Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 2. THE MELON-SELLER. Going his rounds one day in Ispahan,? Half-way on Dervishhood, not wholly there,? Ferishtah, as he crossed a certain bridge, Came startled on a well-remembered face.
Can it be ? What, turned melon-seller?thou ? Clad in such sordid garb, thy seat yon step Where dogs brush by thee and express contempt ? Methinks, thy head-gear is some scooped-out gourd! Nay, sunk to slicing up, for readier sale, One fruit whereof the whole scarce feeds a swine ? Wast thou the Shah’s Prime Minister, men saw Ride on his right-hand while a trumpet blew And Persia hailed the Favorite ? Yea, twelve years Are past, I judge, since that transcendency, And thou didst peculate and art abased ; No less, twelve years since, thou didst hold in hand Persia, couldst halve and quarter, mince its pulp As pleased thee, and distribute?melon-like? Portions to whoso played the parasite, Or suck?thyself?each juicy morsel. How Enormous thy abjection,?hell from heaven, Made tenfold hell by contrast! Whisper me ! Dost thou curse God for granting twelve years’ bliss Only to prove this day’s the direr lot ?
Whereon the beggar raised a brow, once more Luminous and imperial, from the rags.
Fool, does thy folly think my foolishness Dwells rather on the fact that God appoints A day of woe to the unworthy one, Than that the unworthy one, by God’s award, Tasted joy twelve years long ? Or buy a slice, Or go to school ! To school Ferishtah went; And, schooling ended, passed from Ispahan To Nishapur, that Elburz looks above ?Where they dig turquoise : there kept school himself, The melon-seller’s speech, his stock in trade. Some say a certain Jew adduced the word Out of their book, it sounds so much the same, jnrrTWO But great wits jump. Wish no…
