The Story of the Barber's Sixth Brother 2

Twenty years passed by, and my brother was still living with the Barmecide, looking after his house, and managing his affairs. At the end of that time his generous benefactor¹（恩人，施主） died without heirs, so all his possessions went to the prince. They even despoiled²（掠夺） my brother of those that rightly belonged to him, and he, now as poor as he had ever been in his life, decided³ to cast in his lot with a caravan⁴（大篷车） of pilgrims who were on their way to Mecca. Unluckily, the caravan was attacked and pillaged⁵ by the Bedouins, and the pilgrims were taken prisoners. My brother became the slave of a man who beat him daily, hoping to drive him to offer a ransom⁶, although, as Schacabac pointed⁷ out, it was quite useless trouble, as his relations were as poor as himself. At length the Bedouin grew tired of tormenting⁸, and sent him on a camel to the top of a high barren mountain, where he left him to take his chance. A passing caravan, on its way to Bagdad, told me where he was to be found, and I hurried to his rescue, and brought him in a deplorable condition back to the town. 

 

"This,"--continued the barber,--"is the tale I related to the Caliph, who, when I had finished, burst into fits of laughter. 

 

"Well were you called 'the Silent,'" said he; "no name was ever better deserved. But for reasons of my own, which it is not necessary to mention, I desire you to leave the town, and never to come back." 

 

"I had of course no choice but to obey, and travelled about for several years until I heard of the death of the Caliph, when I hastily returned to Bagdad, only to find that all my brothers were dead. It was at this time that I rendered to the young cripple the important service of which you have heard, and for which, as you know, he showed such profound ingratitude⁹, that he preferred rather to leave Bagdad than to run the risk of seeing me. I sought him long from place to place, but it was only to-day, when I expected it least, that I came across him, as much irritated with me as ever"-- So saying the tailor went on to relate the story of the lame¹⁰ man and the barber, which has already been told. 

 

"When the barber," he continued, "had finished his tale, we came to the conclusion that the young man had been right, when he had accused him of being a great chatter-box. However, we wished to keep him with us, and share our feast, and we remained at table till the hour of afternoon prayer. Then the company broke up, and I went back to work in my shop. 

 

"It was during this interval¹¹ that the little hunchback, half drunk already, presented himself before me, singing and playing on his drum. I took him home, to amuse my wife, and she invited him to supper. While eating some fish, a bone got into his throat, and in spite of all we could do, he died shortly. It was all so sudden that we lost our heads, and in order to divert suspicion from ourselves, we carried the body to the house of a Jewish physician. He placed it in the chamber¹² of the purveyor¹³（承办商）, and the purveyor propped¹⁴ it up in the street, where it was thought to have been killed by the merchant. 

 

"This, Sire, is the story which I was obliged to tell to satisfy your highness. It is now for you to say if we deserve mercy or punishment; life or death?" 

 

The Sultan of Kashgar listened with an air of pleasure which filled the tailor and his friends with hope. "I must confess," he exclaimed, "that I am much more interested in the stories of the barber and his brothers, and of the lame man, than in that of my own jester. But before I allow you all four to return to your own homes, and have the corpse¹⁵ of the hunchback properly buried, I should like to see this barber who has earned your pardon. And as he is in this town, let an usher¹⁶ go with you at once in search of him." 

 

The usher and the tailor soon returned, bringing with them an old man who must have been at least ninety years of age. "O Silent One," said the Sultan, "I am told that you know many strange stories. Will you tell some of them to me?" 

 

"Never mind my stories for the present," replied the barber, "but will your Highness graciously be pleased to explain why this Jew, this Christian¹⁷, and this Mussulman, as well as this dead body, are all here?" 

 

"What business is that of yours?" asked the Sultan with a smile; but seeing that the barber had some reasons for his question, he commanded that the tale of the hunch-back should be told him. 

 

"It is certainly most surprising," cried he, when he had heard it all, "but I should like to examine the body." He then knelt down, and took the head on his knees, looking at it attentively¹⁸. Suddenly he burst into such loud laughter that he fell right backwards¹⁹, and when he had recovered himself enough to speak, he turned to the Sultan. "The man is no more dead than I am," he said; "watch me." As he spoke²⁰ he drew a small case of medicines from his pocket and rubbed the neck of the hunchback with some ointment²¹ made of balsam. Next he opened the dead man's mouth, and by the help of a pair of pincers drew the bone from his throat. At this the hunch-back sneezed, stretched himself and opened his eyes. 

 

The Sultan and all those who saw this operation did not know which to admire most, the constitution of the hunchback（驼背） who had apparently²² been dead for a whole night and most of one day, or the skill of the barber, whom everyone now began to look upon as a great man. His Highness desired that the history of the hunchback should be written down, and placed in the archives beside that of the barber, so that they might be associated in people's minds to the end of time. And he did not stop there; for in order to wipe out the memory of what they had undergone, he commanded that the tailor, the doctor, the purveyor and the merchant, should each be clothed in his presence with a robe from his own wardrobe before they returned home. As for the barber, he bestowed²³ on him a large pension, and kept him near his own person.

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