Then Attaf went to a paper-seller and got from him a piece of paper and borrowed an inkstand and wrote as follows:—From thy brother Attaf whom God knoweth. Let him who hath possessed the world not flatter himself, he will some day be cast down and will lose it in his bitter fate. If thou see me thou wilt not recognise me for my poverty and my misery; and, because of the change in situation and the reverses of the times, my soul and body are reduced by hunger, by the long journey I have made, until at last I have come to thee. And peace be with thee. Then he folded the paper and returning the pencase to its owner asked for the house of Ja'afar, and when it was shown to him he went there and stood at a distance before it. The doorkeepers saw him standing, neither commencing nor repeating a word, and nobody spoke to him, but as he was thus standing embarassed, an eunuch dressed in a striped robe and golden belt passed by him. Attaf remained, motionless before him, then went up to him, kissed his hands and said to him, O my lord, the Apostle of Allah (upon whom be peace and salutation) hath said, The medium of a good deed is like him who did it, and he who did it belongeth to the dwellers in heaven. The man said to him, What is thy need? and said he, I desire of thy goodness to send in this paper to thy lord and say to him, Thy brother Attaf is standing at the door. When the servant heard his words he got into a great and excessive rage so that his eyes swelled in his head and he asked, O cursed one, thou art then the brother of the Wazir Ja'afar! and as he had in his hand a rod with a golden end, he struck Attaf with it in the face and his blood flowed and he fell full length to the ground in his weakness from weeping and from receiving the blow. The Rawi says that God hath placed the instinct of good in the heart of some domestics, even as he hath placed that of evil in the heart of others. Another of the domestics was raised up against his companion by good will to Attaf and reproved him for striking the stranger and was answered, Didst thou not hear, O brother, that he pretended to be the brother of the Wazir Ja'afar? and the second one said, O man of evil, son of evil, slave of evil, O cursed one, O hog! is Ja'afar one of the prophets? is he not a dog of the earth like ourselves? Men are all brethren, of one father and one mother, of Adam and of Eve; and the poet hath said:—
Men by comparison all are brethren, their father is Adam their mother is Eve;
but certain people are preferable to others. Then he came up to Attaf and made him be seated and wiped off the blood from his face and washed him and shook off the dust that was upon him and said, O my brother, what is thy need? and said he, My need is the sending of this paper to Ja'afar. The servant took the paper from his hand and going in to Ja'afar the Barmeky found there the officers of the Governor and the Barmekys standing at his service on his right and on his left; and Ja'afar the Wazir who held in his hand a cup of wine was reciting poetry and playing and saying, O you all here assembled, the absent from the eye is not like the present in the heart; he is my brother and my friend and my benefactor, Attaf of Damascus, who was continuous in his generosity and his bounty and his benfactions to me; who for me divorced his cousin-wife and gave her to me. He made me presents of horses and slaves and damsels and stuffs in quantities that I might furnish her dower; and, if he had not acted thus, I should certainly have been ruined. He was my benefactor without knowing who I was, and generous to me without any idea of profiting by it. The Rawi says that when the good servant heard these words from his lord he rejoiced and coming forward he kneeled down before him and presented the paper. When Ja'afar read it he was in a state of intoxication and not being able to discern what he was doing he fell on his face to the floor while holding the paper and the glass in his hand, and he was wounded in the forehead so his blood ran and he fainted and the paper fell from his grasp. When the servant saw that he hastened to depart fearing the consequence; and the Wazir Ja'afar's friends seated their lord and staunched the blood. They exclaimed, There is no power and strength but in God the High, the Mighty. Such is the character of servants; they trouble the life of kings in their pleasures and annoy them in their humours: Wallahy, the writer of this paper merits nothing less than to be handed over to the Wali who shall give him five hundred lashes and put him in prison. Thereupon the Wazir's doorkeeper went out and asked for the owner of the paper, when Attaf answered, 'Tis I, O my lord. Then they seized him and sent him to the Wali and ordered him to give one hundred blows of the stick to the prisoner and to write upon his chain "for life." Thus they did with Attaf and carried him to the prison where he remained for two months when a child was born to Harun er-Rashid, who then ordered that alms should be distributed, and good done to all, and bade liberate all that were in prison and among those that were set free was Attaf. When he found himself out of gaol, beaten and famished and naked, he looked up to heaven and exclaimed, Thanks be to thee, O Lord, in every situation, and crying said, It must be for some fault committed by me in the past, for God had taken me into favour and I have said repaid Him in disobedience; but I pray to Him for pardon for having gone too far in my debauchery. Then he recited these verses:—
O God! the worshipper doth what he should not do; he is poor, depending on Thee: In the pleasures of life he forgetteth himself, in his ignorance, pardon Thou his faults.
Then he cried again and said to himself, What shall I do? If I set out for my country I may not reach it; if I arrive there, there will be no safety for my life on teh part of the Naïb, and if I remain here nobody knoweth me among the beggars and I cannot be for them of any use nor for myself as an aid or an intermediate. As for me, I had hope in that man, that he would raise me from my poverty. The affair hath turned out contrary to my expectations, and the poet was right when he said:—
O friend, I've run o'er the world west and east; all that I met with was pain
and fatigue:
I've frequented the men of the age, but never have found e'en a friend grateful
not even to me.
Once more he cried and exclaimed, God give me the grace of patience. After that he got up and walked away, and entered one of the mosks and staid there until afternoon. His hunger increased and he said, By Thy magnanimity and Thy majesty I shall ask nothing of anyone but of Thee. He remained in the mosk until it became dark when he went out for something, saying to himself, I have heard a call from the Prophet (on whom be the blessing and peace of Allah!) which said, God forbiddeth sleep in the Sanctuary and forbiddeth it to His worshippers. Then he arose, and went out from the mosk to some distance when he entered a ruined building after walking an hour, and here he stumbled in the darkness and fell upon his face. He saw something before him that he had struck with his foot and felt it move, and this was a lad that had been slain and a knife was in his side. Attaf rose up from off the body, his clothes stained with blood; he stood motionless and embarrassed, and while in that situation the Wali and his policemen stood at the door of the ruin and Attaf said to them, Come in and search. They entered with their torches and found the body of the murdered lad and the knife in him and the miserable Attaf standing at the head with his clothes stained with blood. When a man with a scarf saw him he arrested him and said to him, O Wretch, 'tis thou killedst him. Attaf said, Yes. Then said the Wali, Pinion him and take him to prison until we make our report to the Wazir Ja'afar. If he orders his death we will execute him. They did as ordered, and the next day the man with the scarf wrote to the Wazir, We went into a ruin and found there a man who had killed a lad and we interrogated him and he confessed that it was he who had done the deed, what are thine orders? The Wazir commanded them to put him to death; so they took Attaf from the prison to the place of execution and cut off a piece of his garment and with it bandaged his eyes. The Sworder said, O my lord, shall I strike his neck? and the Wali said, Strike! He brandished the sword which whistled and glittered in the air and was about to strike, when a cry from behind, Stop thy hand! was heard, and it was the voice of the Wazir Ja'afar who was out on a promenade. The Wali went to him and kissed the earth before him and the Wazir said to him, What is this great gathering here? He answered, 'Tis the execution of a young man of Damascus whom we found yesterday in a ruin; he had killed a lad of noble blood and we found the knife with him and his clothes spotted with blood. When I said to him, Is it thou that killedst him? he replied Yes three times. To-day I sent to thee my written report and thine Excellency ordered his death, saying, Let the sentence of God be executed, and now I have brought him out that his neck may be struck. Ja'afar said, Oh, hath a man of Damascus come into our country to find himself in a bad condition? Wallahy, that shall never be! Then he ordered that he should be brought to him. The Wazir did not recognise him, for Attaf's air of ease and comfort had disappeared; so Ja'afar said to him, From what country art thou, O young man, and he answered, I am a man from Damascus. From the city or from the villages? Wallahy, O my lord, from Damascus city where I was born. Ja'afar asked, Didst thou happen to known there a man named Attaf? I know when thou wast his friend and he lodged thee in such-and-such a house and thou wentest out to such-and-such a garden; and I know when thou didst marry his cousin-wife, I know when he bade adieu to thee at Katifa where thou drankest with him. Ja'afar said, Yes, all that is true, but what became of him after he left me? He said, O my Lord, there happened to him this and that and he related to him everything from the time he quitted him up to the moment of his standing before him and then recited these verses:—
This age, must it make me its victim, and thou at the same time art living:
wolves are seeking to devour me while thou the lion art here.
Every thirsty one that cometh his thirst is quenched by thee: can it be that I
thirst while thou art still our refuge?
When he had finished the verses he said, O my lord, I am Attaf, and then recalled all that had taken place between them from first to last. While he was thus speaking a great cry was heard, and it came from a Sheikh who was saying, This is not humanity. They looked at the speaker, who was an old man with trimmed beard dyed with henna, and upon him was a blue kerchief. When Ja'afar saw him he asked him what was the matter, and he exclaimed, Take away the young man from under the sword, for there is no fault in him: he hath killed no one nor doth he know anything of the dead youth. Nobody but myself is the killer. The Wazir said, Then 'tis thou that killed him? and he answered. Yes.—Why didst thou kill him? hast thou not the fear of God in killing a Hashimy child? The old man said, He was my servant, serving me in the house and working with me at my trade. Every day he took from me some quarter-pieces of money and went to work for another man called Shumooshag, and to work with Nagísh, and with Gasís, and with Ghúbar, and with Gushír, and every day working with someone. They were jealous of my having him. 'Odis the sweeper and Abu Butrán the stoker, and everyone wanted to have him. In vain I corrected him, but he would not abide corrected and ceased not to do thus until I killed him in the ruin, and I have delivered myself from the torment he gave me. That is my story. I kept silent until I saw thee when I made myself known at the time thou savest the head of this young man from the sword. Here I am standing before you: strike my neck and take life for life. Pray do no harm to this young man, for he hath committed no fault. The Wazir said, Neither to thee nor to him. Then he ordered to be brought the parents of the dead lad and reconciled them with the old man, whom he pardoned. He mounted Attaf upon a horse and took him to his house; then he entered the palace of the Caliph and kissed the earth before him and said, Behold Attaf, he who was my host at Damascus, and of whom I have related his treatment of me and his kindness and generosity, and how he preferred me to himself. Er-Rashid said, Bring him in to me immediately. He presented him to the Caliph in the miserable state in which he had found him; and when he entered, he made his salutations in the best manner and with the most eloquent language. Er-Rashid answered and said to him, What is this state in which I find you? and Attaf wept and made his complaint in these verses:—
Troubles, poverty and distant sojourn far away from the dear ones, and a
crushing desire to see them:
The soul is in them, they became like their fellows, thus the enigma remains in
the world;
While the generous is stricken with misfortune and grief, where's the miser that finds not good fortune therein?