief may be,
must the trill strike so beautifully?” he said, slammed his window shut,
threw his caftan on, opened a small back door and crept through quietly.
Lulu stepped back half-frightened as he suddenly saw the magician in
his nightclothes before him. He had a big, gigantic body, hands and feet a
little rough, with thick lips, bloated cheeks, a hanging belly, and still other
features which attested to his appetite. He blinked his small eyes, like those
of a cat, had a turned-up nose, light red hair, and a thick handlebar
mustache.
“You don’t pipe badly, old man,” he began. “Tell me who you are and
how you came here. I want to make you my castle piper if you’re not yet
spoken for.”
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“I thank you for the honor,” said Lulu. “I do not go gladly into
employment. A real musician plays for fun rather than on command. My
lord does not resent me,” he continued, turning his flute around like a
wheel between his fingers. "I am an old fellow, but free air and free playing
thus I need as food and drink. I’ve wandered now forty years from one
country to another, asking wherever I go if anyone desires my art. I have
admirers happy with my playing, so I go far unhindered. Besides, nothing
comes to me what belongs to a happy life. Yes, I could collect treasures, if I
were only allowed to accept the smallest gift, nothing but a good hosting.
For as had my mentor, an old dervish, who practiced the same craft, I must
be sworn to promise, and rightly so. Why does someone who travels
constantly need great treasures? One already has enough, if it is enough
from one day to the next. It would also not be nice with such a noble art, as
mine is, to want to expand, for without bragging, my art is one of the
noblest, of which none other approaches in excellence.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” broke in the magician. “Those who do not know
you would think you could wake the dead with your pipe.”
“Not quite,” Lulu answered. “But briefly, with my flute-playing I can
calm the anger of a woman. I make the stubborn tame, the coy loving, the
willful I drive the moods and whims out. In short, it releases one more than
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she wants; I make her happy. In this good occupation, I have become gray.
My lord will allow me, therefore, I hope, forgiveness, if I decline his
honorable request to lock me up in his iron tower in old humility.”
“Look at the old fox!” cried the magician, laughing. “How people can
lie!”
“Sir,” Lulu broke in himself, “Such delicate talk embitters me. What,
a fox? Me? So don’t let me come! Did I do something my lord desires? I
blew my morning song into this beautiful meadow and would already be far
away, if my lord had not stopped me by his request. My lord quarrels with
his servant; he left me unscolded.” With these words he stuck its flute in
his pocket, took his staff, and started to go.
The magician took him by the arm and held him back. “Understand it
was only a joke, old man! Who, because of one word of this, would be so
sensitive? Stay and pipe another one. In fact, your pieces are incomparably
amusing.”
Lulu was persuaded and pulled out his flute again. “My lord is a
considerable man,” he said while screwing the pieces together. “Only he
can believe me, that I am not accustomed such treatment. Everywhere
where I go, I would receive love and respect. Old and young, they went to
meet me. One gives me gifts, I would be deliciously entertained, and men,
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usually those up in years as my lord is here, those have always treated me as
their best friend.”
As he so spoke, he positioned the flute and blew so strongly and
merrily, as if he wanted to encourage the stones to run a race. His pipe,
with each touch, had so many sounds that one would have sworn that all
trees and bushes of the valley sang from full throats. The birds fluttered as
if drunk from one tree to another, quite enthusiastic with this merry
wedding song, hopping and trilling, like a boy with a little bird caught in his
crook.
“Truly,” said he, as Lulu followed, “you have a strong breath, but let’s
see if I can also blow.” He took the pipe, held it to his mouth, inflated both
cheeks, and breathed inside with all his might. But heaven help, it gave
such a shriek! The howl of hungry wolves and the gabble of a flock of snow
geese passing was harmony compared to the shrill, whistling voice, which at
first touch came at once from the flute. Lulu held his ears, the birds flew
away screaming, and the deer ran so fast at this, as if the horrors of the
hunt would be dropping them.
“Phooey! That doesn’t sound good,” said the magician. “There, you
have your pipe again. From whom did you get it?”
“From an old dervish, sir, an old juggler. He was called Kardan, had
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gone through the whole world, was able to transform into all sorts of
animals, and had this flute carved himself, as he said. I was a beggar-boy.
When he took me off the road, he taught me the fingerings and gave me the
flute as he died. Since then I have used it according to his instructions. For
that I must repeat it still to the grave, he was a charitable man; he gave
more than he took.”
“Can you also teach me a little of the fingerings?” the magician
interrupted the old man talkatively.
“If my lord wants me, why not? For one does not learn such playing
in a few moments, my lord himself probably sees. I am not jealous with my
art. I just cannot stay, for I have vowed to the ever-loving dervish to sleep
each night in a different place, so quite a lot of good will be given to many
unfortunates.”
“So I probably have to take you with me,” began the magician, “if I
want to try your flute on my wife. Listening for once! Can you tell me
about how much time you need to make a coy one loving?”
“After the coy one is,” said Lulu. “For the one, an hour, for the others,
two, three, even more probably, an ample half-day, but never that was she
so coy as she wants.”
“Well, that’s just enough! Can you keep your word? Then come with
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me. But on the express condition that you do not talk with my wife. You
pipe a few fragments before her, and if her anger is quenched, then you
again go on your way without a long argument.”
“Sir, I must not pipe in your castle,” dropped Lulu indignantly. “If my
lord wants to be so jealous, then I’d rather not deal with him. In my life I
have blown for so many and diverse women of high and low station, but
really! I never did anything so disgraceful, not even in my youth, as
beautiful as I was back then. In words, if I do not trust my lord, then he can
make his own wife tender. And with that, good day!”
“Ho ho!” cried the magician. “One may well say however, how one
wants to know she will be kept in a fine house! Believe me, old man, this
ostentatiousness of waiting for one who pipes for food and drink is not for
the best. But enough of that! Just come in here; we want it done well.”
The magician struck the steel rock with his rod. Two doors, whose
joints one did not notice from the outside, opened by themselves and closed
behind them by themselves again. They climbed a broad spiral staircase,
went through some gloomy passageways, then through many locked doors,
until they came last into a roomy hall, to which a large, inside window
locked with iron bars gave the necessary light.
Nine maidens dressed in white sat there in a half-circle behind ivory
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spinning wheels and spun with great zeal. In the middle was the tenth
before a black marble table with a golden bobbin, who wound again from
what the other nine had spun the previous day. A little fat dwarf, about
three feet high, was the overseer. He waddled with a slender switch in hand
around the spinning wheels and lashed the spinners on the fingers if they
dropped the thread or did not stretch well enough.
“Sit there in that corner, old man, and play a piece,” said the magician
as they stepped inside. “We want to see what your art can do. The girls are
as rigidly stubborn as they look. I am ever more stringent, they are more
defiant than ever, especially those with the black hair, the ones that spin
slowly. But just be patient! My previous niceness has come to an end!
From now on the spools get bigger every day and the golden bobbin gets
heavier. Every day as usual, neither the meal nor sleep are thought of until
the nine spools are fully spun and delicately wound out. It will show who
lasts the longest in this contest, I with my spirits or the beautiful Sidi with
her girls. Now play, old man. The hardworking girls have not danced for a
long time.”
The girls began to sigh. Some moved their lips, like one who wants to
scold but nevertheless does not dare. Others, who were more softhearted,
let secret tears fall. The beautiful bobbin-winder alone seemed not to fear.
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She turned with a calm motion, gave the magician a scornful look, and fixed
their eyes on the flute player, but because she saw the old man, she
indifferently looked away again.
Lulu, peeking at the bobbin-winder, met her black eyes, which
illuminated him like two bright stars. He began to tremble, and the flute
would not work. He named one piece after another, and hesitated until the
magician suggested that he should play.
Again he quickly thought, put the flute to his mouth, and blew the
mournful song of a prisoner who sighed for freedom in one’s darkening
dungeon. The flute called and enticed, like the voice of the anxious mother
who searches for her lost favorite; she clucks so fearfully, she coos so
tenderly, as if with each sound from the human heart she groans a loud
sigh. The wheels slowed; the girls forgot to pull the thread. Hot tears
trickled over their cheeks, and their bosoms throbbed, uneasy as from fear.
The beautiful Sidi let the bobbin rest and stood; her face towards turned
Lulu, now lost into the sweet memory of her childhood. Meanwhile, the
magician and his fat dwarf stared with open mouths and widened eyes like
pictures of the dead.
The song altered the melody and switched unsignaled to a cheerful
tempo, which rose by and by to the speed of a rising dance. In the same
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way the wheels of the spinners also rolled on; they ran so fast and purred so
loud, as if a living spirit was driving it from inside. Likewise the piece
gradually fell down again to the slow and languishing, until it lost itself,
slowly sighing. All wheels stood still, the spinners took deep breaths, and
the bobbin-winder seemed to wake from a beautiful dream.
The magician at once again reflected and exclaimed, “Listen, old man,
the clucks and coos are good for nothing; that you must cure yourself. The
girls cry and sigh by themselves. Such sweet piping makes them only more
moody. Stay with me in this happy place, which exhilarates the mind and
makes the blood fresh.”
“Ah! My lord does not understand!” broke in Lulu with his angry
courage disguised. “So who has told him what is good in my art and is not
good? Either my lord gives the orders or he finds another playing man!
Then short and good, I blow what one chooses for me!”
“Don't get so hot-headed, old man,” replied the magician. “One does
not scold you for saying one’s opinion. So what do you think,” he continued
softly, “what should your pipes have fixed?”
“Now that again is a sensitive question,” Lulu continued. “However,
my lord can look at the maiden herself! Isn't she much more friendly and
gentle than she was before? Didn't my lord notice how she dried her eyes
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during the playing? This is a good sign. Repentance is always accompanied
in the maiden by tears. Through two or three little fragments of the last
kind, she will become as tender as a turtledove. Just where the reprimands
and the commands are concerned, I can't stand that. It would be better if
my lord would help me with the essentials. With permission to say so, it
spoils everything I do well.”
“Why?” the magician asked in annoyance.
“Ah!” Lulu replied, “when has my lord ever heard that someone
forced a maiden to be loving? Love is acquired only by love; compulsion,
however, arouses hatred and makes one stubborn. The fat dwarf there with
the long switch, as well as the large spinning wheels and the heavy spool,
are good for nothing. ‘Excellent bedclothes, my lord!’ That doesn't stand
him in good truth. Doesn't my lord have a more beautiful robe? An
intelligent man, who wants to please, must always appear in his most
beautiful decoration, for the girls love only the beautiful. My lord must cure
these two deficiencies, otherwise we will never come to the end.”
“Truly, old man, this time you’re right,” the magician was happy to
answer, and patted him kindly on the shoulder. “You are an educated lover;
one must follow you. Play on still for these loving ones; my dwarf will have
dressed me immediately.”
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Lulu acted as if he zealously pursued the thing, already beginning on
the flute and nodding as one who may not hesitate. The magician seized
the dwarf by the arm and hurried with him to the hall outside.
When the maidens saw themselves alone, they became freer and also
whispered each other. But they continued away undauntedly, for they
could not hesitate if they wanted to finish their heavy day’s work before
sunset.
Lulu barely heard the hall door snap when he turned down his ring,
and in his true form rushed to advise to the bobbin-winder. She cried
loudly and let the spool fall from fear, for instead of the white-bearded bent
little man, she saw slim, rosy cheeks before herself. He leaned against her
with boldness and whispered to her, “Be confident, beautiful Sidi. I want to
free you and your maidens from this dungeon if you tell me how I can seize
the spirit steel. Have confidence in me; I do not deceive you. I am called
Lulu, the son of the king of Khorasan, and was sent here by a powerful fairy
to free you. Quickly, tell me if you know where the magician hides the
gilded fire-steel.”
The bobbin-winder trembled with fear when she heard the prince talk
this way. Her cheeks paled and grew hot for a few moments. “Hide, young
man,” she called fearfully. She supported herself by one of her maidens
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who stood around her, scared of everything. “Ah! Hide yourself! Flee! If
the monster finds you, then you are lost, for none can make his spirits
protect you.”
“Be calm, my love,” said Lulu and pressed her hand lovingly to his
chest. “I have not come here to flee, but to free you. Just tell me where I
can find the spirit steel.”
“Oh!” cried the bobbin-winder, who recovered from her tender fright
again. “If you don’t know any other advice, know then you came to your
misfortune here. The magician carries it day and for night on his chest, and
if he sleeps, then he allows himself of a crowd of strong spirits that he calls
for with that steel. They must fill all doors, guarding in the highest summit
of the tower. No one has yet found him sleeping. Even the dwarf, his
trusted friend favorite, who my friends occasionally interrogate, confesses
that he does not know where and for how long his master sleeps. Just like
us, in the evening the magician locks him in an isolated chamber, the iron
door only reopened in the morning.”
The beautiful bobbin-winder began to be afraid. She pulled her hand
back and said, “I do not understand how you’ve gained his trust. You’re the
first stranger we’ve see here in the last three years. You want to cheat me.
You think just like the monster. He wants to try with cunning what he
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cannot compel by force. Tell me, are you one of his spirits?”
“Let this harmful mistake go, my love,” Lulu let out. “Fear nothing; I
am what I told you. A powerful fairy has guided me here. Under the guise
of an old person, which this ring gives me, I promised the magician that my
flute-playing would turn your hatred into love. He seemed to believe me
and took me inside. In order to remove him for some time, I advised him to
put on a more beautiful garment. Now he decorates himself in order to
please you, and will soon return. So be friendly to him if you want to help
carry out my plan. Don’t be worried about being left behind. I free you or
leave my life, because without you and your love, life would be hated by
me.”
Lulu seized her again by the hand, caressing, and continued, “Do not
hold back, beautiful Sidi. Can you give me some details to help find the
fire-steel? Then hurry. The fiend would like to surprise us; he has
forbidden me to talk to you.”
“I have said everything that I know,” she answered. “But if I should
believe you, then call me the fairy who gave you the ring and the flute.”
Lulu was just about to answer. Suddenly one of the girls, who on a
signal from the bobbin-winder had waited before the hall door, came in out
of breath and proclaimed, “The magician is coming.” In an instant all
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chairs were filled and all wheels including the bobbin making such a quick,
purring movement that one hardly heard Lulu’s flute by the hall door, it
was so stealthy, like a cricket’s chirping,
The magician wanted to call to the one who already stepped inside,
“Old man, why don’t you pipe?” But he heard the quiet lisping, and held his
tongue for Lulu’s tender melodies.
The maidens all looked at him in surprise; even the bobbin-winder
could not stop herself from making a secretive glance at him. He was quite
richly decorated, like a sultan in his splendor. His head was covered by a
fiery red turban with a string of pearls wound around four times. A violet-
blue caftan, embroidered with gold, reached almost to his feet and was held
together by a golden belt. From it hung an expensive saber, its grip
sparkling with diamonds. Around his neck and down over the chest, a long
string of large pearls hung; in the same way his red knee-high boots were
trimmed with pearls as well. At just a sign, the spirits of the fire-steel had
produced these fineries. Just as fast they had to dress him in it. Although
nobody could escape from his iron tower (so he believed), nevertheless, it
was not advisable to leave the old flute-player alone with the virgins.
Hence, the dwarf had hardly assured him that nothing more was absent,
and that he was resplendent like a king when he hurried back into the hall.
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Lulu went to meet him and praised his fine taste, but especially his
beautiful manners. “If my lord now proceeds more gently with the
maidens,” he said, “their earlier coyness will soon be forgotten.”
“Do you think that your art has worked somewhat?” the magician
asked with a satisfied smile.
“Indisputably, it must have done much,” gave Lulu for an answer.
“Little annoyance over the earlier harshness will still remain. But that lets
itself be easily fixed with a meal or another good opportunity.”
“We want to see,” said the magician, and approached the bobbin-
winder with small, gentle steps. He kissed her on the cheeks and asked in a
sweet voice, “Well, are you still angry at me, little stubborn one? If you will
love me a little, then our conflict at once will at an end. Tell me, sweet little
one, are you reconciled with me?”
Lulu stood behind the magician and the dwarf, turned towards the
bobbin-winder. He put the flute under his arm, turned down his ring, and
looked at the maiden with tender glances. The bobbin-winder saw the
prince again in his shape of young man before herself; she blushed, became
frightened, and turned her eyes down modestly.
The magician regarded this as shyness, took it as a good sign, and
continued in his flirting with her. “I see it,” said he. “You’re not angry. You
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let my love of fairness happen. You give way to my longing. Is not it, my
little dove?”
Lulu put his right hand on his chest during this speech and also asked
for approval. His fiery eyes spoke so clearly and so urgently that the
beautiful bobbin-winder was soon convinced.
“If I wanted to love you now,” she said with downcast, beaten eyes,
“can I hope that you will free me and my maidens from this hated slave
labor?”
Lulu raised up signs of his inalienable loyalty, both hands to the sky.
But the magician thought, “His point is of value,” and cried out in his joy,
“You will no more thread bobbins, dear little fool. Your maidens will only
be devoted to your service if you promise me, today or tomorrow, to be my
wife.”
“Give me evidence of your love through deeds,” she said, and looked
sneakily at Lulu, his arms spread out before them. “That way you will have
no reason to complain about my ingratitude.”
On this assurance, the magician was beside himself in joy and wanted
to embrace the beautiful Sidi. But Lulu, driven by jealousy, turned his ring
and blew into his flute with quick fierceness. The magician moved
backwards in fright, and the girls raised a fearful cry. It was no different
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than if the whole iron tower collapsed, crackling, from a strong
thunderclap. Even Lulu was shocked by the terrible noise and quickly
made a few lovely trills; the wrath of the magician, who went for the saber
handle, instantly calmed again.
“Old local thief,” he screamed at him, “who told you to blow so
terribly?”
“Forgive me, my lord,” gave Lulu for an answer, “I did a wrong
fingering, and in such cases, you see, my flute is sensitive.”
“If you love your throat, then watch yourself against such fingerings
and pay attention, old man! That I suggest to you!”
“Do not anger, my lord,” said the beautiful Sidi, and she stroked the
magician’s chin. “The old man blew so much that was gentle and lovely
that we can probably forgive him this only bad loud one. His flute must
have marvelous forces. It has made me earlier so softhearted that I am
unwilling to weep. With such a delicate work of art, in which the slightest
touch feels great, caution may be needed. The old man will be careful in the
future.”
The magician hardly knew how to hide his joy, for the beautiful Sidi
had never treated him so gently and flattering. “I am no longer angry, my
sweet little love,” he said, and he blinked as tenderly as he could with his
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small eyes. “I forgive him, because you ask for it. You see how lenient I am
against you; so will you be, I hope, as agreeable with me? Do not let us
longer delay, since for once we are on the right path. My happiness is
complete. Give me your hand, as you gave me your heart, and let our
marriage be this very day.”
Sidi was silent and turn down her eyes. “My lord, allow me only two
days to recover from my previous grief. Such a festive day requires
preparation.”
“What do you need, relaxation, dear little fool? No one can see you’ve
been harmed. You glow like a young rose, and your dear eyes shine as
brightly as clear pearls. Come, give me your hand! The necessary
preparations will be made by my spirits in a few moments.”
“Sir,” she replied,“give me only this single day, to quiet the uneasiness
of my heart. If you love me like you say, then you will not deny me the
fulfillment of such small requests.”
“Again the old stubbornness?” the magician broke in severely. “Why
delay when it can happen today? I am tired of giving in and just once I
want to show I am the lord of my house.”
He pulled the fire-steel from his bosom and struck it. The countless
sparks sprayed about, like those one drives out from a glowing iron on the
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anvil with heavy hammers. So they went to the first gentle strike with
power from the fire-steel, and turned into a crowd of marksmen with
flashing guns, surrounding the magician in a close arrangement. “Half of
you,” said he, “roam through the area and bring me everything, what is
going on, urgent messages. He other half, fill the castle on the inside and
the outside. Up!”
The marksmen vanished like lightning, and the magician struck a
second time. A crowd of richly dressed male and female slaves came out of
the sparks, tread in humble postures there around him, expecting his
orders, for all spirits and fairies were under the rule of this steel. “You,” he
said to the male slaves, “leave here, light up the hall, and prepare the meal.
But you”—he turned to the female slaves—“bring the princess and her
maidens beautiful clothes and exquisite jewelry. Away!”
In a moment wheels, bobbins, chairs and marble tables had
disappeared. On the walls opened up six large windows, and in the middle
of the hall stood an ivory dining table covered with magnificent eating
utensils.
Lulu watched the magician like a falcon and observed his every
movement while the latter struck and hid the steel again. The beautiful
Sidi, however, stood trembling in a corner and wept at her own misfortune,
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what she gotten through her own fault. At birth, her mother had given her
gift to her, the ability to resist every act of violence by loathing of her will.
The preservation of this beautiful gift was based on the serious condition
that she never find love. As long as she met this condition, she was safe
before every enemy.
Even in the iron tower she was free in all things, except for the escape.
She wound her bobbin not because she had to, but out of love of her
maidens. The magician, who knew of this gift, was clever enough to punish
the girls instead of the princess if the nine spools from the previous day
were not wound up each evening up to the last thread. The spools were so
large that the girls were allowed no moment to pause if they wanted to
finish all their spinning in one day. They did not even get anything to eat if
they had not produced the spinning. The good Sidi would have rather
wound her hands raw herself at the heavy spool before she would have left
her friends to undeserved suffering. The magician hoped to tire her and
make her more yielding by this clever compulsion. However, the princess
remained steadfast, and always let him wait in vain for the weariness he
hoped for.
He would have gladly been stricter with the girls if his spirits, which
were held within limits by higher powers, would have obeyed his strict
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commands. The princess seemed to notice this powerlessness and
answered his threats with mocking contempt. At last such a rage overcame
him that he swore by his fire-steel that the girls should spin and wind until
Sidi would decide to marry him.
Thus they spun and wound for nearly three years, and the magician
began to abandon all hope, until the old flute player appeared. Since
everything had happened to move the princess to love, and the old man
boasted of the power of his flute, the magician thought it at least worth an
attempt. The flute player kept his word, and the princess lost her gift, not
by the flute, like the sorcerer believed, but by Lulu’s appearance in the
shape of his youth. In the fright of the surprise, the beautiful Sidi forgot
how dangerous his appearance could be. She saw the young hero who
courageously spoke of their relief with heartfelt joy, and before she thought,
she lost the beautiful gift of her mother.
The magician noticed the loss, as he wanted to hug her and did not
feel the resisting force any longer; otherwise, if he approached the princess,
he was violently shoved back. It was self-love alone to attribute his
beautiful decorations with the largest part of this change. It did not occur
to him that the princess fell in love with the old man and not with him.
Because he feared the fairy, his enemy, would interfere with her power and
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cunning if he delayed the marriage; thus he decided to use his advantage
and carry out the wedding without delay. To give his eagerness an apparent
pretense, he acted as if he were angry with the princess. He called his
marksmen and slaves more for his security than for the grandeur.
The beautiful Sidi felt her guilt. Soon she was angry with the flute
player, as if he was, by his undesired appearance, the sole cause of her
misfortune. Soon she apologized to him again and scolded only herself and
her weakness.
To her, since she had seen the prince, the magician had become ten
times more hated still in her eyes. She could hardly stand to lift her eyes
towards him, and yet she would certainly have to marry this ugly monster.
From whom should she hope for rescue?
Lulu had promised her something more daring than seemed credible,
since she knew that the magician had settled any violent attack beforehand
with his fire-steel. She hardly dared to think about her mother. Already the
fairy with her help had stayed away for three years. She could or would not
want to help as it was now, after a mistake that seemed so worth punishing,
and the good Sidi thus painfully repented, still less to await.
But it was the fairy who had sent the flute player, and so was to be
feared, for she had frustrated her mother's help with the loss of her gift.
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Who should she turn to now? He would have ridiculed her tears, and his
unexpected victory would have only been more annoyingly gloated.
Lost in these sad thoughts, she stood there with downcast eyes and
cried. Meanwhile the female slaves came and they brought back the bridal
jewelry towards the opening. She was frightened, as if her death sentence
would be spoken, and followed pale and trembling after the slaves.
Meanwhile, the magician took the old man by the arm and withdrew
into a corner window. “Listen, old man!” said he. “So far I am rather
pleased with you. You have removed the anger and the coyness; only the
affection is still lacking. This characteristic is quite necessary in marriage
and well-being, as you would know from your long experience. Let us
therefore consider how we can help address this shortcoming as soon as
possible. What if you play some sweet melodies during the meal? What do
you think about that idea, old man?”
“What should I think about this?” Lulu replied. “Yes, it is my own
idea, which I earlier told my lord. As it seems, my lord gladly gives out his
ideas to other people.”
The magician was not ashamed and continued with the same
boldness. “As always, so much the better if it is your own idea, for it would
be happier to let it out! But only once! Thanks to you I am guilty; what you
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ask for your services?”
“I have already said to my lord,” returned the flute player, “that I
accept nothing but some good hospitality.”
“Good, old man! Once I see that my bride, by your gentle flute
playing, has become so gentle, then you and my dwarf will be especially
remembered. However, after the meal one from my marksmen will
accompany you over the mountains.”
“Thank you very much!” Lulu broke in. “For such hospitality, I move
no fingers. What? Not even a night? Does my lord think I am accustomed
to sleep in open fields? That would be me! The sun is just right for
walking. Before I let myself be disgracefully shown the door, I’d rather go
myself.” And after this he grabbed his staff and wanted to go.
The magician only saw that, during the discussion, the princess had
left with her maidens. His palace was so bolted on all sides by spirits and
other magical works that, without his will, no gnat found a free way out.
But he was still afraid of escape during his absence; the princess wanted the
help of the fairy, showing only a great dislike for him. He was already ready
to pounce and wanted to chase after her, while the old flute player in his
earlier defiance got worse and spoke of his leaving. He was yielding at first
due to cunning; he was now so reckless that he had him in his power.
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“Hey there!” he called to the marksmen in furious anger. “Let him go
to hard punishment, the old man from the hall! And to you, old man, I say,
you didn't do what I told you, so I’ll let my spirits split an overhanging cliff
and jam you in there with both arms. There you will starve and whimper
until the vultures and crows overcome you. That’s your lesson!”
With these words he hurried away. Lulu had no greater desire than to
seek out the beautiful Sidi, and through his presence to prevent any
accident from happening to her. He set his flute to his lips and quickly
made a lasting, sweet trill. The marksmen and the slaves stood gathered
together, staring at him, and let him go unhindered. He was already at the
door when the dwarf grabbed him by his garment; a loud clamor erupted
and all forces held back from him. Lulu wanted to break loose because he
was worried about the noise, so he turned to a trill in a taunting little piece.
Soon it buzzed like a swarm of angry bees; soon it growled like a chained
dog when it sees a stranger.
The marksmen and slaves were wild, gritting their teeth and making
fists. The dwarf scolded those who did not hold back the old man, and
there he stopped their angry gestures in answer of his abuse, as he was
severe and threatened them with his switch, which he often used to punish
on the magician's command. This made him even wilder. They went all
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over him here, threw him up high and also threw him to each other. As a
balloon flies from one hand to the other, here ascends, there falls down, and
never rests on the earth, so flew the dwarf from the strong arms of the
spirits from one end of the hall to the other, without himself still making a
loud noise. For they propelled with such force and speed, he did not know
how it happened.
“There the master warden may dance, however!” said Lulu, laughing
and slipping after the magician. He went through a long picture gallery,
which was curved like a horseshoe and ended with a spiral staircase. He
still considered which way he should take when he heard quiet speech from
a nearby room, its door open a little. He stepped out from behind the door
and looked through the gap.
The magician had one of the female slaves by the hand and just said,
“Do not be jealous, dear Barsine! Our previous friendship will not be
reduced by this marriage. You know that we both are not very safe until the
cunning Perifirime reconciles with me. How cruel she would be to avenge
herself on you if the steel, which you robbed from her secretly, came into
her hands again! Without mercy, she locked you in a hard pebble, and
would have let you languish in there forever. But if I married her only
beloved daughter, then both of us are saved. What would she gain if she
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then wanted to be angry with me? Each suffering which she did me would
fall back on her own daughter. She herself must reconcile with me. She
must leave me the spirit steel willingly and must also not avenge if she does
not want to enrage me, since I have persuaded you to be disloyal to her.
Can’t you afterwards be just as good with me, like so far?”
“All good!” the fair one broke in sighing. “I only fear you will love the
princess more than me; she is beautiful.”
“Fear nothing, dear Barsine. Hasn’t she already spent three years in
my palace without my love for you diminishing? Had I also many wives like
the Sultan of India, you would nevertheless always remain the dearest.
Little Barka, your son, I want to instruct in my knowledge, and some day he
will be my only heir. Only right after the meal, do as I told you, so our plot
cannot go wrong. However, I will lock up the girls and carry away the old
man; then there will be no restraints on being with you. Now I want to see
what Perifirime does so that she does not surprise us with her cunning.
Meanwhile, go to the hall; I will come back immediately.”
“The flute playing may not be too weak here if he doesn’t want to
come too late!” thought Lulu, and he held his breath, for it lisped now so
quietly that he hardly heard it. Finally they left under more friendly signs
from each other. The fairy called for the princess. The magician, however,
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ran through the door, behind which Lulu was pressed into the corner. With
each step he skipped up four stairs of the spiral staircase and rushed to the
battlements of the tower, where he took his telescope and looked at the
forest castle of the fairy Perifirime.
It held a large, level table with two kings. They joked and laughed
with their guests and did not seem to punish anything offense. “Before
today, I am sure,” cried Dilsenghuin as he withdrew his telescope and
quickly climbed down from the battlements.
Without a doubt, in a large mirror that hung before it, the fairy
watched what happened in the iron tower, and just now she laughed at the
ball game, that the spirits played with his dear son Barka.
Meanwhile Lulu ran. As he saw coming the princess with her
maidens and the fairy, quickly ahead, he himself did a nice run and sat
down in an earlier corner. The spirits lost their wrath, threw the dwarf on
the sofa and stood, as the women stepped in from the other side, one after
the other, soon after the magician, in such good order as if nothing
occurred. The dwarf had not suffered much injury except being very tired.
As he was ambitious and was ashamed before the girls, he placed himself as
if he had slept during the time. He crept silently down from the sofa, made
a fist for the old man, and struck at the spirits in passing by with his switch.
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The beautiful Sidi shined, like the evening star which steps with its
lovely playmate from gloomy clouds and pleased the careful sailor with his
light. A rose-red hat of plaited palm leaves was set on only half of her dark
brown hair. A dress of same color, which a white caftan flowed around
easily, seemed to make her free stature still freer and prouder. The old
flute-player’s heart beat as hard as if he himself would be the bridegroom.
“What should I compare her to?” he said to himself. “As the lily
among the flowers of the meadow, so she is among the fairies and maidens
alone. Did this young rose break the monster before my eyes? Should I
suffer patiently, as he himself who was pleased with his thefts? No, as I so
truly live, he should not still your lovely sighs, you darling one! Dry your
tears, you flower of beauty! As long as Lulu breathes, you are free.”
Thus said the old flute player to himself, and he pondered how he
could conquer the steel. He soon gabbed the sword and wanted to split the
skull of the magician. Soon he wanted to excite an angry dispute among the
spirits through screaming sounds and then quickly seize the monster by the
throat. “If he again thinks about the power of the fire-steel…” he thought,
and he tried to think of something else.
Meanwhile the magician had approached the princess. “My beautiful
Sidi has cried, so I see,” he said, smiling. “What does my sweetheart cry
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about? Perhaps over the lost gift of your dear mother? Let yourself be
happy, my little dove! I want it by another, better gift that is fitting to the
wedding. If my Sidi loves me, then I will see all her wishes fulfilled with
joy. Come, my child, and be merry. From now on, the spooling and
spinning is at an end.” With these words he took her by the hand and led
her to the table. Her nine maidens were to the right and left and the
magician at the side of the princess. The spirits and fairies brought he
meals, and the gave the magician one.
“Now, old man,” began the magician, “you have heard my previous
speech, so play on. Something gentle and moving, as my dear bride is glad
to hear it.”
Lulu had gotten one of those completely tender looks from the
beautiful Sidi. His spirit flew on the wings of love blossoming on meadows,
to the lands of the immortals, where eternal joy resides. With a merry
gesture he put the flute to his mouth and breathed as happily as if he
wanted to call out to the sad Sidi, “Loved one, rejoice with me! I have found
the means of freeing you!”
The little song hopped and floated so easily, like the wave of the brook
that trickles from the rocks, like the midges and gnats in the sunshine. A
sick person who heard it would have sprung from his bed and danced! A
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saint would forget his vows and kiss his beautiful neighbor in joyous
ecstasy. The spirits and fairies brought the food with hopping footsteps,
turned themselves hand-in-hand in floating rings around the table, and
slipped inside and outside with light jumps. The maidens extended their
hands to each other and greeted one another with sweet singing. The
magician drank one cup after the other and drank himself into a merry
drunkenness. Even the sad Sidi forgot her suffering and laughed over the
common enthusiasm.
The fat dwarf alone was ill. He made a few clumsy leaps, but joy did
not come to him from the heart. Each rough footstep he did reminded him
of his rib pain, which the old man applied. To avenge himself for it, he
thought about a ruse; he could rob the old man of the flute and make him
hated by the magician. As he was rarely refused anything, he was
confident that he could also make no wrong request this time, even if he did
not know how closely he was related to him.
“Dear lord,” he began as Lulu caught up with him while he stroked
the magician's mustache. “If I had the delightful flute, then I could blow
you a little song like that every evening. I want to learn the fingerings soon
if one of the spirits will teach them to me. Then you could be rid of the
defiant old man that you, my dear good lord, were so scared of a while ago.”
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“Look at me, cunning boy!” the magician proclaimed laughing. “What
does he have here for a happy thought! Let me kiss you for this idea, my
son, which you have not said in vain to me! I do not know where I could
further need the false flute. Have you heard it, old man? You should give
my pipe to my boy here. He has a cunning head, and he will soon learn to
blow it.”
“That I think well,” Lulu gave for an answer. “If only I could find
sustenance without my flute! I have neither friends nor acquaintances; I
am old and can no longer work. My flute gives me bread and shelter;
should it be taken from me, then I would yet starve in my old days.”
“Sell your beautiful finger ring,” cried the dwarf, grinning. “It seems
much more valuable. For the few years that you still have to live, it is
already sufficient.”
“Right, my son!” cried out the magician with a loud giggle. “The ring
I have not even seen yet, but do show, old man! Is it beautiful? Where did
you get it from? Is it a gift from your wife?”
Lulu was shocked over this unexpected blow, and did not know what
he should do. The ring was stuck on his left thumb, which was covered
under the flute when playing. As he carefully hid his left hand, so the
magician had not noticed it. The dwarf, however, was aware of it, as Lulu
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wanted to pull it off by the hall door. “If I refuse to show the ring,” he said
to himself, “then the monster becomes suspicious. I want to approach so he
turns it or pulls on it, and then I am discovered. Here nothing helps but a
bold attempt, whether or not the flute has another hidden power.”
He stepped towards the magician a few steps nearer, as if outraged
over his request, and said with an indignant gesture, “My lord, this is an
ungrateful way to deal with me! I carried out important services on this
maiden for my lord, was obedient and pleasing, have rejected all gifts, and
instead of rewarding, even my poor property is taken from me. That is not
nice! They should be ashamed of my lord! Why did I enter the doorway?
Had I heard of a man who kept his house so tightly locked, should I not be
afraid of the same injustice? Who wants to argue with him and his spirits
now? Not me! His dwarf may take the flute. I will blow a single song and
then I will go my way.”
He held the flute before his eyes, regarded it sadly, and continued, “So
am I to leave you, you favorite of my heart? Should I be separated from at
my age, you faithful companion of my life? Oh, where I can find another
friend of your love and loyalty? Like two spouses, as fortune and
misfortune have tested, we were devoted to each other. All the feelings of
my heart I told to you. You understood my quiet thoughts and tuned all my
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feelings. As a friend in tender conversations, you delighted and comforted,
so you returned each breath to me with rich profits, and sang joy to me and
sang comfort to me. Through you, I was welcome among the people, was
praised and honored. Your sweet singing acquired me friends who
accepted me, won me benefactors who hosted the stranger. But now the old
man wanders alone and must swelter in misery. Who will take care of me
without you? What will be his food and drink? Who will give him a soft
bed at night? Travel well, you joy of my youth, you comfort of my old age,
and now you sing a sweet song to me for the last time!”
The magician sat there like one who did not know whether to laugh,
be angry, or be ashamed. But the beautiful Sidi, taking Lulu's deception as
the truth, wept about him and herself. Meanwhile, the flute sang a sweet
lullaby. It swung so slowly, it shook so sleepily up and down, as young
seeds are blown by faint breezes, like blossoms that in the drop go up and
float down. The guests leaned back, their eyes began to blink, and their
heads fell to their chests; they nodded to, they nodded fro, and bit-by-bit
they slumbered. The marksmen held their rifles in their arms, the slaves
carried full dishes in their hands, and all stood quite petrified with closed
eyes there.
Lulu stopped, kissed his flute, and said, “So you have not left me yet,
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you dear, sweet singer! In the hardest conflict you have helped me, when I
already doubted your assistance! Thank you! Each one of your tones is a
song of praise for the artist who created you!”
So Lulu spoke of the joy in his heart as his piece of daring had
succeeded so well. Meanwhile, the magician snored so loudly, as if he
wished that the other patrons to wake up again. His head hung so low on
his chest that he touched his belly with his long chin. Lulu came to him,
grabbed him by the chest, and looked for the steel, which was stuck in a
small leather bag on the left side of the caftan. He took it out so gently and
carefully that the magician was not touched.
It was a gilded double grip that was held together by a delicate spring
and which separated on the one side a piece of steel, and on the other a
polished flint. As Lulu just looked at it, he touched the spring by accident.
At once the spirits awakened, regarded each other in surprise, and made
gestures as if they were waiting on Lulu's commands. He even pondered
whether to kill the monster or if his punishment should be left to the fairy;
meanwhile, the beautiful Sidi stirred in slumber. In the meantime he forgot
the magician, turned his ring, and completely woke up the sleeping lady.
As she opened her eyes, the handsome youth who had made her heart
suffer so much was situated at her feet. His arms were spread out towards
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her, and he called towards her with looks full of love, “You are free,
sweetheart! I have disarmed the fiend! See here the token of my victory!”
The beautiful Sidi was speechless; she saw her rescuer with tender
gratitude. She leaned even closer and dropped unexpectedly into his arms.
She forgot spirits, magicians and dwarf and kept her silence for a long
embrace, until the sweet delight gradually receded and the binding of her
tongue was free again.
“What do I do?” said the princess, beginning to be frightened. “Won’t
my mother be angry if I love you without her consent? Get up! At least I
would not make a mistake, laying blame on anyone, on purpose. Bring me
to her. She will receive you very lovingly if she heard that I have you to
thank for my being freed.”
“Where, my love?” he asked.
“To the fairy Perifirime, my mother.”
“How!” cried Lulu. “To the fairy Perifirime? My love Sidi is her
daughter? Now I’m happy! She has even sent me to you. I got this flute
from her and this ring. From her I have the most beautiful of all promises!”
“So my love-rich mother forgave me!” cried out the beautiful Sidi as
the tears of joy trickled over her cheeks. “Oh, how I have frightened myself!
I believed she completely forgot about me, as she let me sigh in my prison
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for such a long time for her help. So that you understand, dear Lulu, as
pleased as I am about her reconciliation, I must tell you how I came to be in
the power of this monster:
“My father Sabalem, the king of Kashmir, in his youth was very
beautiful. You will also know that he is praised very much for his wisdom
and justice by all tongues. When he already approached the manly age, his
emirs and viziers were unable to move him into a marriage. He seemed to
despise all earthly women; at least none themselves could boast of his love.
He gave all women who he found in the palace their freedom, and
transformed the harem into a courtroom, where he appeared daily and
spoke justice.
“Perifirime, the queen of the fairies, heard of his wisdom. She
became curious and visited him in the guise of a young stranger who
watched his court services. The intelligent discussions of the stranger
pleased him; he grew dearer to him daily, and finally trusted him with the
secret thoughts of his heart. The fairy loved him more and more, also grew
dear to him, and appeared to him in her true shape.
“During the bliss that they both enjoyed, the fairy forgot to watch the
spirit steel, the symbol of her authority, with her usual care. The magician
had strived after that steel for a long time, and persuaded one of her female
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slaves to steal the same from her. With this steel, the fairy lost the greatest
strength of her power.
“The most powerful of the fairies and spirits, whom the magician did
not know how to force, began much serious trouble: they caused swift wars
among the humans, infuriating one people against another, and the queen
had to be silent about it. From grief she went to a lonely forest castle,
where she herself educated and taught me, her only child. She taught me
all sorts of useful and beautiful arts that she invented. However, she did
not want to teach me about her unearthly wisdom, because, so she said, it
would not help me, but could probably do much harm.
“When I was twelve years old, she told me the story of my birth and of
her loss. She said to me, as the magician is in continual fear, she wanted to
snatch away the steel again at the next opportunity and punish him for his
deceit. Therefore, he would muster all cunning to bring me into his power,
in order to force my mother to approve an arrangement.
“She did everything that she could to protect me before his attacks.
But if I was not careful, once I fell into his hands, then she could not free
me. Within the castle garden, he could not hurt me; I should only not dare
to be outside the same boundaries. The time of his power was six years; if I
would endure this time in accordance with her instruction, then I would
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have nothing more to fear from him.
“I was accustomed to obey my mother absolutely. For three years I
had fulfilled her instructions precisely. When I believed that I could not go
missing any longer, I was convinced of the opposite of my assumptions by
my misfortune.
“One evening, when my mother was visiting a neighboring queen, I
went walking in the garden with my girls, and we saw a raven hopping a few
steps ahead of us. It seemed not to care, fluttering carelessly from one
flowerbed to another, and it picked my beautiful flowers or bit them from
the stems.
“I was enraged about the insolent bird, and with my girls ran up to it
to scare it away; but when we came close to it, then it fluttered elsewhere,
screaming. We took unexpected pleasure at this childish play and threw
things and ran after it for so long until, without being careful in the twilight,
already too far over the low turf that surrounded the garden, we were
outside.
“I was shocked as I became aware of it, and cried to my maidens that
they should turn around quickly just as the magician stepped out of the
bushes, the steel fastened on him, and with a terrible voice he cried, ‘Out!
Hunters, out! The pigeons have flown!’ Each spark was a strong man, I
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was taken with my girls and carried through the air!”
While the princess related this, the dwarf staggered back and forth,
standing on his weak feet, bumping so forcefully against a chair around his
nose that he woke up. He rubbed his eyes and stretched his painful limbs
as he noticed the strange young man, the one standing with the princess at
a window, and he stopped.
He knocked against his master several times and yelled for a long
time in his ears until he reflected. The magician wanted to yawn and
stretch as the dwarf showed him the two in the window. This sight made
him angry. He jumped up, pulled his sword, and ran so furiously at Lulu
that this was hardly enough time to fight back.
Like lightning, the shooters stood with spears held ready towards
Lulu; however, the slaves of the magician fell on his arms and held him so
tightly that he could not move. The princess made such a loud scream that
the maidens all awoke at once, and with the same clamor got out of their
seats. Lulu thought about his ring, pulled it off, and threw it away.
When the magician saw that his steel was lost, he was friendly and
said good words. “You have deceived me,” he said. “Be fair and give me the
steel back. I will let the princess and her girls leave with you in peace.
Without my will, my rock does not open itself.”
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“My lord will remember that I was promised a night at his camp with
him,” replied Lulu. “I hope he will keep his word.”
The magician trembled with fury and still considered what he should
do, while the ceiling of the room disappeared like a fog, and the fairy
Perifirime, shining like the morning sun, got out of her cloud carriage.
The magician hardly saw her, so he quickly changed from fear into a
falcon and shot up beside the cloud carriage. The fairy was bent sideways;
she hit him with her hand on his head and said, “This form does not suit
you. As you fear the light, so stay true to your nature and become a night
bird.” Suddenly the hawk was a black-gray eagle-owl. The bright light of
fairy blinded his eyes. He bumped his head on all the walls, and finally
went violently through a window, where he felt free air, and flew away with
a bloody head.
Meanwhile, the carriage sank down gently and vanished like thin
smoke in the corners of the room. The fairy stood there elated as all who
remained were under a mild glow. Lulu and Sidi knelt like children in
reverence before her. Sidi showed her guilt in the eyes, kept fearfully low,
and expected a reprimand.
But the fairy embraced her and, rich in love, said, “You have suffered
enough for your innocent mistake, my daughter. I was never angry with
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you and would have helped you sooner if I could have. With all my power I
stand under the high compulsion of the eternal force that heaven and earth
obey. They weigh with justice and punished my fault through you. I
suffered much, for I did not have much more hope for your freedom than
you. Lulu is the first mortal that my flute obeyed. He broke a bond through
his good genius which neither strength nor cunning could break. I
promised the victor the best that I can give, so it is up to him whether he
wants to have my Sidi.”
Lulu showed his gratitude through a tender kiss on the hand. The
fairy raised him up and said, “Come this way, my children. Your fathers are
waiting for you in my castle, and have both desired your union.”
With these words she turned to the spirits and cried, “Barsine, where
are you?” The untrue one came out trembling, fell to her knees and wept.
But the fairy went on, “You are already punished well enough by the eternal
memory of your offenses, for you erred not out of spite, but out of being
naïve. I forgive you. Go, and be more faithful in the future. Also those of
you remaining are dismissed from your services for today. Go forth and
rejoice with me on this happy day.”
The spirits disappeared and began to build an enormous cart with
twelve seats that took up the better part of the room. They were just about
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to get in when the maidens pulled out the dwarf, who had hidden himself
under the table, and placed him before the fairy.
“I might have wanted to spare you,” said she, “if I could hope for
better of you. But I know you’ll never abandon your malice, for you have
your father’s disloyal nature. Take him instead from society!”
She made a small movement with her hand. In a moment the dwarf
became a light brown screech owl that was moved by a hidden power
through the hole that his father, the eagle-owl, had left, flying out without
trouble. They got in. The carriage lifted up by itself and floated several
times the iron tower around. The fairy took the flute and set it by her
mouth. A lovely ringing of little silver bells sounded, like the singing of a
harmonica, but so varied and often, as if each tone through her fingering
became fourfold. She went through a lot of chords, that by and by ended
themselves, ringing of all at the same time in a jumble that seemed to
announce the confusion of the elements.
The carriage had not yet circled three times around the tower, which
the mighty spirits had built for eternity, when it collapsed in on itself with a
loud noise, and the ground was covered with a large pile of dust and sand.
The carriage took a cheerful swing, like a ship that sailed by good
winds through the air, and came in a few minutes to the forest castle. There
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the two kings of Khorasan and Kashmir received their fortunate heirs with
joy.