Original content

English translation

After a month, when they reached that side, they were destitute, their beasts without fodder. Look at the villager: out of bad nature, after all that had passed, he behaves so. By day he hides his face from them, lest they turn their mouths toward his garden. Such a face, all hypocrisy and evil, is better hidden from Muslims. There are faces on which demons sit like flies, as guards. When you see his face they fall upon you; either do not look at that face, or, if you have seen it, do not smile gladly at it. Of such a vile, sinful face God said, “We shall surely seize him by the forelock.” When they asked and found his house, they hurried to the door like kinsmen. His household shut the door; the master became almost mad from this crookedness. Yet it was no time for harshness; once you have fallen in, what use is sharpness? They stayed at his door five days, nights in cold and days burned by sun. Their staying was not from heedlessness or stupidity, but from necessity and lack of a mount. The good are bound to the vile by necessity; from grievous hunger a lion eats carrion. He kept seeing him and greeting him, saying, “I am so-and-so; this is my name.” He said, “Perhaps; how should I know who you are, whether you are filth or a pure companion?” He said, “This moment has become like the Resurrection, when a man flees from his brother.” He explained, “I am the one whose table you ate delicacies from two by two. On such a day I bought you that merchandise; every secret that passes beyond two becomes public. People have heard the secret of our affection; a face should feel shame when the throat has eaten bounty.” But he kept saying, “What nonsense are you saying? I know neither you, nor your name, nor your place.” On the fifth night clouds and rain came on, a rain at which the sky itself marvels. When the knife reached the bone, the master knocked and said, “Call the elder.” After a hundred pleas he came to the door and said, “At last, what is it, dear father?” He said, “I have set aside those claims; I have abandoned what I had supposed. I have seen five years’ suffering in five days; my poor soul is in this heat and burning. One cruelty from oneself, friend, or kin is, in heaviness, like three hundred thousand, because the heart had not accustomed itself to their oppression and cruelty; its soul was used to their kindness and faithfulness. Know for certain that whatever affliction and hardship people suffer comes from violation of habit.” He said, “O sun whose kindness is in decline, if you had shed my blood I would hold it lawful. Tonight, in the rain, give us a corner, so that on Resurrection you may find provision.” He said, “There is one corner, that of the gardener; he is here as watchman against the wolf. In his hand are bow and arrow for the wolf, so that he may shoot if that great wolf comes. If you perform that service, the place is yours; otherwise order yourself to seek another place.” He said, “I will perform a hundred services; give me the place and put the bow and arrow in my hand. I will not sleep; I will guard the vineyard. If the wolf raises its head, I will shoot it. For God’s sake do not leave us tonight, O wavering one, with rainwater above our heads and mud beneath.” A corner was emptied, and he and his family went there, to a cramped place with no room. They were piled on one another like locusts, from fear of the flood in a cave corner. All night they all said, “O God, this is our due, our due indeed. This is the due of one who became friend to the base, or did anything for worthless people. This is the due of one who, from raw greed, abandons service to the dust of the noble. Licking the dust of the pure and their walls is better than the common people’s vineyard and rose garden. To become the servant of one illumined man is better than walking on the crowns of kings. From kings of earth you will find nothing but the sound of drums, O courier of the roads. City folk themselves are highwaymen in relation to the spirit; what, then, is a villager, dazed and without opening? This is the due of one who, without the counsel of reason, heard a ghoul’s cry and chose the road.” When remorse has gone from the heart to the pericardium, confession afterward brings no profit. The bow and arrow were in his hand; all night he searched here and there for the wolf. The wolf itself had power over him like a flame: he searched for the wolf and was unaware of the wolf. Every mosquito and every flea had become a wolf, wounding them in that ruin. There was not even a chance to drive away the mosquito, for fear of the hostile wolf’s attack. Lest the wolf do harm, the villager pulled out the master’s beard. Thus, with teeth clenched, until midnight their souls came from navel to lips. Suddenly the likeness of a grazing wolf lifted its head from the top of a mound. The master loosed the arrow from his thumb and struck that animal so that it fell low. As it fell, wind escaped from the animal; the villager cried out and beat his hands: “Scoundrel, that is my donkey foal!” He said, “No, this is a wolf like Ahriman. The signs of wolfishness are visible in it; its form tells of its wolf-nature.” He said, “No; I know the wind that leapt from its vulva, just as one distinguishes water from wine. You have killed my donkey foal in the meadow; may you never have expansion after constriction.” He said, “Look more carefully; it is night, and forms at night are veiled from the observer. Night shows many things wrongly and changed; not everyone has sound vision at night. Night, cloud, and deep rain: these three darknesses bring extraordinary error.” He said, “That is as clear to me as day; I know it is my donkey foal’s wind. Among twenty winds I know that wind as a traveler knows his provisions.” The master sprang up, beside himself, and seized the villager by the collar: “You foolish old thief, you have brought trickery; you have eaten bhang and opium together. In three darknesses you recognize a donkey’s wind, yet you do not know me, O addle-headed one? How can one who knows a calf at midnight not know a companion of ten years? You make yourself out to be a gnostic and ecstatic, throwing dust in the eyes of manliness, saying, ‘I am not even aware of myself; in my heart there is room for nothing but God. I do not remember what I ate yesterday; this heart is happy only with bewilderment. I am sane and mad for God; remember this, and excuse me in such selflessness.’ One who eats carrion, that is, wine, is drawn by the Law among the excused. The drunkard and bhang-eater have no valid divorce or sale; he is like a child, exempt and freed. An intoxication that comes from the scent of the peerless King: a hundred vats of wine could not produce that in head and brain. How then could obligation be proper for him? The horse has fallen and become handless and footless. Who in the world loads a donkey foal? Who teaches Persian to an owl? Burdens are lifted when lameness comes; God said, ‘There is no blame on the blind.’ I have become blind to myself but seeing through God; therefore I am excused from little and much. You boast of dervishhood and selflessness, with the cries and shouts of those drunk with God, saying, ‘I do not know earth from sky.’ Divine jealousy tested you with a test. The donkey foal’s wind disgraced you so; it proved the existence you denied. Thus God disgraces fraud; thus He catches escaped prey. There are a hundred thousand tests, O son, for whoever says, ‘I have become commander at the gate.’ If the common people do not know him by testing, the mature ones of the path seek his sign. When some base man claims tailoring, the king throws satin before him, saying, ‘Cut this into a wide cloak’; through the test his two horns appear. Were there no test, every bad man, every effeminate coward, would be a Rostam in battle. Suppose the coward is clothed in armor; when he sees a wound, he becomes like a captive. When has one drunk with God become sober from the west wind? One drunk with God does not come to himself until the Trumpet is blown. The wine of God is true and without lie; you drank buttermilk, you drank buttermilk, buttermilk, buttermilk. You made yourself Junayd and Bayazid; go, for I cannot tell an axe from a key. Baseness, idleness, greed, and avarice: how will you hide them by deceit, O plotter? You make yourself Mansur Hallaj and set fire in the cotton of your friends, saying, ‘I cannot recognize Umar from Abu Lahab, yet I know my own foal’s wind at midnight.’ O donkey, what donkey would believe this from you and make himself blind and deaf for your sake? Count yourself lower than the wayfarers; you are the companion of road-ruiners, do not eat dung. Fly back from deceit toward reason; when will a counterfeit wing fly to the sky? You made yourself out to be a lover of God, but played at love with a black demon. On Resurrection lover and beloved are bound two by two and brought swiftly forward. Why have you made yourself dizzy and selfless? Where is the vine’s blood that drank our blood? Go, for I do not recognize you; get away from me. I am a selfless gnostic and the village fool. You imagine, from nearness to God, that the tray-maker is not far from the tray. Do you not see that nearness to the saints has a hundred miracles, deeds, and authority? Iron becomes wax for David, while wax in your hand is like iron. The nearness of creation and provision is general for all; these noble ones have the nearness of revelation and love. Nearness has kinds, O father: the sun shines on mountain and gold. But the sun has a nearness with gold of which the willow is unaware. Dry and fresh branches are both near the sun; when is the sun veiled from either? But where is the nearness of the fresh branch, from which you eat ripe fruit? Let the dry branch gain from nearness to that sun nothing but drying sooner. Do not be such a drunkard, O witless one, that when reason returns you eat regret. Rather, be among those drunkards whose drinking makes mature intellects envious. O you who, like a cat, have caught an old mouse: if from that wine you gain lion-catching power, catch a lion. O you who have drunk a cup of nothing from fantasy, do not reel like those drunk with realities. You fall this way and that like a drunkard; O you, from this side you have no passage to that side. If you find the road to that side, then shake your head now this way, now that. You are wholly of this side; do not chatter about that side. Since you do not possess death to self, do not squander your soul in vain. That Khidr-souled one who does not fear death may rightly fail to recognize created beings. You sweeten your palate with the taste of fancy and in a breath fill your wineskin with it. Then with one needle you become empty of wind; may no rational person have such a swollen body. You make jars of snow in winter; when it sees water, how can it keep faith?”