The Shaving of Shagpat - George Meredith (bookreader TXT) 📗

He answered her, “I bewail my condition, which is beggary, and the lack of that which filleth with pleasantness.”

So the old woman said, “Tell me thy case.”

He answered her, “O old woman, surely it was written at my birth that I should take ruin from the readers of planets. Now, they proclaimed that I was one day destined for great things, if I stood by my tackle, I, a barber. Know then, that I have had many offers and bribes, seductive ones, from the rich and the exalted in rank; and I heeded them not, mindful of what was foretold of me. I stood by my tackle as a warrior standeth by his arms, flourishing them. Now, when I found great things came not to me, and ’twas the continuance of sameness and satiety with Baba Mustapha, my uncle, in Shiraz⁠—the tongue-wagger, the endless tattler⁠—surely I was advised by the words of the poet to go forth in search of what was wanting, and he says:

“ ‘Thou that dreamest an Event,
While Circumstance is but a waste of sand,
Arise, take up thy fortunes in thy hand,
And daily forward pitch thy tent.’

“Now, I passed from city to city, proclaiming my science, holding aloft my tackle. Wullahy! many adventures were mine, and if there’s some day propitiousness in fortune, O old woman, I’ll tell thee of what befell me in the kingdom of Shah Shamshureen: ’tis wondrous, a matter to draw down the lower jaw with amazement! Now, so it was, that in the eyes of one city I was honoured and in request, by reason of my calling, and I fared sumptuously, even as a great officer of state surrounded by slaves, lounging upon clouds of silk stuffs, circled by attentive ears: in another city there was no beast so base as I. Wah! I was one hunted of men and an abomination; no housing for me, nought to operate upon. I was the lean dog that lieth in wait for offal. It seemeth certain, O old woman, that a curse hath fallen on barbercraft in these days, because of the Identical, whose might I know not. Everywhere it is growing in disrepute; ’tis languishing! Nevertheless till now I have preserved my tackle, and I would descend on yonder city to exercise it, even for a livelihood, forgetting awhile great things, but that I dread men may have changed there also⁠—and there’s no stability in them, I call Allah (whose name be praised!) to witness; so should I be a thing unsightly, subject to hateful castigation; wherefore is it that I am in that state described by the poet, when,

“ ‘Dreading retreat, dreading advance to make,
Round we revolve, like to the wounded snake.’

“Is not my case now a piteous one, one that toucheth the tender corner in man and woman?”

When she that listened had heard him to an end, she shook her garments, crying, “O youth, son of my uncle, be comforted! for, if it is as I think, the readers of planets were right, and thou art thus early within reach of great things⁠—nigh grasping them.”

Then she fell to mumbling and reciting jigs of verse, quaint measures; and she pored along the sand to where a line had been drawn, and saw that the footprints of the youth were traced along it. Lo, at that sight she clapped her hands joyfully, and ran up to the youth, and peered in his face, exclaiming, “Great things indeed! and praise thou the readers of planets, O nephew of the barber, they that sent thee searching the Event thou art to master. Wullahy! have I not half a mind to call thee already Master of the Event?”

Then she abated somewhat in her liveliness, and said to him, “Know that the city thou seest is the city of Shagpat, the clothier, and there’s no one living on the face of Earth, nor a soul that requireth thy craft more than he. Go therefore thou, bold of heart, brisk, full of the sprightliness of the barber, and enter to him. Lo, thou’lt see him lolling in his shopfront to be admired of this people⁠—marvelled at. Oh! no mistaking of Shagpat, and the mole might discern Shagpat among myriads of our kind; and enter thou to him gaily, as to perform a friendly office, one meriting thanks and gratulations, saying, ‘I will preserve thee the Identical!’ Now he’ll at first feign not to understand thee, dense of wit that he is! but mince not matters with him, perform well thy operation, and thou wilt come to great things. What say I? ’tis certain that when thou hast shaved Shagpat thou wilt have achieved the greatest of things, and be most noteworthy of thy race, thou, Shibli Bagarag, even thou! and thou wilt be Master of the Event, so named in anecdotes and histories and records, to all succeeding generations.”

At her words the breast of Shibli Bagarag took in a great wind, and he hung his head a moment to ponder them; and he thought, “There’s provokingness in the speech of this old woman, and she’s one that instigateth keenly. She called me by my name! Heard I that? ’Tis a mystery!” And he thought, “Peradventure she is a genie, one of an ill tribe, and she’s luring me to my perdition in this city! How if that be so?” And again he thought, “It cannot be! She’s probably the genie that presided over my birth, and promised me dower of great things through the mouths of the readers of planets.”

Now, when Shibli Bagarag had so deliberated, he lifted his sight, and lo, the old woman was no longer before him! He stared, and rubbed his eyes, but she was clean gone. Then ran he to the knolls and eminences that were scattered about, to command a view, but she was nowhere visible. So he thought, “ ’Twas a dream!” and he was composing himself to despair upon the scant herbage of one