'Hajji,' said he to me, 'if you are not afflicted with any greater calamity than this in life, look upon it as a blessing: although one side of your face be deformed, still the other is perfect. The turquoise is the perfection of colour on one side, but is black and dirty on the other; still it is a turquoise, and a precious stone.'
'Ah,' said I to myself, 'the ugly man cannot endure the sight of the handsome, no more than the vicious can the virtuous: in the same manner as curs of the market howl at a hunting dog, but dare not approach him.'
Notwithstanding the deformity of my cheek, I found, as I continued to be an inmate in the house of my old master, that I had made no small impression upon the heart of his daughter, the fair Dilaram, who, by a thousand little arts, did not fail to make me acquainted with the state of her affections. Her mother and she were both experienced in the mode of curing the Bagdad disorder, and they undertook to superintend mine. My pimple and Dilaram's love appear to have risen at about the same time; their progress was mutual, and by the time that the former had risen to its full height, the latter had become quite inconvenient.
I, 'tis true, had not caught the infection; for my charmer was the very image of her father, whose face and that of an old camel's were so entirely identified in my mind, that I never could lose that ugly association of ideas when I gazed upon her. It was, therefore, a considerable relief to me when the season for travelling approached, and when the caravan for Constantinople was about to assemble. My pipe-sticks were collected and packed into their proper bundles, my accounts with my creditors regularly discharged, my wardrobe complete, and I was all delight when it was announced, that at the very next favourable conjunction of the planets the caravan was to take its departure. But as for poor Dilaram, she hovered about my cheek with looks of despair; and as fast as the swelling subsided, she appeared to lose the only tie which kept her united to this world and its vanities.
CHAPTER LXVI — He becomes a merchant, leaves Bagdad, and accompanies a caravan to Constantinople.
It was a fine spring morning when the caravan took its departure from the Constantinople gate of the city. Mounted on the top of one of my loads, with my bed tied on the pad by way of a soft seat, and my bags surrounding me, I contemplated the scene with pleasure, listened to the bells of the mules as I would to music, and surveyed myself as a merchant of no small consequence.
My more immediate companions were Osman Aga, and his associate in lambskins (he of whom I have already made honourable mention at the entertainment), and one or two other Bagdad merchants; but besides, there were many of my own countrymen, natives of different cities of Persia, all bound upon purposes of trade to Constantinople, and with whom I was more or less acquainted. My adventure with the chief priest of Tehran had in great measure blown over; and indeed the dress I had adopted, with the scar on my cheek, made me look so entirely like a native of Bagdad, that I retained little in my appearance to remind the world that I was in fact a Persian.
I will not tire the reader with a recital of our adventures through Turkey, which consisted of the usual fear of robbers, squabbles with muleteers, and frays at caravanserais. It will be sufficient to say, that we reached our destination in safety; but I cannot omit the expression of my first emotions upon seeing Constantinople.
I, a Persian, and an Ispahani, had ever been accustomed to hold my native city as the first in the world: never had it crossed my mind that any other could, in the smallest degree, enter into competition with it, and when the capital of Roum was described to me as finer, I always laughed the describer to scorn. But what was my astonishment, and I may add mortification, on beholding, for the first time, this magnificent city! I had always looked upon the royal mosque, in the great square at Ispahan, as the most superb building in the world; but here were a hundred finer, each surpassing the other in beauty and in splendour. Nothing did I ever conceive could equal the extent of my native place; but here my eyes became tired with wandering over the numerous hills and creeks thickly covered with buildings, which seemed to bid defiance to calculation. If Ispahan was half the world, this indeed was the whole. And then this gem of cities possesses this great advantage over Ispahan, that it is situated on the borders of a beautiful succession of waters, instead of being surrounded by arid and craggy mountains; and in addition to its own extent and beauty, enjoys the advantage of being reflected in one never-failing mirror, ever at hand to multiply them. But where should I stop, if I attempted to describe the numerous moving objects which attracted my attention? Thousands of boats, of all forms and sizes, skimmed along in every direction, whilst the larger vessels, whose masts looked like forests, more numerous than those of Mazanderan, lined the shores of the intricate and widely extended harbour.