XIV
Itmi’nán al-Nafs, or “The Peace of the Soul”
“We had arrived,” said the excellent old merchant to his nephews when they were once more seated round him for the last of these entertaining relations. “We had arrived, my dear boys, in the story of my life, at my considerable increase of fortune through the financial aid I had given to two states, one of which after a long and exhaustive war had conquered and annexed the other.
“My position (if you recollect) at the close of this adventure was that without having spent any money of my own I was now receiving permanently and forever a very large yearly revenue set aside from the taxes of both states.
“Not a man reaped or dug or carried heavy water jars under the hot sun, not a man groomed a horse or bent under the weight of a pack, not a man added brick to brick or mixed mortar, not a man did any useful act from one end of the state to the other, but some part of his toil was done for me, and this state of affairs was, as I have said, as fixed and permanent as human things can be.
“I was therefore what even financiers call well-to-do; one way with another I was now worth perhaps twenty million pieces of gold: but that is but guess work, it may have been twenty-five.
“You might imagine that I would have been content from that day onwards to repose in my opulence.
“I might well have been tempted to do so, for to that opulence was added a singular and fervid popularity. I was alluded to in public and private as the man who had saved the state by his financial genius during the Great War. Even the conquered remembered me gratefully for the aid I had extended to them in their need; while since I could not satisfy my personal desires without at least feeding a great host of dancers, bearers, artists, my kindness in affording employment was universally recognized; moreover (since among these people wealth is a test of greatness) I was admitted to their senate without the usual formality of a cash payment.
“The world was now indeed at my feet. But you must know,” continued Mahmoud with something of sadness in his voice, “you must know, my dear, innocent lads, that wealth will not stop still. The mere administration of a great fortune tends to increase it, and when one has for years found one’s occupation in the accumulation of money, it is difficult in middle age to abandon the rooted habit. Therefore, though I now had all that life could give me, I proceeded henceforward for many years to increase that substance with which the Mercy of Allah had provided me; and I discovered at the outset of this new career that to be the financier I had become, and to have behind me the resources which I now possessed, made my further successes a matter not of hazard but of certitude. Shall I briefly tell you the various ways in which my efforts proceeded?”
“Pray, pray do so,” said his little nephews with sparkling eyes, each imagining himself in the dazzling position of his wealthy relative.
“Very well,” sighed Mahmond. “It will be of little use to any of you; but if it does no more than confirm you in your religion what I have to tell you will not have been told in vain.”
The merchant was silent for a moment, and then began the category of his financial proceedings:
“Neighbouring states which had heard of the powerful new methods I had introduced would approach me from time to time for financial assistance. To these I made the same invariable reply, that upon certain terms, which I myself would fix, I was content to ‘float their loans’; that is, the rich men of their country (or of any other) should pay into my office the sums they were prepared to lend to such a state, and I would pay back a part, but not the whole, of the amount so accumulated to the state in question. The enormous service I rendered by allowing my office to be used for this transaction was everywhere recognized, and by such operations my fortunes proceeded to grow.
“It was at this moment in my career that I married my wife, your dear aunt, who generally resides, as you know, in that one of my country palaces called Dar-al-Beida on the banks of the Tigris some four days’ journey from here. It is a delightful spot which I remember well though I have not seen it for years. … Some day, perhaps, I will visit it again, but not to sleep.
“Your dear aunt was, and is, my boys, a most remarkable woman: fit to compete with the master spirits of our time: yea! even with my own.
“Her birth—I need not conceal it—was humble. She was but a chance hireling in my offices, with the duty of sorting my papers and keeping indices of the same.
“Such was her interest in affairs that she was at the pains to take copies and tracings of many particularly private and important passages with her own hand, and keep these by her in a private place. I was struck beyond measure at such industry and preoccupation with business on the part of a woman (and one so poor!). I conceived an ardent desire to possess these specimens of her skill; but—to my astonishment, and (at first) confusion—she humbly replied that a profound though secret affection which she had conceived for me forbade her to part with these precious souvenirs of myself. I was so absorbed in their pursuit that, rather than lose them, I married this queen of finance—recognizing in her an equal genius with my own. Our wedding was of the simplest. I took comfort from the consideration that it proved me superior to all the nobles of the court and indifferent to an alliance with their families.
“Immediately after the wedding my wife, your dear aunt, asked me for money wherewith to travel, a request I readily granted. She traversed for her pleasure I knew not what foreign lands, always, and gladly, furnished with the wherewithal from my cash box; but on my returning later to Baghdad, my native place, she unexpectedly appeared at my door, and I was happy to build for her that country Palace of Dar-al-Beida to the charm of which I have alluded. Unfortunately its air suits me ill, while she (your dear aunt) suffocates in the atmosphere of Baghdad. It is often thus in old age. …”
Mahmoud mused and continued:
“But let us return to my further activities in that far land:
“I next designed a scheme whereby every form of human misfortune, fire, disease, paralysis, madness, and the rest, might be alleviated to the sufferer by the payment of regular sums of money upon the advent of the disaster; weekly sums for his support if he were rendered infirm or ill, a lump sum to replace whatever he might have totally lost, and so forth. A short and easy survey of the average number of times in which such accidents took place permitted me to establish my system. I charged for 100 dinars worth of such insurance 110 dinars, and my benevolence was praised even more highly than my ingenuity.
“Men flocked in thousands, and at last in millions, to secure themselves from the uncertainty of human life by giving me of their free will more money in regular payments than I could by any accident be compelled to pay out to any one of them upon his reaching old age, his suffering from fire, or his contraction of an illness. Nay, death itself at last entered into this design, and having found that young men just of age live upon the average for forty years, I asked them to pay for their heirs annual sums calculated as though that period were thirty, and thus I continued to accumulate wealth from a perennial source.”
“But why,” began one of his nephews excitedly. …
“Why what?” asked his uncle, severely.
“Why,” said the poor lad, a little abashed by his uncle’s tone, “why did they pay you more for a thing than it was worth?”
Mahmoud stroked his long white beard and looked up sideways towards the highly decorated vault of the gorgeous apartment. He remained thus plunged in thought for perhaps thirty seconds, and when he broke the silence it was to say that he did not know. “But no matter—” he added hurriedly. “I paid for a law which compelled all slaves to insure and so was certain of a fixed revenue in this kind.
“And I had many other resources,” he continued cheerily. “If those who had made many such regular payments to me to insure against death, old age, disease, and the rest, happened to fall into an embarrassed condition and to need a loan, I was always ready to advance them their own money again at interest, or did I ever find them unwilling to subscribe the bond. Further I urged and tempted many to fall into arrears and so possessed myself of all they had paid in. The vast sums paid to me in these various fashions were sometimes too great for investment within the state, and I had to look further afield. But here again by the Mercy of Allah suggestions of the most lucrative sort perpetually occurred to my religious soul.
“Not infrequently I would lay out a million or two in the purchase of a great estate situated at some distance which, when I had acquired it, I would declare to be packed with gold, silver, diamonds, copper, salt, and china clay beneath the earth, and on its surface loaded with red pepper and other most precious fruits. I have no doubt these estates were often of a promising nature, though travellers have assured me that some were mere desert; in one case, to my certain knowledge, the estate did not even exist. But it really mattered little whether I spoke truly or falsely with regard to such ventures, for my method of dealing with them made them, whether they were of trifling value or of more, invariably profitable to many besides myself and a blessing to the whole state.”
“But uncle,” interjected another nephew, “how could that be?”
“You will easily see,” said Mahmoud with a pitying smile, “when you hear the sequel. I was not so selfish as to retain these properties in my own hands. I would offer them to the public for sale, and being in a position to pay many poets, scribes, and public story tellers who should make general the praises of the estates in question, an active competition among many thousands would arise to become part purchasers. In the presence of this competition the price of a share, or part property, would rise; those who had bought early would sell later to others at a profit, and these to others again at a further profit still; an active buying and selling of these part properties in my ventures thus became a fixed habit in the intelligent people of the place, and those who were left ultimately the possessors of the actual estates in question, whether real or imaginary, were only the more foolish and ignorant of the population. Their agonized denouncement of my judgment (as they wandered from one to another attempting to dispose of their bad bargains) was, of course, treated with contempt by the run of able men who remembered the profits of the share market at the inception of the business. On this account it was possible for me to continue indefinitely to present for sale to the public every species of venture which I might feel inclined to put before them: the intelligent and successful were ever my applauders; the unfortunate and despised alone decried me. And these were, on account of my operations, so poor, and therefore of so little significance in the state, that I rarely thought it worth while to pay the authorities for their imprisonment or death.
“Within ten years there were no bounds to my possessions. It was currently said that I myself had no conception of their magnitude, and I admit this was true. From time to time I would pay enormous sums to endow a place of learning, to benefit the Ministers of my own Religion (and its antagonists), or to propagate by means of an army of public criers some insignificant opinion peculiar to myself or my wife, your dear aunt—whose strong views upon the wearing of green turbans by Hadjis and the illumination of the Koran in red ink are doubtless familiar to you.
“I would also put up vast buildings to house the aged indigent whose name began with an A, or others wherein could be set to useful labour the aged indigent who were blind of one eye.
“I erected, endowed and staffed an immense establishment, standing in its own park-like grounds, wherein was taught and proved the true doctrine that gold and silver are but dross and that learning is the sole good; and yet others in which it was proved with equal certitude that learning, like all mundane things, is dust and only an exact knowledge of the Sacred Text worth having. But the professors of this last science demanded double pay, urging (with sense, I thought) first that any fool could talk at large but that it took hard work to study manuscripts; second that only half a dozen men knew the documents exhaustively and that if they were underrated they would stand aside and wreck the enterprise with their savage critiques.
“Meanwhile I devised in my leisure time an amusing instrument of gain called ‘The cream separator.’ I paid my wretched sultan and his court for a law, to be imposed, compelling all men, under pain of torture, to reveal their revenues from farming or any other reputable trade, but taking no account of gambling and juggling as being unimportant and too difficult to follow. I next paid another sum to the writers and spouters and other starvelings to denounce all who objected. For less than double this sum I brought a new law which swept away all the surplus of the better farmers and other reputable men into a general fund and paid out their cruel loss, partly in little doles to the very poor, but partly also (for fair play’s a jewel) in added stipends to the very rich with posts at court: the lord high conjurer I especially favoured. Thus did I establish a firm friendship with the masses and with their governors and, I am glad to say, destroyed the middle sort who are a very dull, greasy, humdrum lot at the best, rightly detested by their betters as apes and by their inferiors as immediate masters.
“And on all this I took my little commission. …
“My children! … My children! …” ended the old man, his eyes now full of frigid tears, “I had attained the summit of human life. I had all … and there descended upon me what wealth—supreme wealth—alone can give: the strong peace of the soul.”
His tears now flowed freely, and his nephews were touched beyond measure to see such emotion in one so great.
“It is,” he continued (with difficulty from his rising emotion), “it is wealth and wealth alone, wealth superior to all surrounding wealth, that can procure for man that equal vision of the world, that immense tolerance of evil, that unfailing hope for the morrow, and that profound content which furnish for the heart of man its resting place.”
Here the millionaire frankly broke down. He covered his face in his hands and his sobs were echoed by those of his respectful nephews, with the exception of the third with whom they degenerated into hiccups.
Mahmoud raised his strong, old, tear-stained features, dried his eyes and asked them (since his tale was now done) whether they had any questions to ask.
After a long interval the eldest spoke:
“Oh! My revered uncle,” said he, in an awe struck voice, “if I may make so bold … why did you leave this place of your power and return to Baghdad?”
His uncle was silent for a space and then replied in slow and measured words:
“It was in this wise. A sort of moral distemper—a mysterious inward plague—struck the people among whom I dwelt. The poor, in spite of their increased doles, seemed to grow mysteriously disinclined for work. The rich—and especially those in power—fell (I know not why!) into habits of self-indulgence. The middle class, whom I had so justly destroyed, were filled in their ruin with a vile spite and rancour. As they still commanded some remaining power of expression by pen and voice they added to the great ill ease. One evening an awful thing happened. A large pebble—one may almost call it a stone—was flung through the open lattice of my banqueting room and narrowly missed the deputy head controller who stood behind the couch where I reclined at the head of my guests.
“It was a warning from Heaven. Next day I began with infinite precautions to realize. I knew that, for some hidden reason, the country was poisoned. Parcel by parcel, lot by lot, I disposed of my lands, my shares in enterprises, my documents of mortgage and loan. By messengers I transferred this wealth to purchases in the plains about Baghdad, my native place; on the Tigris; Bonds upon the Houses of Mosul and mills on the farm colonies of the Persian hills: In promises to pay signed by the caliph and in the admitted obligations of the Lords of Bosra and the Euphrates.
“An Inner Voice said to me, ‘Mahmoud, you have achieved the peace of the soul. Do not risk it longer here.’ …
“When all my vast fortune was so transferred to Mesopotamia, I went down by a month’s journey to the seacoast, took ship, and sailed up the gulf for the home of my childhood. …
“I was but just in time! Within a week of my departure an insolent message was received by the sultan of my former habitation from the Robber King of the Hills demanding tribute. In vain did the unfortunate man plead his progress in the arts, his magnificent national debt, the high wages of his artisans and their happy leisure, the refinement and luxury of his nobles—not even their hot baths and their change of clothes three times a day could save them! The cruel barbarian conqueror overran the whole place, sacked the capital, confiscated the land, annulled all deeds, imposed a fearful tribute, and had I left one copper coin in the country (which happily I had not), it would have been lost to me forever.
“But by the time these dreadful things were taking place I was safe here in Baghdad—it was about the time the eldest of you was born. I purchased this site, built the palace where you do me the honour of attending me (and also that of Dar-al-Beida for my wife, your dear aunt, four days away) and have now lived serenely into old age, praising and blessing God.
“My dear nephews, I have no more to tell. You have now heard how industry in itself is nothing if it is not guided and sustained by Providence, but you have doubtless also perceived that the best fortune which Heaven” (here the old man bowed his head reverently) “can bestow upon a mortal is useless indeed unless he supplement its grace by his own energy and self-discipline. I must warn you in closing that any efforts of your own to tread in the path I have described would very probably end in your suffering upon the market place of the city that ignominious death which furnishes in the public executions such entertainment to the vulgar. If, indeed, you can pass the first stages of your career without suffering anything more fatal than the bastinado you might reach at last some such great position as I occupy. Indeed,” mused the kindly old man, “Hareb, my junior partner, and Muktahr, whom you have heard called ‘The Camel King,’ have each been bastinadoed most severely in the past, when their operations were upon a smaller scale. … But we are content to forget such things.
“I have no more to tell you. Work as hard as you possibly can, live soberly and most minutely by rule, and so long as any dregs of strength remain to you struggle to retain some small part of the product of your labour for the support of yourselves and your families. The rest will, in the natural course of things, find its way into the hands of men like myself. … And now depart with my benediction. But, stay,” he said, as though a thought had struck him, “I cannot let you go without a little present for each.”
So saying, the kindly old man went to a cup board of beautiful inlaid work, and drawing from it seven dried figs in the last stages of aridity and emaciation, he presented one to each of his nephews, who received the gift with transports of gratitude and affection.
Just as they were about to take their leave the youngest boy (a child, it will be remembered, of but tender years), approached his uncle with a beautiful mixture of humility and love, and bringing out a paper which he had secreted in the folds of his tunic, begged the merchant to sign his name in it and date it too, as a souvenir of these delightful mornings.
“With all my heart, my little fellow,” said Mahmoud, patting him upon the head and reflecting that such good deeds cost nothing and are their own regard.
This done, the boys departed.
Next morning, on Mahmoud sending a slave to his cashier for the sum required to pay a band of Kurdish Torturers whom he desired to hire for his debtors’ prison, he was annoyed to receive the reply that there was no cash immediately available, a large draft signed by him having been presented that very morning and duly honoured. As the sum was considerable, and as the payment had been made but a few moments before, the cashier begged his master to wait for half an hour or so until more metal could be procured from a neighbouring deposit.
It was in vain that Mahmoud searched his memory for the signature of any such instrument. He was puzzled and suspected a forgery. At last he determined that the paper should be sent for and put before him. There, sure enough was his signature; but the sum of 20,000 dinars therein mentioned was in another and most childish hand. Then did it suddenly break upon the great captain of industry that the tiny child, his youngest nephew, who had asked for his autograph as a souvenir, was not wholly unworthy of the blood which he had collaterally inherited. … He wrote to the boy’s father and secured the little fellow’s services as office-boy at nothing-a-week. He watched his developing talent, and was not disappointed. Long before the lad was full grown he had got every clerk of the great business house into his debt and had successfully transferred to his own secret hiding-place the savings of the porter, the carrier and the aged widow who cleaned the place of a morning. By his seventeenth year he had brought off a deal in fugitive slaves, taking equal amounts from the culprits for hiding and from the masters for betraying them. By his eighteenth he had control of a public bath where clients were watched by spies and thus furnished a source of ample revenue. Before he was of age he had astonished and delighted his now more than octogenarian uncle by selling him, under a false name and through a man of straw, a ship due to arrive at Bosra, but, as a fact, sunk off Bushire five days before.
In every way he showed himself worthy of his uncle’s confirmed reliance on his commercial prowess. When the lad came of age, the venerable Mahmoud gave a feast of unexampled splendour which foreshadowed his intentions.
For, indeed, but a month later, the old man began to fail, and in a few weeks more was warned by his physicians of approaching death. He summoned scribes to his bed, dictated in a firm voice his Will, wherein (after reciting provision already made—under heavy pressure—for his wife) he left to the youngest nephew the whole of his wealth, saying with his last breath, “Allah! Creator and Lord! Lest the Talent should fall into unworthy hands!”