“Then you worship the sun?”
“The sun itself is cold, and produces warmth only when combined with the atmosphere of our earth. The fire has beautiful yellow locks and sparkling eyes, it vivifies every thing with its love, and burns most beautifully at night.”
“Still I must call you by a name,” said Ali.
“I am as diminutive, deformed, and ugly, as the renowned Lockman,” said the slave, “and he was as shrewd and knew as much as I do. It was the same with Æsop. Many are of opinion that they are one and the same person; if this may be said of two it may also be applied to three. Call me Lockman, and believe in the metempsychosis. It is the cheapest belief, as it costs the creator least.”
Ali knew not whether to smile or be angry at this frivolous joke. Indeed, he did not know whether he was joking; for every thing that Lockman (as we shall call the slave,) said, was mixed with a certain serious grimace which again frequently changed into sarcastic ridicule.
On the same evening Ali read aloud the following passage from Zoroaster’s “Wisdom:”
“The power hath work’d from all eternity:
Two angels are its subjects—Virtue, Vice,
Of light and darkness mingled;—aye at war.
When Virtue conquers, doubled is the light;
When Vice prevails the black abyss is glad.
To the last day the struggle shall endure.
Then Virtue shall have joy, and Vice have pain,
And never more these enemies shall meet.”
When Ali had read thus far, Lockman, who was still in the room, had so violent a bleeding at the nose that he was obliged to leave it, and Ali saw him no more that evening.
Early in the morning he was awakened by a singing which ascended from the garden. He opened the window and heard a hoarse, though well practised voice, sing the following words:
“Lovely spring returns again,
And his merry glance is warm,
And he sings a lively strain,
But the youth he cannot charm.