“‘Wait, mullah!’ our Hodja Nasreddin replied. ‘I know your third piece of wisdom ahead of time. You wish to tell me by the gates of your house than a smart man can always make a fool carry his sack of gourds for free.’
“The astonished mullah shrank back. Hodja Nasreddin had guessed his third piece of wisdom word for word.
“‘But listen now, mullah, to my single piece of wisdom which is worth more than all of yours combined,’ Hodja Nasreddin continued. ‘And my wisdom, I swear by Muhammad, is so dazzling and so deep that it incorporates all of Islam along with the Koran, Sharia, the book of Tariqah, and all other books, as well as the entire Buddhist faith, and the entire Judean faith, and all the Christian delusions. There is none, there has never been, and there will never be a piece of wisdom more authentic than the one I will now tell you, o mullah! But you must ready yourself so that this wisdom does not shock you too greatly, for it is so astonishing, dazzling, and immense, it can make you lose your mind. Prepare your mind, mullah, and listen: if someone tells you that these gourds are not smashed, spit in that man’s face, call him a liar, and banish him from your house!’
“With these words, Hodja Nasreddin picked up the sack and tossed it off the steep precipice.
“The gourds poured from the sack, jumping and breaking loudly as they hit the stones.
“‘O woe to me! O great loss and ruin!’ the mullah shouted.
“And he began to shout, lament, and claw at his face, truly resembling a madman in his behavior.
“‘You see?’ Hodja Nasreddin spoke instructively. ‘I warned you that you may well lose your mind from my wisdom!’”
The listeners burst out in cheerful laughter.
As he lay in the corner on the dusty, flea-ridden mat, Hodja Nasreddin thought:
“They found this out too! But how? There were only two of us over that precipice, and I haven’t told anyone.
“The mullah probably told the story himself, having guessed afterwards who was carrying his gourds.”
A third storyteller began:
“Once, Hodja Nasreddin was returning from the city to a Turkish village where he was living at the time; feeling weary, he lay down by the riverbank and, as the fragrant breath of the spring breeze washed over him, he fell asleep without noticing it. And he dreamed that he had died. ‘If I am dead,’ our Hodja Nasreddin decided silently, ‘then I should lie still and not open my eyes.’ Thus he lay without movement for a long time on the soft grass, and he found that being dead was not so bad: you can lie around all you want, free from any troubles or cares that plague us incessantly in our fleeting earthly existence.
“Some travelers were passing by and saw Hodja Nasreddin.
“‘Look!’ said one. ‘He is a Muslim.’
“‘He’s dead,’ added another.
“‘We should carry him to the nearest village, so that he may be washed and buried in dignity,’ a third suggested, naming the very village where Hodja Nasreddin had been headed.
“The travelers cut down several young trees, fashioned a pair of stretchers, and loaded Hodja Nasreddin on them.
“They carried him for a long time, while he lay still, without opening his eyes, as befits a dead man whose soul is already knocking on heaven’s gate.
“Suddenly, the stretchers stopped. The travelers began to argue as to the best place to ford the river. One pointed to the right, another to the left, the third suggested crossing the river straight ahead.
“Hodja Nasreddin opened one eye ever so slightly and saw that the travelers were standing over the deepest, quickest, and most dangerous part of the river, where many a careless man had drowned. ‘I need not worry for myself,’ Hodja Nasreddin thought. ‘I am dead anyway, and it makes no difference to me whether I lie in a grave or at the bottom of the river. But these travelers ought to be warned, or else they might lose their lives for their kindness to me, which would be quite ungrateful on my part.’
“He raised himself slightly on the stretchers, and, pointing towards the ford, said in a weak voice:
“‘O travelers, when I was alive, I always crossed the river by those poplars over there.’
“And he closed his eyes again. Thanking Hodja Nasreddin for his advice, the travelers carried the stretchers onwards, pronouncing loud prayers for the salvation of his soul.” While the listeners and the storyteller himself were laughing and jabbing each other with their elbows, Hodja Nasreddin muttered discontentedly:
“They garbled everything. Firstly, I never dreamed that I was dead. I’m not such a fool that I cannot tell if I am dead or alive. I can even remember clearly that a flea was biting me the entire time, and I desperately wished to scratch myself – I expect this proved quite clearly that I was really alive, for, in the opposite case, I would certainly not have felt the bites of the flea. I was simply tired and did not wish to walk further, while those travelers were hefty fellows: was it such a big deal for them to make a small detour and carry me to the village? But when they decided to cross the river where the depth was thrice the height of a man, I stopped them, worrying not so much for my family, since I do not have one, as for their families. And immediately, I tasted the bitter fruit of ingratitude: they tossed me from the stretchers and went at me with their fists – they would surely have given me quite a beating, were it not for the swiftness of my legs!… It is amazing how people can distort and garble what really happened.”
In the meantime, a fourth man began his tale:
“They also say this of Hodja Nasreddin. Hodja Nasreddin lived for around half a year in a certain village and became quite popular among the villagers with the wit of his replies and the sharpness of his mind…”
Hodja Nasreddin pricked up his ears. Where had he heard that voice before – quiet but distinct, with a barely noticeable hoarseness? It was not long ago… Maybe even today… But no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember.
The storyteller continued:
“One day, the governor of the area sent one of his elephants to the village where Hodja Nasreddin lived for billeting and feeding by the villagers. The elephant was incredibly voracious. Every day, he consumed fifty measures of barley, fifty measures of jugara, fifty measures of corn, and a hundred sheaves of clover. In two weeks, the villagers had fed the elephant all their reserves, ruined themselves, and lost heart. Finally, they decided to send Hodja Nasreddin to the governor himself to ask that the elephant be removed from the village…
“And so they went to Hodja Nasreddin and began to plead with him. He agreed and mounted his donkey, whose stubbornness, depravity, and laziness, as the entire world knows, make him resemble a jackal, a spider, an asp, and a toad in one combined – and headed to the governor, remembering first to negotiate a payment for his services with the villagers, and this payment was so large that many had to sell their houses and were doomed to poverty thanks to Hodja Nasreddin.”
“Ahem!” came from the corner. Hodja Nasreddin, turning and jumping on the mat, could barely conceal the rage boiling in his chest.
The storyteller continued:
“And he, Hodja Nasreddin, came to the palace, and stood for a long time in the crowd of servants and flunkies, waiting for when the luminous governor, shining with splendor and might like the sun itself, would deign to direct to Hodja Nasreddin his illustrious gaze, which dispenses joy to some and doom to others. And when the governor, who glittered among the people surrounding him like the silver moon among the stars, or the slender cypress among lowly shrubbery, deigned to gratify Hodja Nasreddin by showing his visage, which combined nobility and wisdom like a diamond and a ruby set in a single ring… when, I repeat, the governor directed his visage towards Hodja Nasreddin, the knees of the latter began to shake like a jackal’s tail from fear and wonderment at such magnificence, blood froze in his veins, sweat emerged on his skin, and he became pale as chalk.”