1.15.6
“When I realized that I wasn’t cut out for trade (for women buy only from young men who are well-built and supple as a branch, taking the beauty of their faces as a good omen that they will enjoy whatever they buy from them and as as a memento of the happy day on which they made their acquaintance), and that since I’d opened the store the only thing I’d sold had been to the woman with the bulbous beezer (and that at a loss!), I decided to become a monk. I found my way to a monastery and said to its abbot, ‘I come to you disillusioned with this world and eager for the next, for this world can never assume that other’s place. The wise man is he who takes this as a metaphor for that, for were this the home that our Creator desired for us, we would live in it for eons, though in fact we see that some people are born into it and live a single day, which is evidence that it’s not what we were created for’ and similar stuff of the sort that trips off the tongues of contemplatives. The abbot saw virtue in me and accepted me, but the next day he happened to try to climb over the wall to get to the houses of certain partners and the broken end of a tree branch entered his eye and blinded him, so he returned in a fury, saying that my arrival at the monastery had brought bad luck, because for ages before I came he’d climbed that wall all the time and nothing had ever happened to him.
1.15.7
“As a result, he threw me out of the monastery, so I entered another and repeated what I’d said the first time. Its abbot accepted me, and I resided there for a few days, suffering such squalor and dirt as neither God nor man could put up with, in addition to the obduracy of the monks, the divergence of their opinions, their accusations against one another, and their constant complaints to the abbot over matters of no importance, as well as the way the latter lorded it over them, his selfishness over things that he kept for himself alone, allowing them no share in them, and their rivalry over things that women would give them, such as a handkerchief, a purse, or the drawstring from a pair of bloomers.
1.15.8
“To this you have to add the ignorance of them all, for in the whole monastery there wasn’t one who could pen an epistle on any topic. Even the abbot himself, God preserve his high degree, was incapable of writing a single line in proper Arabic, using instead the Syriac letters known as karshūnī,231 of his knowledge of which the ignoramus was so inordinately proud that he’d force everyone who entered his cell to say how wonderful they were, and even invite all and sundry to visit him, which the gullible monks thought he did out of noble morals and generosity of character. He had written a line in these letters above his door and another on his wall, and when I looked at it, I’d smile, which he, in his simplemindedness, believed was because I admired them. Other monks who, for all their ignorance, were wily swindlers (and how many a man combines ignorance and dishonesty!) would, in hope of gaining his favor, cozy up to him by telling him, as he sat there with his head lowered in modesty and submissiveness, ‘Would you be so generous, Master, as to let me have a sample of your handwriting to use as a model for my own?’ and this was one of the best ways for them to get things out of him.
1.15.9
“When, then, their company, and, above all, the awfulness of the food, became too much for me to bear, I took to grumbling and muttering. One day the monastery cook heard me complaining about how little clarified butter there was in the rice he was cooking for a high holiday. He was a ruffian and a knave and he exploded at me in anger, picking me up and putting me over his shoulder as a man might his child, though without the tenderness. Then he carried me through the passageways of the monastery and plunged me into the vat of butter, saying, ‘This is the butter with which I cook the rice that you don’t like, you schnozzle-chik, owl-chick, poor man’s portion, rascal’s scion, committer of sins great and small, emitter of a garlicky pall, poisonous wind anabatic, blood-sucking tic parasitic, insatiate, crapulate, indigestate’—and poured over me many more rhymes of this sort, the dunking in insults received by my good name exceeding the dunking my head got in the butter. After some effort, I contrived to slip out of his clutches and entered my cell to wash, and suddenly there he was again, knocking on the door and bellowing, ‘I have to squeeze your nose out, for enough butter’s got into it to keep the monks going for days!’ Then he reached for my nostrils with hands like iron pincers and set about squeezing them as hard as he could till I thought the soul (nafs) was about to about to depart, for the nose alone among the body’s orifices (and I say this in knowing contradiction of the beliefs of a certain school) is the point of entry and exit for the breath (nafas), which is why one says that a person yatanaffas (‘breathes’).232
1.15.10
“As my sufferings were too much to bear, and I could find no one in the monastery to complain to, because the monks all flattered him and made up to him so that he’d give them enough to eat, even if it were only the thurtum (which is the food or condiments left on a dish), I left the monastery, in parlous state, saddened and discouraged, the world in all its expansiveness seeming me a narrow space, and said, ‘Where am I to take this nose of mine that has blocked every avenue by which I might make a living, or where is it to take me?’ It occurred to me to head for a monastery far away, of which I had heard that its monks were righteous men and that some wrote a good Arabic hand, loved strangers, and honored their guests. So I made my way to it, and when I saluted its abbot and acquainted him with what I had resolved, he praised my opinion highly and welcomed me warmly, though he couldn’t prevent himself from gazing at me in surprise and praying for God’s protection from any ill consequences that might befall him because of my nose. So I stayed in his monastery for as long as it was God’s will that I should stay.”
CHAPTER 16: THE PRIEST’S TALE CONTINUED
1.16.1
“From the outset and for as long as I was there, I made it my concern to humor the cook, get on his good side, and praise him. He, in return, let me want for nothing that could be had in the monastery. In fact, I spent the greater part of my time in the kitchen. I was also good at cooking dishes he knew nothing of, so I taught him these, and he became exceedingly fond of me. Thus it came to pass that, when the abbot invited someone dear to him to eat with him, or had an urge to eat a certain kind of food on his own, the cook would charge me with preparing it. Because I was as meticulous as possible in doing so, I ended up in his good graces, meaning that I’d sit with him in the evenings and keep him company, acquiring in this way a reputation for righteousness and piety among the monks. I pulled my hood down till it reached the bridge of my nose — and would that custom had allowed it to cover the nose entirely! — and when I walked I kept my head bent toward the ground and cast only brief glances to right and left, and when I ate, drank, slept, walked, or washed my face, I made mention of all of those things, thanking and praising God as I did so. Thus I would say, for example, ‘Today I left my cell, praise be to God!’ or ‘To God be glory!’ (the latter being the monks’ preferred form), or ‘This morning I took a laxative, may this find favor in God’s eyes!’ and other stuff that those who make a show of piety are known to say. Thus the monks ended up believing that I was full of righteousness and virtue. I’d also written out a few hymns in bad Arabic for the abbot, who admired and praised me for my hand, promising to promote me to a rank worthy of me, for he believed I was distinguished from the rest of the monks by my learning and excellence of judgment, a faculty he attributed to my being ghaydār (meaning ‘a suspicious person who ponders a matter and then comes up with a correct interpretation’).