ACT I
SCENE I
A room "behind the shop" in Old Bagdad. In the background a large caldron steaming, for the shop is a sweet-stuff shop and the sugar is boiling. The room has little furniture beyond the carpet, old but unexpectedly choice, and some Persian hangings (geometrical designs, with crude animals and some verses from the Koran hand-printed on linen). A ramshackle wooden partition in one corner shuts off from a living room what appears to be the shop.
Squatting on the carpet—facing each other:
HASSAN, the Confectioner, 45, rotund, moustache, turban, greasy grey dress.
SELIM, his friend, young, vulgarly handsome, gaudily clothed.
HASSAN
(Rocking on his mat) Eywallah, Eywallah!
SELIM Thirty-seven times have you made the same remark, O father of repetition.
HASSAN
(More dolefully than ever) Eywallah, Eywallah!
SELIM Have you caught fever? Is your chest narrow, or your belly thunderous?