2.3.11
Thereafter, the reign of the pig grew mightier and yet greater, and the Fāriyāq’s intestines grew lean and shriveled up, and he’d go the whole day on bread and cheese. Then he heard that the city’s bread was kneaded by foot, but by the feet of men, not of women, so he took to eating as little of it as he could, until emaciation reduced him to a pitiful state, his molars become rusty so little he ate, and two of them fell out, one on each side — which was hunger’s first act of evenhandedness on the face of this earth, since if both of them had fallen from the same side, one would have become heavier and the other lighter, and the movements of his body would have become unbalanced.
2.3.12
As to the city, one coming to it from the lands of the east will find it handsome and mighty and one coming to it from the lands of the Franks will disdain it and regard it as paltry. Two classes of things most moved the Fāriyāq to wonder: the priests and the women. As for the priests, there are so many of them that you find the markets and parks swarming with them. They wear three-cornered hats on their heads that do not look like the hats of the Market-men of the Levant, and they wear drawers that are more like breeches, for they reach only to the knee, while their shanks are clothed with black hose. It seems that the island is a mighty place, for all the priests on it are well-fed and fat. It is also the custom there for the priests and other great men and good to shave their mustaches and beards. The priests specifically however have to wear short, form-fitting drawers, and the beholder can make out what is beneath them.
2.3.13
As to their women, what surprised the Fāriyāq was the difference of their dress from that of the rest of the women of the Levantine and Frankish lands, and the fact that many have mustaches and short beards, which they neither shave nor pluck, and I have heard that many Franks are attracted to mannish women, so perhaps this strange fact may have reached their ears too (and how could it not, when men’s fancies are no secret to women?). Beauty is extremely rare among them, and their docility toward their priests is strange. A woman will sometimes favor her priest over her husband, her children, and the rest of her family. It is inconceivable for her to partake of some special dish until she has given him the first taste, and she will eat only after he has eaten.
2.3.14
I was told about a married Market-woman, meaning one belonging to the party of the Market Boss, who saw a handsome Bag-man, and, deciding it was a pity he should be theirs, said, “If that man enters our church, it will grow in sparkle and allure.” She therefore sent an old woman to him to invite him to visit her, and the young man obeyed her invitation, for the enmity between the Market-men and the Bag-men is limited to the market traders, the people who connive to drive up prices, and the professionals, and has no impact on ordinary men and women. She talked to him at length and eventually told him, “If you follow our path, I will give you the freedom of my body and forbid you nothing.” The young man replied, “As to going to your church, nothing could be easier for me, for it is close to my house, and as to your creed, leave that to my conscience, for I reject that ‘confession’ that the priests of your church force on you. Lying and cheating are not in my nature that I should confess to the priest my peccadilloes and suppress my major transgressions, as do many Market-men, or tell him what I haven’t done and hide from him what I have.” At this the woman sighed and bowed her head, pondering and nodding. Then she said, “So be it. It will be enough for us if you conform outwardly, or so my priest informs me.” Then they embraced and made love, and he started paying visits to her and the church together. Even wantons on this island are obsessed with religion, and you’ll see in their houses numerous statues and pictures of the saints, male and female, whom they worship, and when some lecher goes in to see one of them and perform debauchery with her, she turns the faces of the statuettes toward the wall so they can’t see what she’s doing and testify against her on the Day of Resurrection that she was a debauchee.
2.3.15
It is a curious fact about the people of this island that they hate strangers but love their money, which is odd, for a person’s money is an expression of his life, his blood, and his very self, to the extent that the British, when asking how much money a person possesses, say, “How much is the man worth?” to which the response may be, for example, “He’s worth a thousand in gold.” How can it occur to anyone to hate another and yet love his life? They contend with one another, too, over every stranger who comes their way. Thus, one will take his right hand to show him the women, another his other hand to show him the churches, and the winner takes all.
2.3.16
Another curious thing about them is that they speak a language so filthy, dirty, and rotten that the speaker’s mouth gives off a bad smell as soon as he opens it. The men and the women are alike in this. If you sniff at a beautiful woman who is silent, you’ll find yourself intoxicated by a delicious scent, but if she utters a word, it’s transformed into halitosis. Another is that if one of the women is afflicted with a disease in one of her limbs, she will go to a jeweler and tell him to make her a likeness of that limb out of silver or gold and give it to the church; a woman who is not well-off will make it of wax or the like. Another: the shaving of beards and mustaches is deplored and the shaving of everything else is forbidden, to the degree that the priests ask the women insistently during confession about the two issues of hair plucking and shaving and urge them to guard against committing any such acts. Also: the people of the church have a custom of taking, on certain specified days, the figures and statues, heavy and bulky as they are, from the churches and lifting them onto the shoulders of religious zealots who run through the streets with them making a lot of noise. Stranger still, they light candles before them, at a time when anyone else would want to take refuge in a cave under the ground from the excessive heat of the sun.