CALIPH Do not despair, good Hassan. You would not take my warning: you have left the Garden of Art for the Palace of Action: you have troubled your head with the tyranny of princes, and the wind of complication is blowing through your shirt. You will forfeit your house and be banished from the Garden, for you are not fit to be the friend of kings. But for the rest, since you did me great service the other night, go in peace, and all the confectionery of the Palace will be ordered at your shop.
HASSAN
Master, for this mercy, I thank you humbly.
CALIPH For nothing—for nothing. I make allowance for the purple thread of madness woven in the camel-cloth of your character. I know your head is affected by a caloric afternoon. Indeed, I sympathise with the interest you have shown as to the fate of Pervaneh and Rafi, and as a mark of favour I offer you a place among the spectators of their execution.
HASSAN
Ah, no, no!—that I could never bear to see!
CALIPH Moreover, as a special token of my esteem, I will not send you to the execution—I will bring the execution here, and have it held in your honour. You dreamt that your walls were sweating blood. I will fulfil the prophecy implied and make the dream come true.
HASSAN
I shall never sleep again!
CALIPH (To ATTENDANT) Take my ring; go to the postern gate, intercept the procession of Protracted Death, and bid Masrur bring his prisoners to this pavilion and slay them on the carpet he shall find within the walls.
HASSAN Master! Master! Is it not enough? I must go back to my trade and the filth of the Bazaar: I must be a poor man again and the fool of poor men. "Look at Hassan," men will say, "he has had his day of greatness: look at that greasy person: he has been clothed in gold: let us therefore go and insult the man who was once the Caliph's friend: let us draw moral lessons from him on the mutability of human affairs." But I, disregarding their jeers and insolent compassion, wrapping my body in my cloak and my soul in contemplation, would have remembered my day of pride, this Garden of Great Peace, this Fountain of Charm, this Pavilion of Beatitude: I would have recollected that I once had talked with Poets of the art of poetry, and owned slaves as pretty as their names. Preserve, preserve for me, O Master of the World, this palmgrove of memory in the desert of my affliction. Defile not this happy place with blood. Let not the trees that heard thee but yesterday call me Friend bow their heads beneath the wind of anguish: let not the threshold which I have crossed blossom out with blood! Spare me, spare me from hearing that which will haunt me for ever and ever—the moan of that white woman!
CALIPH (To GUARDS) Do not release him till the end. See that he keeps his eyes well opened, and feasts them to the fill.
(Exit CALIPH and train.)