Zuléiman did not crush his people by his avarice; he did not subject them to unworthy favourites, neither did he force them to respect a degrading idleness; on the contrary, he required them to adorn their towns with religious edifices; he obliged them to construct, upon the path of the traveller, fountains, shaded by palm-trees; and to send their children to schools, in which they might be well educated. But since, in the means he took to obtain their obedience, he did not consult their character, but his own, they did not adapt their wills to his laws; but as the branch, of which the child forms his bow, when subjected to a curve contrary to its nature, wounds the hand which forces it, or, breaking loose, darts from his grasp; so they, being constrained by force to bend to his laws, obeyed his rule with hatred, or evaded it by stratagem.
"These men," said Zuléiman, "are perverse. I sow amongst them the good seed of virtue, and they return to me the tares of vice."
"Brave Zuléiman," replied Nadir, "men become perverse through hatred of a rule opposed to their inclinations. Think not to conduct them to good by laws at variance with the powers which God has bestowed upon them for its attainment. The will of a tyrant is like a thunderbolt hurled against a rock: the rock turns it off, and it strikes a temple."
One day a slave was labouring with his axe on the gnarled trunk of an oak which he wished to fell. It had already wearied his arm, and he demanded time for repose, but in vain; Zuléiman would not grant it. Then the slave, summoning his remaining strength, raised his axe—but only to let it fall in vengeance on the head of Zuléiman. Nadir hurried to the spot, and found him expiring. Zuléiman said to him: "If I sought to precipitate events, it was only that the short period of life might still leave me time for the accomplishment of great deeds."
"Oh! Zuléiman," replied Nadir, "nothing can be truly great, but that which accords with the destiny traced out for man by the finger of Him who alone is great." But Nadir mourned for Zuléiman: for he had been powerful in action, and only failed by depending too much on obedience.
Nadir also visited the Palace of Massour. He beheld him, like a fruit, nourished by the prodigality of a too fertile soil, by the abundance of the fountains, and the moist freshness of the shade; the purifying breath of heaven, the generous ardour of the sun, have never penetrated its retreat. Swelled with useless juice, insipid and discoloured, it hangs, bearing down by its weight the branch which supports it. Such appeared Massour. Life was to him dull and weary; for he knew not how to restore its vigour. In vain he sought for novelty in his luxuries: the cup of pleasure was filled to the very brim; to pour in more was but to make it overflow, without increasing its contents.
Massour, too, was threatened by misfortune; and he beheld it as we behold a phantom, which chills us with terror, though we know it is but a phantom. His riches no longer gave him joy; yet to preserve these riches, he abandoned, though with tears, to the hatred of a powerful enemy, the friend who had implored his aid.
Then Nadir departed from the Palace of Massour, saying, "God has given activity to man, as he has given the current to the waters, to preserve them from corruption."