CHAPTER IV.
A grandfather is a man who has two chances to make a fool of himself, and seldom neglects them.—Ginglymus.
While the events recorded in the preceding chapter and covering some years had their influence on the affairs of state, life within the harem went quietly on. Kayenna, the faithful spouse of Muley Mustapha, accepted the congratulations of her friends on the birth of little Muley; and it was remarked that, so devoted a mother was she, nobody but herself was ever allowed to nurse or watch or otherwise care for the beloved child.
“My daughter will spoil the brat and bring him up a regular milksop,” growled the great Sultan one day after paying a prolonged visit to the happy couple. “I thought you had an idea, Muley, of rearing the boy to be a manly fellow and letting him see the world.”
“Truly, I had,” was the reply, rather sadly made; “but, as he is our only child, his mother is so passionately attached to him that I cannot find it in my heart to train him as robustly as I should wish.”
“Bosh!” ejaculated the fiery old monarch. “My grandson should be taught to fear nothing, whereas he looks and acts like a girl. Send him to Kopaul for a while, and I promise you he will learn some manliness.”
But to this proposition Kayenna demurred so vigorously that the old Sultan was forced to desist; for that truly admirable woman had the happy faculty, whether as daughter, wife, or mother, of bending every will in her own direction, which was that of righteousness always. Heaven had blessed her from infancy with a fine flow of language, accompanied by a noble firmness of purpose, so that such was the repute of her wisdom, whenever she opened the coral portals of her speech, the whole court was ready to accept her dictum on any question rather than waste time and invite humiliation by the fruitless attempt to controvert her.
The Sultan went home discontented. Before departing, he took Muley Mustapha aside, and said impressively: “Muley, if I had a wife like yours, I would teach her humility if I used up a cord of bamboos and half a dozen eunuchs.” Then, sighing heavily, he added: “After all, it is not your fault, but that of myself, who brought her up sparingly as to the bamboo. If you should ever have a daughter, Muley,”—the Pasha gave a slight start at the word,—“which Allah forbid!” continued the Sultan, “take the advice of an old man, and”—He finished the sentence with an eloquent gesture of the right arm extended from the shoulder at an upward angle of forty-five degrees, fingers close together, and palm forward. This gesture, when made with the arm raised perpendicularly, is a sign of peace among the Bedouins and other nomads. It was not as such that the Sultan employed it.
“What did my father mean by lifting his hand like the sail of a windmill? And of what was he speaking as he bade you farewell?” asked Kayenna, when she and Muley found themselves alone. “Oh, nothing,” was the reply. “He was talking about the education of our daught”—
“Muley Mustapha! Do you mean to say that you told him?”
“No, no, my dear, of course not. Only when he said something about our ever having a daughter, I was so surprised that I feared he might have suspected something, and for the moment regretted that we had deceived him about his ‘grandson.’”
“And, pray, who deceived him?” queried Kayenna, with icy severity. “I, for one, have not. I have never told him that our little darling was or was not a boy. If he choose to deceive himself or to be deceived by tricksters like your vagabond Vizier, that is his own concern, not mine. I know what his gesture signified; but, thank Allah, corporal punishment was abolished in my nursery by my angel mother, and my honored sire has not forgotten the occasion, I ween.”
Kayenna wore such a pensive smile of retrospective happiness in saying this that Muley Mustapha did not give a moment’s entertainment to his father-in-law’s counsel, but prudently resolved to put the bamboo plant to other and more profitable uses; and Shacabac, to whom he confided his troubles, commented sagely: “The spinster knoweth how to bring up children, and the bachelor to rule a wife. It is well that they remain single: else who would be willing to leave this happy world, had they the direction of its family affairs?”
“How hath it happened,” asked the Pasha, after ruminating some minutes on this proposition, “that thou thyself hast never married?”
“Solely in order that I might the better devote myself to the improvement and instruction of my fellowmen; for, if there be one man on earth who knoweth less than all others, it is he who is the husband of a wife, and she will be first to tell him the same. While Allah preserveth her, his halo shall never be too small for his head.
“No man knoweth what true happiness is until he getteth married: then is the knowledge rather a sweet memory than a new boon.
“Twice blessed is he in whose tent dwell both his mother and his wife’s mother; for, even though he gain not Paradise, yet shall he fear not Gehenna.
“In choosing a wife, disdain not youth nor beauty; for these are things which time will cure.
“Love not a woman for her riches; but, loving first the riches, thou shalt learn in time to love her for their sake.
Shacabac, the Sage
“There are two ways of missing the miseries of matrimony: one is by not getting married, the other by not being born. The Prophet hath said that there is a third, which is by always overlooking the errors of thy partner. I know naught about this, but it recalleth an apologue:—
“There were two brothers of Bassorah who dwelt under the same roof, both being married. They had the misfortune, about the same time, to offend their wives most grievously. Kadijah, the wife of the elder, was so incensed that she never again spoke to her lord. Zobeide, the younger, not only forgave her spouse, but made it a point every day, in reminding him of his fault, to forgive him again most solemnly. Yet was the husband of Zobeide no happier than that of Kadijah; and when, finally losing patience, she procured a divorce from him, the ungrateful wretch only said, ‘It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.’ Truly, matrimony is a state into which none but the wise should enter, and they do not.”
Encouraged by the silent approval of the Pasha and fortified by a copious draught of the strong waters forbidden, but not unknown, to true believers,—concerning the use whereof he had eloquently written: “Hospitality saith, ‘Be blind when the guest helpeth himself to thy wine flask; but be deaf when he asketh for more’; also, ‘Tempt not thy neighbor with the cup which inebriates, lest he fall; but, if thy neighbor offer thee to drink, refuse him not, lest thou give him needless pain,’”—the Sage continued:—
“To be constant in love to one is good: to be constant to many is great.
“Politeness between husband and wife costeth nothing. Were it otherwise, the virtue would be even rarer than it now is.
“Marry not any woman out of gratitude, lest perchance she come in time to wonder where the reward cometh in.”
Furthermore, he inculcated the sage maxim: “Save up money for a rainy day, and it is sure to rain.”
He also added, perhaps irrelevantly,—for like other great philosophers he never allowed his mind to be fettered by text or theme,—“Be not concerned if thou findest thyself in possession of unexpected wealth. Allah will provide an unexpected use for it.”
In conclusion, he said impressively, after vainly shaking the now empty wine-flask: “It hath been said of the son of the desert, ‘Lo! he hath sand’; but what availeth a whole Sahara, and no sugar to blend therewith? Or who that hath a river before his door, and never a cow in his barn, shall grow rich in the milk business?”
To this pertinent question the venerable Muley Mustapha made no rejoinder, because in truth he had fallen asleep ere the Sage had been fairly launched on his discourse, which would have been lost to posterity, had not the speaker thoughtfully taken notes of the same,—a practice commended to all preachers afflicted with drowsy congregations.
Shacabac withdrew silently from the presence, musing—not for the first time—on the generous lack of appreciation bestowed by the great upon the wise. As he was about to enter his humble domicile, he suddenly perceived a large tiger stretched sleeping before his hearth, whereupon he moved noiselessly to the roof of the house without disturbing the fierce animal or alarming the other inmates who might molest the unbidden visitor. Unhappily, his delicacy was but ill rewarded; for his rich and parsimonious uncle, whose fortune he subsequently inherited, on entering the kitchen the next morning, was incontinently devoured by the ungrateful brute. The sad event was commemorated by the Sage in a noble threnody, wherein the virtue of resignation is beautifully set forth. Rare indeed was the occasion, or dire the catastrophe, from which the worthy man could not extract some moral or material benefit.