of Shawakis said with passion, “I envy you your happiness with the prince, your husband, though you have been married these many years. I hate my husband. He belongs not to me alone, and I am indeed a woman most unhappy.”
Then the visiting princess gazed at her and said, “My friend, the truth is that you love your husband. Aye, and you still have him for a passion unspent, and that is life in woman like unto Spring in a garden. But pity me, and my husband, for we do but endure one another in silent patience. And yet you and others deem this happiness.”
THE LIGHTNING FLASH
There was a Christian bishop in his cathedral on a stormy day, and an un-Christian woman came and stood before him, and she said, “I am not a Christian. Is there salvation for me from hell-fire?”
And the bishop looked upon the woman, and he answered her saying, “Nay, there is salvation for those only who are baptized of water and of the spirit.”
And even as he spoke a bolt from the sky fell with thunder upon the cathedral and it was filled with fire. And the men of the city came running, and they saved the woman, but the bishop was consumed, food of the fire.
THE HERMIT AND THE BEASTS
Once there lived among the green hills a hermit. He was pure of spirit and white of heart. And all the animals of the land and all the fowls of the air came to him in pairs and he spoke unto them. They heard him gladly, and they would gather near unto him, and would not go until nightfall, when he would send them away, entrusting them to the wind and the woods with his blessing.
Upon an evening as he was speaking of love, a leopard raised her head and said to the hermit, “You speak to us of loving. Tell us, Sir, where is your mate?”
And the hermit said, “I have no mate.”
Then a great cry of surprise rose from the company of beasts and fowls, and they began to say among themselves, “How can he tell us of loving and mating when he himself knows naught thereof?” And quietly and in distain they left him alone.
That night the hermit lay upon his mat with his face earthward, and he wept bitterly and beat his hands upon his breast.
THE PROPHET AND THE CHILD
Once on a day the prophet Sharia met a child in a garden. The child ran to him and said, “Good morrow to you, Sir,” and the prophet said, “Good morrow to you, Sir.” And in a moment, “I see that you are alone.”
Then the child said, in laughter and delight, “It took a long time to lose my nurse. She thinks I am behind those hedges; but can’t you see that I am here?” Then he gazed at the prophet’s face and spoke again. “You are alone, too. What did you do with your nurse?”
The prophet answered and said, “Ah, that is a different thing. In very truth I cannot lose her oftentime. But now, when I came into this garden, she was seeking after me behind the hedges.”
The child clapped his hands and cried out, “So you are like me! Isn’t it good to be lost?” And then he said, “Who are you?”
And the man answered, “They call me the prophet Sharia. And tell me, who are you?”
“I am only myself,” said the child, “and my nurse is seeking after me, and she does not know where I am.”
Then the prophet gazed into space saying, “I too have escaped my nurse for awhile, but she will find me out.”
And the child said, “I know mine will find me out too.”
At that moment a woman’s voice was heard calling the child’s name, “See,” said the child, “I told you she would be finding me.”
And at the same moment another voice was heard, “Where art thou, Sharia?”
And the prophet said, “See my child, they have found me also.”
And turning his face upward, Sharia answered, “Here I am.”
THE PEARL
Said one oyster to a neighbouring oyster, “I have a very great pain within me. It is heavy and round and I am in distress.”
And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, “Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain within me. I am well and whole both within and without.”
At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without, “Yes, you are well and whole; but the pain that your neighbour bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty.”
BODY AND SOUL
A man and a woman sat by a window that opened upon Spring. They sat close one unto the other. And the woman said, “I love you. You are handsome, and you are rich, and you are always well-attired.”
And the man said, “I love you. You are a beautiful thought, a thing too apart to hold in the hand, and a song in my dreaming.”
But the woman turned from him in anger, and she said, “Sir, please leave me now. I am not a thought, and I am not a thing that passes in your dreams. I am a woman. I would have you desire me, a wife, and the mother of unborn children.”
And they parted.
And the man was saying in his heart, “Behold another dream is even now turned into mist.”
And the woman was saying, “Well, what of a man who turns me into a mist and a dream?”
THE KING
The people of the kingdom of Sadik surrounded the palace of their king shouting in rebellion against him. And he came down the steps of the palace carrying his crown in one hand and his sceptre in the other. The majesty of his appearance silenced the multitude, and he stood before them and said, “My friends, who are no longer my subjects, here I yield my crown and sceptre unto you. I would be one of you. I am only one man, but as a man I would work together with you that our lot may be made better. There is no need for king. Let us go therefore to the fields and the vineyards and labour hand with hand. Only you must tell me to what field or vineyard I should go. All of you now are king.”
And the people marvelled, and stillness was upon them, for the king whom they had deemed the source of their discontent now yielding his crown and sceptre to them and became as one of them.
Then each and every one of them went his way, and the king walked with one man to a field.
But the Kingdom of Sadik fared not better without a king, and the mist of discontent was still upon the land. The people cried out in the market places saying that they have a king to rule them. And the elders and the youths said as if with one voice, “We will have our king.”
And they sought the king and found him toiling in the field, and they brought him to his seat, and yielded unto his crown and his sceptre. And they said, “Now rule us, with might and with justice.”
And he said, “I will indeed rule you with might, and may the gods of the heaven and the earth help me that I may also rule with justice.”
Now, there came to his presence men and women and spoke unto him of a baron who mistreated them, and to whom they were but serfs.
And straightway the king brought the baron before him and said, “The life of one man is as weighty in the scales of God as the life of another. And because you know not how to weigh the lives of those who work in your fiends and your vineyards, you are banished, and you shall leave this kingdom forever.”
The following day came another company to the king and spoke of the cruelty of a countess beyond the hills, and how she brought them down to misery. Instantly the countess was brought to court, and the king sentenced her also to banishment, saying, “Those who till our fields and care for our vineyards are nobler than we who eat the bread they prepare and drink the wine of their wine-press. And because you know not this, you shall leave this land and be afar from this kingdom.”
Then came men and women who said that the bishop made them bring stones and