“Maybe a palace would be better?” inquired the merchant with a faint hope, clinging again to the hookah, intending to suck out of it a dream more attractive than the tedious unskilful djinni. “A small one, at least?!”
Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid was astonished: “What do you need a palace for? I suggest you the best thing a mortal man can dream of: a straight way to paradise! And yet you are obstinate.”
“All right, all right, let it be paradise. Now leave me alone.”
“As you wish, my saviour,” agreed the djinni obediently and disappeared.
Jammal sighed with relief. The vague contours of houries with round thighs already began appearing around him, there was heard sweet music – and the merchant could at last indulge himself with his habitual visions where there was no place for a djinni named Conscience.
In the morning, naturally, there was no djinni to be found in the house. After a nourishing breakfast and the indispensable coffee that Rubike, forgiven, poured for him from a long-spouted coffee-pot, Jammal went to his shop. There he found a cachectic youth peering at the displayed fabrics. It seemed the client was wealthy. Having shoved back his eldest son who was awaiting at the counter, Jammal hurried himself to the youth, who was dressed up in a peacock-coloured caftan. “What does the dear guest desire? Baghdad velvet? Bukhara brocade? Hamelin broadcloth? Saxon wool? Or maybe -” Jammal winked to the youth confidentially, “– real tussah straight from China? Yes, I see: precisely the tussah! An excellent choice! It’s immediately obvious you’re an expert. Look at it yourself: what a design! What cloth! Oh, do touch it – it won’t wear out, trust me! Why, what am I telling you this for? You understand it better than I do! Crumple it, don’t be afraid, you see: not a wrinkle, not a crease! And now try to tear it. Don’t be afraid, my dear! Aha! What are you asking? The price? Honestly, it’s laughable to tell. For you it is only...” Jammal instantly made brief calculations in his mind and named a number that any really experienced man would consider hair-raising. Yet the young fool, enchanted with the shop-owner’s eloquence and proud beyond measure of the title of “expert”, decided not to bargain. “How much of this excellent tussah have you got?” inquired the “expert” with an air of importance. Jammal’s delight was his answer. “Oh, I understand you! Of course, you’re a considerable man, you buy wholesale. Unfortunately, only eleven packs have remained. The rest was sold out right away. I understand – eleven packs is a trifle for you, but if you take all of them I’ll give you a great discount!”
The youth was pondering, trying to calculate how much eleven packs would cost him. The merchant was waiting with bated breath – but at that moment from a distant corner there was heard a reproaching voice, vaguely familiar to Jammaclass="underline" “Aren’t you ashamed, my saviour? And you have said you have conscience!”
The merchant nearly jumped up where he stood. He turned abruptly to the voice: it couldn’t be! The djinni was back! Here he was hanging between the shelves of the Hamelin broadcloth and the Baghdad velvet. Jammal pinched himself on the hand, just in case. The customer, bewildered, watched the behaviour of the shop-owner, even followed his glance, but apparently didn’t notice anything extraordinary.
“Who charges such exorbitant prices?” Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid continued meanwhile to shame the merchant. “Were the wares good, at least...”
“Don’t you talk nonsense!” the merchant got insulted. “My wares are good! My wares are the best!”
“Upon my word, I haven’t said anything! Your wares are excellent!..” prattled the scared youth, being sure that the merchant’s angry speech was addressed to him.
Meanwhile the djinni became seriously enraged: “This you may tell to the great-aunt of the sultan Machmud! She’s senile, maybe she’ll believe you! No, my dear, you can’t deceive your conscience. Do you hope this wealthy duffer will buy rotten fabrics in your shop, leave the city and will never appear here again? While your praised tussah will fall apart within a couple of months. There’s only one good pack left, the one on the counter. The rest rots little by little – and all because of your greed.”
“What do you mean – fall apart?!” Jammal, at first taken aback under the djinni’s pressure, came to himself at last. “My tussah?! May you choke on your slander, son of Iblis! Why, I’m working by the sweat of my brow, don’t even sleep at night – and suddenly some nobody comes, Allah curse him, and declares in front of honest people that my tussah...”
The youth had already disappeared from the shop. It’s not known what he had thought about the shop-owner, but when the merchant had exhausted his eloquence he found out that the customer had escaped. And Jammal’s own son was looking at his father in fear, hiding under the counter. As a result the merchant nearly tried to beat the djinni up: such a bargain had failed!
When would such a chance occur again?!
“Well, never!” Stagnash Abd-al-Rashid hurried to reassure him joyfully. “Tell me, how can your conscience allow you to cheat people? By no means. In short, you’ll be a righteous man. For a start – just an honest one.”
Imagining such prospects, the merchant became gloomier than a clay fence, and the djinni hurried to console his saviour: “Don’t you be upset! Do you know how good and nice it is to be honest? You just haven’t tried it yet! Remember my word – tonight you’ll sleep quietly, and your conscience (that is, me) will not torment you! Grieve? My dear, you should rejoice!”
... Throughout the night Jammal was turning from side to side, unable to sleep; he was depressed because of the failed bargain, cursed in his mind the vile djinni with the foulest of words and gritted his teeth. He fell asleep only towards the morning, but even in this pitiful scrap of the night he was tormented by nightmares. He dreamt that he became a wandering dervish-kalandar and gave all his property to the poor. The merchant woke up at daybreak in cold sweat, determined to behave as if the djinni didn’t exist. Maybe he would stop nagging!
Nothing of that sort. Now the djinni followed him persistently, incessantly reminding of his presence. In the shop. At the market. In the street. Abd-al-Rashid even started demanding from Jammal to give charity to every beggar he met. He might have gotten absolutely crazy: it was pure squandering! Only once he remained silent – when the merchant, driven to despair by the reproaches of the self-proclaimed Conscience, decided at last to throw a coin to a one-legged beggar sitting at the market gates. Jammal, who had gotten used to reproaches, stopped, glanced with a secret hope over his left shoulder where would usually loom Abd-al-Rashid. Maybe the damned djinni had finally left him in peace?
Yet his Conscience was found in the usual place.
“This one you may not give charity,” informed the djinni impassively, answering the mute question. “He is a fraud and a trickster. Both his legs are whole. Alas, he lacks conscience...”
“So you may go to him!” the merchant was enraged. “Or to a city qadi[6] ! Do you know what bribes he takes?! Why have you stuck to poor me?!”