Stories of Comedy
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Various >> Stories of Comedy
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With his friends he passed many sunbright hours; and if much talk was
not heard among them on these occasions, be it remembered that silence
is often wisdom. The scene of their social resort was a little kiosk in
front of one of the coffee-houses on the bank of the Tigris. No place in
all Bagdad is so pleasantly situated. There the mighty river rolls in
all the affluence of his waters, pure as the unclouded sky, and speckled
with innumerable boats, while the rippling waves, tickled, as it were,
by the summer breezes, gambol and sparkle around.
The kiosk was raised two steps from the ground; the interior was painted
with all the most splendid colors. The roof was covered with tiles that
glittered like the skin of the Arabian serpent, and was surmounted with
a green dragon, which was painted of that imperial hue, because
Haddad-Ben-Ahab was descended from the sacred progeny of Fatima, of whom
green is the everlasting badge, as it is of nature. Time cannot change
it, nor can it be impaired by the decrees of tyranny or of justice.
One beautiful day Haddad-Ben-Ahab and his friends had met in this kiosk
of dreams, and were socially enjoying the fragrant smoke of their pipes,
and listening to the refreshing undulations of the river, as the boats
softly glided along,--for the waters lay in glassy stillness,--the winds
were asleep,--even the sunbeams seemed to rest in a slumber on all
things. The smoke stood on the chimney-tops as if a tall visionary tree
grew out of each; and the many-colored cloths in the yard of Orooblis,
the Armenian dyer, hung unmolested by a breath. Orooblis himself was the
only thing, in that soft and bright noon, which appeared on the land to
be animated with any purpose.
Orooblis was preparing a boat to descend the Tigris, and his servants
were loading it with bales of apparel and baskets of provisions, while
he himself was in a great bustle, going often between his dwelling-house
and the boat, talking loud and giving orders, and ever and anon wiping
his forehead, for he was a man that delighted in having an ado.
Haddad-Ben-Ahab, seeing Orooblis so active, looked at him for some time;
and it so happened that all the friends at the same moment took their
amber-headed pipes from their lips, and said,--
"Where can Orooblis, the Armenian dyer, be going?"
Such a simultaneous interjection naturally surprised them all, and
Haddad-Ben-Ahab added,--
"I should like to go with him, and see strange things, for I have never
been out of the city of Bagdad, save once to pluck pomegranates in the
garden of Beys-Addy-Boolk." And he then rose and went to the boat which
Orooblis was loading, and spoke to him; and when it was ready they
seated themselves on board and sailed down the Tigris, having much
pleasant discourse concerning distant lands and hills whose tops pierced
the clouds, and were supposed to be the pillars that upheld the crystal
dome of the heavens.
Haddad-Ben-Ahab rejoiced greatly as they sailed along, and at last they
came to a little town, where Orooblis, having business in dyestuffs to
transact, went on shore, leaving his friend. But in what corner of the
earth this little town stood Haddad-Ben-Ahab knew not; for, like other
travellers, he was not provided with much geographical knowledge.
But soon after the departure of Orooblis he thought he would also land
and inquire. Accordingly, taking his pipe in his hand, he stepped out of
the boat and went about the town, looking at many things, till he came
to a wharf where a large ship was taking merchandise on board; and her
sailors were men of a different complexion from that of the watermen who
plied on the Tigris at Bagdad.
Haddad-Ben-Ahab looked at them, and as he was standing near to where
they were at work, he thought that this ship afforded a better
opportunity than he had enjoyed with Orooblis to see foreign countries.
He accordingly went up to the captain and held out a handful of money,
and indicated that he was desirous to sail away with the ship.
When the captain saw the gold he was mightily civil, and spoke to
Haddad-Ben-Ahab with a loud voice, perhaps thinking to make him hear was
the way to make him understand. But Haddad-Ben-Ahab only held up the
forefinger of his right hand and shook it to and fro. In the end,
however, he was taken on board the ship, and no sooner was he there than
he sat down on a sofa, and drawing his legs up under him kindled his
pipe and began to smoke, much at his ease, making observations with his
eyes as he did so.
The first observation Haddad-Ben-Ahab made was, that the sofa on which
he had taken his place was not at all like the sofas of Bagdad, and
therefore when he returned he would show that he had not travelled
without profit by having one made exactly similar for his best chamber,
with hens and ducks under it, pleasantly feeding and joyously cackling
and quacking. And he also observed a remarkable sagacity in the ducks,
for when they saw he was a stranger, they turned up the sides of their
heads and eyed him in a most curious and inquisitive manner,--very
different, indeed, from the ducks of Bagdad.
When the ship had taken on board her cargo she spread her sails, and
Haddad-Ben-Ahab felt himself in a new situation; for presently she began
to lie over, and to plunge and revel among the waves like a glad
creature. But Haddad-Ben-Ahab became very sick, and the captain showed
him the way down into the inside of the vessel, where he went into a
dark bed, and was charitably tended by one of the sailors for many days.
After a season there was much shouting on the deck of the ship, and
Haddad-Ben-Ahab crawled out of his bed, and went to the sofa, and saw
that the ship was near the end of her voyage.
When she had come to a bank where those on board could step out,
Haddad-Ben-Ahab did so: and after he had seen all the strange things
which were in the town where he thus landed, he went into a baker's
shop,--for they eat bread in that town as they do in Bagdad,--and bought
a loaf, which having eaten, he quenched his thirst at a fountain hard
by, in his ordinary manner of drinking, at which he wondered
exceedingly.
When he had solaced himself with all the wonders of that foreign city,
he went to a fakier, who was holding two horses ready saddled; beautiful
they were, and, as the fakier signified by signs, their hoofs were so
fleet that they left the wind behind them. Haddad-Ben-Ahab then showed
the fakier his gold, and mounted one of the horses, pointing with the
shaft of his pipe to the fakier to mount the other; and then they both
rode away into the country, and they found that the wind blew in their
faces.
At last they came to a caravansary, where the fakier bought a cooked hen
and two onions, of which they both partook, and stretching themselves
before the fire which they had lighted in their chamber, they fell
asleep and slept until the dawn of day, when they resumed their journey
into remoter parts and nearer to the wall of the world, which
Haddad-Ben-Ahab conjectured they must soon reach. They had not, however,
journeyed many days in the usual manner when they came to the banks of a
large river, and the fakier would go no farther with his swift horses.
Haddad-Ben-Ahab was in consequence constrained to pay and part from him,
and to embark in a ferry-boat to convey him over the stream, where he
found a strange vehicle with four horses standing ready to carry him on
towards the wall of the world, "which surely," said he to himself,
"ought not to be now far off."
Haddad-Ben-Ahab showed his gold again, and was permitted to take a seat
in the vehicle, which soon after drove away; and he remarked, in a most
sagacious manner, that nothing in that country was like the things in
his own; for the houses and trees and all things ran away as the vehicle
came up to them; and when it gave a jostle, they gave a jump; which he
noted as one of the most extraordinary things he had seen since he left
Bagdad.
At last Haddad-Ben-Ahab came to the foot of a lofty green mountain, with
groves and jocund villages, which studded it, as it were, with gems and
shining ornaments, and he said, "This must be the wall of the world, for
surely nothing can exist on the other side of these hills! but I will
ascend them and look over, for I should like to tell my friends in
Bagdad what is to be seen on the outside of the earth." Accordingly he
ascended the green mountain, and he came to a thick forest of stubby
trees: "This is surprising," said Haddad-Ben-Ahab, "but higher I will
yet go." And he passed through that forest of trees and came to a steep
moorland part of the hill, where no living thing could be seen, but a
solitude without limit, and the living world all glittering at the foot
of the mountain.
"This is a high place," said Haddad-Ben-Ahab, "but I will yet go
higher," and he began to climb with his hands. After an upward journey
of great toil he came to a frozen region, and the top of the wall of the
world was still far above him. He was, however, none daunted by the
distance, but boldly held on in the ascent, and at last he reached the
top of the wall. But when he got there, instead of a region of fog and
chaos, he only beheld another world much like our own, and he was
greatly amazed, and exclaimed with a loud voice,--"Will my friends in
Bagdad believe this?--but it is true, and I will so tell them." So he
hastened down the mountain, and went with all the speed he could back to
Bagdad; saying, "Bagdad," and giving gold to every man he met, until he
reached the kiosk of dreams, where his friends were smoking and looking
at the gambols of the Tigris.
When the friends of Haddad-Ben-Ahab saw him approach, they respectively
took their pipes from their mouths and held them in their left hands,
while they pressed their bosoms with their right, and received him with
a solemn salaam, for he had been long absent, and all they in the mean
time had heard concerning him was only what Orooblis, the Armenian dyer,
on his return told them: namely, that he was gone to the wall of the
world, which limits the travels of man. No wonder then that they
rejoiced with an exceeding gladness to see him return and take his place
in the kiosk among them, as if he had never been a day's journey away
from Bagdad.
They then questioned him about his adventures, and he faithfully related
to them all the wonders which have been set forth in our account of the
journey; upon which they declared he had made himself one of the sages
of the earth.
Afterward they each made a feast, to which they invited all the
philosophers in Bagdad, and Haddad-Ben-Ahab was placed in the seat of
honor, and being courteously solicited, told them of his travels, and
every one cried aloud, "God is great, and Mahomet is his prophet!"
When they had in this manner banqueted, Haddad-Ben-Ahab fell sick, and
there was a great talk concerning the same. Some said he was very ill;
others shook their heads and spoke not; but the world is full of envy
and hard-heartedness, and those who were spiteful because of the renown
which Haddad-Ben-Ahab, as a traveller who had visited the top of the
wall of the world with so much courage, had acquired, jeered at his
malady, saying he had been only feasted overmuch. Nevertheless,
Haddad-Ben-Ahab died; and never was such a funeral seen in all Bagdad,
save that of the caliph Mahoud, commonly called the Magnificent. Such
was the admiration in which the memory of the traveller was held, the
poets made dirges on the occasion, and mournful songs were heard in the
twilight from the windows of every harem. Nor did the generation of the
time content itself with the ceremonies of lamentation: they caused a
fountain to be erected, which they named the Fountain of Haddad-Ben-Ahab
the traveller; and when the slaves go to fetch water, they speak of the
wonderful things he did, and how he was on the top of the wall of the
world, and saw the outside of the earth; so that his memory lives
forever among them, as one of the greatest, the wisest, and the bravest
of men.
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST.
BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
For some time after the fatal accident which deprived her of her
husband, Mrs. Bluebeard was, as may be imagined, in a state of profound
grief.
There was not a widow in all the country who went to such an expense for
black bombazine. She had her beautiful hair confined in crimped caps,
and her weepers came over her elbows. Of course, she saw no company
except her sister Anne (whose company was anything but pleasant to the
widow); as for her brothers, their odious mess-table manners had always
been disagreeable to her. What did she care for jokes about the major,
or scandal concerning the Scotch surgeon of the regiment? If they drank
their wine out of black bottles or crystal, what did it matter to her?
Their stories of the stable, the parade, and the last run with the
hounds, were perfectly odious to her; besides, she could not bear their
impertinent mustachios, and filthy habit of smoking cigars.
They were always wild, vulgar young men, at the best; but now,--_now_,
O, their presence to her delicate soul was horror! How could she bear to
look on them after what had occurred? She thought of the best of
husbands ruthlessly cut down by their cruel, heavy, cavalry sabres; the
kind friend, the generous landlord, the spotless justice of peace, in
whose family differences these rude cornets of dragoons had dared to
interfere, whose venerable blue hairs they had dragged down with sorrow
to the grave.
She put up a most splendid monument to her departed lord over the family
vault of the Bluebeards. The rector, Dr. Sly, who had been Mr.
Bluebeard's tutor at college, wrote an epitaph in the most pompous yet
pathetic Latin: "Siste, viator! moerens conjux, heu! quanto minus est
cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse"; in a word, everything that is
usually said in epitaphs. A bust of the departed saint, with Virtue
mourning over it, stood over the epitaph, surrounded by medallions of
his wives, and one of these medallions had as yet no name in it, nor
(the epitaph said) could the widow ever be consoled until her own name
was inscribed there. "For then I shall be with him. In coelo quies,"
she would say, throwing up her fine eyes to heaven, and quoting the
enormous words of the hatchment which was put up in the church, and over
Bluebeard's hall, where the butler, the housekeeper, the footman, the
housemaid, and scullions were all in the profoundest mourning. The
keeper went out to shoot birds in a crape band; nay, the very scarecrows
in the orchard and fruit garden were ordered to be dressed in black.
Sister Anne was the only person who refused to wear black. Mrs.
Bluebeard would have parted with her, but she had no other female
relative. Her father, it may be remembered by readers of the former part
of her Memoirs, had married again, and the mother-in-law and Mrs.
Bluebeard, as usual, hated each other furiously. Mrs. Shacabac had come
to the hall on a visit of condolence; but the widow was so rude to her
on the second day of the visit that the step-mother quitted the house in
a fury. As for the Bluebeards, of course _they_ hated the widow. Had not
Mr. Bluebeard settled every shilling upon her? and, having no children
by his former marriage, her property, as I leave you to fancy, was
pretty handsome. So Sister Anne was the only female relative whom Mrs.
Bluebeard would keep near her; and, as we all know, a woman _must_ have
a female relative under any circumstances of pain, or pleasure, or
profit,--when she is married, or when she is widowed, or when she is in
a delicate situation. But let us continue our story.
"I will never wear mourning for that odious wretch, sister!" Anne would
cry.
"I will trouble you, Miss Anne, not to use such words in my presence
regarding the best of husbands, or to quit the room at once!" the widow
would answer.
"I'm sure it's no great pleasure to sit in it. I wonder you don't make
use of the closet, sister, where the _other_ Mrs. Bluebeards are."
"Impertinence! they were all embalmed by M. Gannal. How dare you report
the monstrous calumnies regarding the best of men? Take down the family
Bible, and read what my blessed saint says of his wives,--read it,
written in his own hand:--
"'_Friday, June 20_.--Married my beloved wife, Anna Maria
Scrogginsia.
"'_Saturday, August 1_.--A bereaved husband has scarcely
strength to write down in this chronicle that the dearest of
wives, Anna Maria Scrogginsia, expired this day of sore throat.'
"There! can anything be more convincing than that? Read again:--
"'_Tuesday, September 1_.--This day I led to the hymeneal altar
my soul's blessing, Louisa Matilda Hopkinson. May this angel
supply the place of her I have lost!
"'_Wednesday, October 5_.--O Heavens! pity the distraction of a
wretch who is obliged to record the ruin of his dearest hopes
and affections! This day my adored Louisa Matilda Hopkinson gave
up the ghost! A complaint of the head and shoulders was the
sudden cause of the event which has rendered the unhappy
subscriber the most miserable of men.
"'BLUEBEARD.'
"Every one of the women are calendared in this delightful, this
pathetic, this truly virtuous and tender way; and can you suppose that a
man who wrote such sentiments could be a _murderer_, miss?"
"Do you mean to say that he did not _kill_ them, then?" said Anne.
"Gracious goodness, Anne, kill them! they died all as naturally as I
hope you will. My blessed husband was an angel of goodness and kindness
to them. Was it _his_ fault that the doctors could not cure their
maladies? No, that it wasn't! and when they died the inconsolable
husband had their bodies embalmed in order that on this side of the
grave he might never part from them."
"And why did he take you up in the tower, pray? And why did you send me
in such a hurry to the leads? and why did he sharpen his long knife, and
roar out to you to COME DOWN?"
"Merely to punish me for my curiosity,--the dear, good, kind, excellent
creature!" sobbed the widow, overpowered with affectionate recollections
of her lord's attentions to her.
"I wish," said Sister Anne, sulkily, "that I had not been in such a
hurry in summoning my brothers."
"Ah!" screamed Mrs. Bluebeard, with a harrowing scream, "don't,--don't
recall that horrid, fatal day, miss! If you had not misled your
brothers, my poor, dear, darling Bluebeard would still be in life,
still--still the soul's joy of his bereaved Fatima!"
Whether it is that all wives adore husbands when the latter are no more,
or whether it is that Fatima's version of the story is really the
correct one, and that the common impression against Bluebeard is an
odious prejudice, and that he no more murdered his wives than you and I
have, remains yet to be proved, and, indeed, does not much matter for
the understanding of the rest of Mrs. B.'s adventures. And though people
will say that Bluebeard's settlement of his whole fortune on his wife,
in event of survivorship, was a mere act of absurd mystification, seeing
that he was fully determined to cut her head off after the honeymoon,
yet the best test of his real intentions is the profound grief which the
widow manifested for his death, and the fact that he left her mighty
well to do in the world.
If any one were to leave you or me a fortune, my dear friend, would we
be too anxious to rake up the how and the why? Pooh! pooh! we would take
it and make no bones about it, and Mrs. Bluebeard did likewise. Her
husband's family, it is true, argued the point with her, and said,
"Madam, you must perceive that Mr. Bluebeard never intended the fortune
for you, as it was his fixed intention to chop off your head! It is
clear that he meant to leave his money to his blood relations, therefore
you ought in equity to hand it over." But she sent them all off with a
flea in their ears, as the saying is, and said, "Your argument may be a
very good one, but I will, if you please, keep the money." And she
ordered the mourning as we have before shown, and indulged in grief, and
exalted everywhere the character of the deceased. If any one would but
leave me a fortune, what a funeral and what a character I would give
him!
Bluebeard Hall is situated, as we all very well know, in a remote
country district, and, although a fine residence, is remarkably gloomy
and lonely. To the widow's susceptible mind, after the death of her
darling husband, the place became intolerable. The walk, the lawn, the
fountain, the green glades of park over which frisked the dappled deer,
all,--all recalled the memory of her beloved. It was but yesterday that,
as they roamed through the park in the calm summer evening, her
Bluebeard pointed out to the keeper the fat buck he was to kill. "Ah!"
said the widow, with tears in her fine eyes, "the artless stag was shot
down, the haunch was cut and roasted, the jelly had been prepared from
the currant-bushes in the garden that he loved, but my Bluebeard never
ate of the venison! Look, Anne sweet, pass we the old oak hall; 'tis
hung with trophies won by him in the chase, with pictures of the noble
race of Bluebeard! Look! by the fireplace there is the gig-whip, his
riding-whip, the spud with which you know he used to dig the weeds out
of the terrace-walk; in that drawer are his spurs, his whistle, his
visiting-cards, with his dear, dear name engraven upon them! There are
the bits of string that he used to cut off the parcels and keep, because
string was always useful; his button-hook, and there is the peg on which
he used to hang his h--h--_hat_!"
Uncontrollable emotions, bursts of passionate tears, would follow these
tender reminiscences of the widow; and the long and short of the matter
was, that she was determined to give up Bluebeard Hall and live
elsewhere; her love for the memory of the deceased, she said, rendered
the place too wretched.
Of course, an envious and sneering world said that she was tired of the
country, and wanted to marry again; but she little heeded its taunts;
and Anne, who hated her step-mother and could not live at home, was fain
to accompany her sister to the town where the Bluebeards have had for
many years a very large, genteel, old-fashioned house. So she went to
the town-house, where they lived and quarrelled pretty much as usual;
and though Anne often threatened to leave her, and go to a
boarding-house, of which there were plenty in the place, yet, after all,
to live with her sister, and drive out in the carriage with the footman
and coachman in mourning, and the lozenge on the panels, with the
Bluebeard and Shacabac arms quartered on it, was far more respectable,
and so the lovely sisters continued to dwell together.
* * * * *
For a lady under Mrs. Bluebeard's circumstances, the town-house has
other and peculiar advantages. Besides being an exceedingly spacious and
dismal brick building, with a dismal iron railing in front, and long,
dismal, thin windows, with little panes of glass, it looked out into the
churchyard, where, time out of mind, between two yew-trees, one of which
is cut into the form of a peacock, while the other represents a
dumb-waiter, it looked into the churchyard where the monument of the
late Bluebeard was placed over the family vault. It was the first thing
the widow saw from her bedroom window in the morning, and 'twas sweet to
watch at night, from the parlor, the pallid moonlight lighting up the
bust of the departed, and Virtue throwing great black shadows athwart
it. Polyanthuses, rhododendra, ranunculuses, and other flowers, with the
largest names and of the most delightful odors, were planted within the
little iron railing that enclosed the last resting-place of the
Bluebeards; and the beadle was instructed to half kill any little boys
who might be caught plucking these sweet testimonials of a wife's
affection.
Over the sideboard in the dining-room hung a full-length of Mr.
Bluebeard, by Ticklegill, R. A., in a militia uniform, frowning down
upon the knives and forks and silver trays. Over the mantel-piece he was
represented in a hunting costume, on his favorite horse; there was a
sticking-plaster silhouette of him in the widow's bedroom, and a
miniature in the drawing-room, where he was drawn in a gown of black and
gold, holding a gold-tasselled trencher cap with one hand, and with the
other pointing to a diagram of Pons Asinorum. This likeness was taken
when he was a fellow-commoner at St. John's College, Cambridge, and
before the growth of that blue beard which was the ornament of his
manhood, and a part of which now formed a beautiful blue neck-chain for
his bereaved wife.
Sister Anne said the town-house was even more dismal than the
country-house, for there was pure air at the Hall, and it was pleasanter
to look out on a park than on a churchyard, however fine the monuments
might be. But the widow said she was a light-minded hussy, and persisted
as usual in her lamentations and mourning. The only male whom she would
admit within her doors was the parson of the parish, who read sermons to
her; and, as his reverence was at least seventy years old, Anne, though
she might be ever so much minded to fall in love, had no opportunity to
indulge her inclination; and the town-people, scandalous as they might
be, could not find a word to say against the _liaison_ of the venerable
man and the heart-stricken widow.
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