THE STORY OF THE HUNCHBACK WITH THE TAILOR, THE JEW, THE CHRISTIAN, AND THE BARBER OF BAGHDAD
A hunchback dies eating a piece of fish. Then several people successively thought that they had been the cause of his death and moved his body somewhere else.
ON THE FIRST NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
It has come to me, O fortunate King, that there was, in the antiquity of time and the past of ages and centuries, in a city of China, a man who was a tailor and very satisfied with his condition. He loved amusements and pleasures and was accustomed, from time to time, to go out with his wife, to walk and delight his eyes at the spectacle of the street and the gardens. One day when the two of them had spent the whole day away from their home and when, in the evening, they were returning home, they met on their way a hunchback with such a funny aspect that he chased away all melancholy, made the saddest man laugh, and drove away all sorrow and affliction. Immediately the tailor and his wife approached the hunchback, amused themselves with his jokes and so much that they invited him to accompany them to their house to be their guest that night. And the hunchback hastened to give the right answer to this invitation, joined them, and came with them home. There the tailor left the hunchback for a moment to run to the souk to buy, before the merchants had closed their shops, enough to do honor to his guest. He bought fried fish, fresh bread, lemons, and a big piece of halva for dessert. Then he came back, put all these things in front of the hunchback, and everyone sat down to eat.
While they were eating thus merrily, the tailor's wife took a large piece of fish between her fingers and, as a joke, stuffed it whole into the hunchback's mouth, covering his mouth with her hand to prevent him from rejecting the morsel and said to him: "By Allah, you must swallow this mouthful in one go and without stopping, otherwise I will not let you go."
Then the hunchback began to make great efforts, but he ended up swallowing the mouthful. Unfortunately for him, it was his fate that a big bone should be found in the mouthful: it stopped in his throat and caused him to die instantly.
When the tailor saw that the hunchback died in this way, he exclaimed: “There is no strength and power except in Allah the Most High, the Almighty! What a pity that this poor man thus came to die just in our hands!" But the woman cried out: “What a mistake is yours! Don't you know these verses of the poet?"
"O my soul, why sink into the absurd to make you sick,
And worry about what will not arise pain or worry?
Are you not afraid of fire to sit on it?
And don't you know that if you approach the fire, you risk burning?"
So her husband said: “And what should I do now?" She replied: “Get up! And the two of us will carry the body; we will cover him with a silk scarf, and we will carry him, me walking behind me and you going in front that very night! And all along the road, you will say aloud: “It is my child! And this is his mother! We are looking for a doctor who can treat him! Where is there a doctor?"
So when the tailor heard these words, he got up, took the hunchback in his arms, and, preceded by his wife, left the house. And the woman, for her part, began to say: “O my poor child! May you get out of here safe and sound! Say! Where do you suffer? Ah! that cursed smallpox! Where on your body do you get rashes?" At these words, every passer-by said to himself: "It's the father and the mother! They are carrying their child with smallpox!" and hurried away.
As for the tailor and his wife, they continued to walk thus, while inquiring about the lodging of a doctor, until they had been led to the door of a Jewish doctor. Then they knocked at the door, and immediately a black woman came down, opened the door, and saw this man who carried a child in his arms, and also the mother who accompanied him. And she said to him: “We have with us this child whom we wish to show to the doctor. So take this money, a quarter of a dinar, and give it in advance to your master, asking him to come down to see my child who is very ill."
Then the servant came back upstairs; and immediately the tailor's wife crossed the threshold of the house, brought her husband in, and said to him: "Quickly deposit the hunchback's body here. And let's hurry to get away as soon as possible." And the tailor laid the body of the hunchback on one of the steps of the stairs, against the wall, and hastened to get out, followed by his wife.
As for the black woman, she went to the Jewish doctor, her master, and said to him: "Downstairs there is a patient accompanied by a woman and a man who gave me this quarter of a dinar for you so that you prescribe to this patient something that will do him good. When the Jewish doctor saw the quarter of a dinar, he rejoiced and hastened to get up, and in his haste, he did not dream of taking a light with him to descend. So much so that he stumbled against the hunchback and knocked him down. And terrified to see a man rolled like this, he hastened to examine him, saw that he was dead, and thought that he was the cause of his death. So he cried out: “Lord! Ah! Vengeful God! By the ten Holy Words!" And he continued to invoke Aaron, Joshua son of Nun, and the others. And he said: “Behold, I have just bumped into this sick man and rolled him down the stairs! Also, how can I now walk out of my house with a dead man?" Yet he ended by taking it and carrying it from the yard into the house, and he showed it to his wife and revealed the thing to her. And his terrified wife exclaimed: “Ah! No! none of that here! Quick get him out! For if he stays here until sunrise, we are irretrievably lost. So we will both carry him to the terrace of the house, and from there we will throw him into the house of our neighbor the Muslim. For you know that our neighbor is the steward of the sultan's kitchen and that his house is infested with rats, cats, and dogs which come down to his house from the terrace to wreak havoc and eat the provisions of butter, fat, oil, and flour. Also, these animals will not fail to eat this dead body and make it disappear."
Then the Jewish doctor and his wife took the hunchback, went up to their terrace, and from there they gently lowered the body into the steward's house and placed it upright against the kitchen wall. Then they left and went back down quietly to their home.
Now, it had scarcely been a few moments since the hunchback had been thus pressed upright against the wall, when the steward, who had gone away, returned to the house, opened the door, lighted a candle, and entered. And he found a son of Adam standing in a corner against the kitchen wall. And the steward, greatly surprised, exclaimed: “What is that? By Allah! I see now that the habitual thief of my provisions is a man and not an animal! It is he who steals my meat and fats, which I nevertheless carefully lock up for fear of cats and dogs! Also, I note that it would have been quite useless to kill, as I thought of doing, all the cats and all the dogs in the neighborhood since this individual is the only one coming down here by the terrace!" And immediately the steward took a huge cudgel, ran to the man, struck him hard with it, knocked him down, and began to beat him on the chest. But as the man did not move, the steward saw that he was dead. Then he was desolate and said: “There is no strength and power except in Allah the Most High, the Almighty!" Then he was very frightened and said: "Cursed be the butter, the fats, the meat, and this night! Must I be unlucky enough to have thus killed this man who thus remains in my hands!" Then he looked at him more carefully and saw that he was a hunchback. And he said: “So it was no longer enough for you to be hunchbacked? You wanted to be a thief, and steal the meat and fat from my provisions! O protective God, protect me under the veil of your power!" Thereupon, as the night was drawing to a close, the steward loaded the hunchback on his shoulders, descended from his house, and began to walk until he had reached the beginning of the souk. He then stopped, placed the hunchback upright, at the corner of a shop, left him there, and went away.
At this point in her narration, Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, saw the morning approach and, discreet as usual, did not want to prolong the story any longer, so as not to abuse the permission granted by King Schahriar.*
So her sister, the young Doniazade, said to her: “O my sister, how kind, sweet, savory, and pure your words are! She answered: "But what will you say then, next night, when you hear the rest, if, however, I am still alive and it is the good pleasure of this King, full of good manners and politeness!"
And King Schahriar said in his soul: “By Allah! I will not kill her until I have heard the rest of her story, which is quite amazing!"
Then King Schahriar took Scheherazade in his arms, and the two spent the rest of the night embracing until morning. Then the King got up and went to the hall of his justice. And immediately entered the vizier, and also entered the emirs, the chamberlains, and the guards, and the Diwan was full of people. And the King proceeded to judge, to settle affairs, to appoint this one to an office, to dismiss that one, to terminate the pending trials, and to occupy himself thus till the end of the day. The Diwan finished, the King returned to his apartments and went to find Sheherazade.
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