The Book of Delight and Other Papers. Israel Abrahams
to an open grave, where the common people were buried, and saw a weeping woman loud in laments for her departed spouse. He sent her home with words of comfort, accompanying her to the city gate. He then returned to his post. Next night the same scene was repeated, and as the officer spoke his gentle soothings to her, a love for him was born in her heart, and her dead husband was forgotten. And as they spoke words of love, they neared the tree, and lo! the body that the officer was set to watch was gone. "Begone," he said, "and I will fly, or my life must pay the penalty of my dalliance." "Fear not, my lord," she said, "we can raise my husband from his grave and hang him instead of the stolen corpse." "But I fear the Prince of Death. I cannot drag a man from his grave." "I alone will do it then," said the woman; "I will dig him out; it is lawful to cast a dead man from the grave, to keep a live man from being thrown in." "Alas!" cried the officer, when she had done the fearsome deed, "the corpse I watched was bald, your husband has thick hair; the change will be detected." "Nay," said the woman, "I will make him bald," and she tore his hair out, with execrations, and they hung him on the tree. But a few days passed and the pair were married.
And now the leopard interlude nears it close. Zabara narrates the dénouement in these terms:
THE LEOPARD'S FATE
The leopard's bones rattled while he listened to this tale. Angrily he addressed his wife, "Come, get up and follow me, or I will slay thee." Together they went with their young ones, and the fox was their guide, and they reached the promised place, and encamped by the waters. The fox bade them farewell, his head laughing at his tail. Seven days were gone, when the rains descended, and in the deep of the night the river rose and engulfed the leopard family in their beds. "Woe is me," sighed the leopard, "that I did not listen to my wife." And he died before his time.
THE JOURNEY BEGUN BY JOSEPH AND ENAN
The author has now finished his protest against his visitor's design, to make him join him on a roving expedition. Enan glares, and asks, "Am I a fox, and thou a leopard, that I should fear thee?" Then his note changes, and his tone becomes coaxing and bland. Joseph cannot resist his fascination. Together they start, riding on their asses. Then says Enan unto Joseph, "Carry thou me, or I will carry thee." "But," continues the narrator, Joseph, "we were both riding on our asses. 'What dost thou mean? Our asses carry us both. Explain thy words.'—'It is the story of the peasant with the king's officer.'"
THE CLEVER GIRL AND THE KING'S DREAM
A king with many wives dreamt that he saw a monkey among them; his face fell, and his spirit was troubled. "This is none other," said he, "than a foreign king, who will invade my realm, and take my harem for his spoil." One of his officers told the king of a clever interpreter of dreams, and the king despatched him to find out the meaning of his ominous vision. He set forth on his mule, and met a countryman riding. "Carry me," said the officer, "or I will carry thee." The peasant was amazed. "But our asses carry us both," he said. "Thou tiller of the earth," said the officer, "thou art earth, and eatest earth. There is snow on the hill," continued the officer, and as the month was Tammuz, the peasant laughed. They passed a road with wheat growing on each side. "A horse blind in one eye has passed here," said the officer, "loaded with oil on one side, and with vinegar on the other." They saw a field richly covered with abounding corn, and the peasant praised it. "Yes," said the officer, "if the corn is not already eaten." They went on a little further and saw a lofty tower. "Well fortified," remarked the peasant. "Fortified without, if not ruined within," replied the officer. A funeral passed them. "As to this old man whom they are burying," said the officer, "I cannot tell whether he is alive or dead." And the peasant thought his companion mad to make such unintelligible remarks. They neared a village where the peasant lived, and he invited the officer to stay with him overnight.
The peasant, in the dead of the night, told his wife and daughters of the foolish things the officer had said, though he looked quite wise. "Nay," said the peasant's youngest daughter, a maiden of fifteen years, "the man is no fool; thou didst not comprehend the depth of his meaning. The tiller of the earth eats food grown from the earth. By the 'snow on the hill' is meant thy white beard (on thy head); thou shouldst have answered, 'Time caused it.' The horse blind in one eye he knew had passed, because he saw that the wheat was eaten on one side of the way, and not on the other; and as for its burden, he saw that the vinegar had parched the dust, while the oil had not. His saying, 'Carry me, or I will carry thee,' signifies that he who beguiles the way with stories and proverbs and riddles, carries his companion, relieving him from the tedium of the journey. The corn of the field you passed," continued the girl, "was already eaten if the owner was poor, and had sold it before it was reaped. The lofty and stately tower was in ruins within, if it was without necessary stores. About the funeral, too, his remark was true. If the old man left a son, he was still alive; if he was childless, he was, indeed, dead."
In the morning, the girl asked her father to give the officer the food she would prepare. She gave him thirty eggs, a dish full of milk, and a whole loaf. "Tell me," said she, "how many days old the month is; is the moon new, and the sun at its zenith?" Her father ate two eggs, a little of the loaf, and sipped some of the milk, and gave the rest to the officer. "Tell thy daughter," he said, "the sun is not full, neither is the moon, for the month is two days old." "Ah," laughed the peasant, as he told his daughter the answers of the officer, "ah, my girl, I told you he was a fool, for we are now in the middle of the month." "Did you eat anything of what I gave you?" asked the girl of her father. And he told her of the two eggs, the morsel of bread, and the sip of milk that he had taken. "Now I know," said the girl, "of a surety that the man is very wise." And the officer, too, felt that she was wise, and so he told her the king's dream. She went back with him to the king, for she told the officer that she could interpret the vision, but would do so only to the king in person, not through a deputy. "Search thy harem," said the girl, "and thou wilt find among thy women a man disguised in female garb." He searched, and found that her words were true. The man was slain, and the women, too, and the peasant's daughter became the king's sole queen, for he never took another wife besides her.
THE NIGHT'S REST
Thus Joseph and the giant Enan journey on, and they stay overnight in a village inn. Then commences a series of semi-medical wrangles, which fill up a large portion of the book. Joseph demands food and wine, and Enan gives him a little of the former and none of the latter. "Be still," says Enan, "too much food is injurious to a traveller weary from the way. But you cannot be so very hungry, or you would fall to on the dry bread. But wine with its exciting qualities is bad for one heated by a long day's ride." Even their asses are starved, and Joseph remarks sarcastically, "Tomorrow it will be, indeed, a case of carry-thou-me-or-I-thee, for our asses will not be able to bear us." They sleep on the ground, without couch or cover. At dawn Enan rouses him, and when he sees that his ass is still alive, he exclaims, "Man and beast thou savest, O Lord!" The ass, by the way, is a lineal descendant of Balaam's animal.
They proceed, and the asses nod and bow as though they knew how to pray. Enan weeps as they near a town. "Here," says he, "my dear friend died, a man of wisdom and judgment. I will tell thee a little of his cleverness."
THE DISHONEST SINGER AND THE WEDDING ROBES
A man once came to him crying in distress. His only daughter was betrothed to a youth, and the bridegroom and his father came to the bride's house on the eve of the wedding, to view her ornaments and beautiful clothes. When the bride's parents rose next day, everything had vanished, jewels and trousseau together. They were in despair, for they had lavished all their possessions on their daughter. My friend [continued Enan] went back with the man to examine the scene of the robbery. The walls of the house were too high to scale. He found but one place where entry was possible, a crevice in a wall in which an orange tree grew, and its edge was covered with thorns and prickles. Next door lived a musician, Paltiel ben Agan [or Adan] by name, and my late friend, the judge, interviewed him, and made him strip. His body was covered with cuts and scratches; his guilt was discovered, and the dowry returned to the last shoe-latchet. "My son," said he, "beware of singers, for they are mostly thieves; trust no word of theirs, for they are liars; they dally with women, and long after other people's money. They fancy they are clever, but they know not their left hand from their right; they raise their hands all day and call, but know not to whom. A singer stands at his post, raised above