He stood waiting for the sage’s objections and preparing a worthy reply. But the sage did not accept his challenge. He remained silent. Although he strongly suspected Hodja Nasreddin of fraud and ignorance, suspicion is not the same as certainty, and mistakes can be made, whereas the sage knew of his own extreme ignorance with utter certainty and did not dare argue. As a result, his attempt to disgrace the newcomer caused the reverse. The courtiers hissed at the sage, and he signaled with his eyes that the opponent was too dangerous to challenge in the open.
None of this escaped Hodja Nasreddin’s attention, of course. “Just you wait!” he thought. “I’ll show all of you!”
The emir sank into deep thought. No one moved a muscle, afraid to disturb him.
“If you have named and designated all the stars correctly, Hussein Huslia,” the emir said, “then your interpretation is indeed valid. We only cannot understand why the two stars Al-Sharatan, signifying horns, ended up in our horoscope. You have truly arrived in time, Hussein Huslia! Just this morning, a girl was brought into our harem, and we were going to…”
Hodja Nasreddin threw up his arms in mock terror.
“Banish her from your thoughts, luminous emir, banish her!” he cried, as if forgetting that the emir could not be addressed directly, but only indirectly, in third person. He decided that this breach of rules, which was seemingly caused by extreme emotional upheaval stemming from devotion to the emir and fear for the emir’s life, would not only be overlooked, but, on the contrary, it would convey the sincerity of his feelings and elevate him further in the eyes of the emir.
He was so passionate as he begged and pleaded with the emir not to touch the girl, so that he, Hussein Huslia, would not have to spill rivers of tears and put on the black robes of mourning, that the emir was touched.
“Calm down, calm down, Hussein Huslia. We are not our people’s enemy, to leave them orphaned and drowning in sorrow. We promise you that, out of concern for our precious life, we will not go to this girl or even into the harem until the stars change their arrangement, which you will then relate to us. Come closer.”
With these words, he signaled his hookah-bearer, and then personally handed the golden mouthpiece to the new sage, which was a great honor and favor. Bending his knees and lowering his eyes, the sage accepted the emir’s favor, and his entire body shuddered (“From delight!” thought the courtiers, consumed by malicious envy).
“We declare our favor and grace to the sage Hussein Huslia,” said the emir, “and appoint him the head sage of our country, because his learnedness, wisdom, and also his great devotion to us are worthy of all manner of imitation.”
The court chronicler, whose responsibility consisted of describing, in expressions of praise, all the deeds and words of the emir, so that his greatness would not wane in coming centuries (which was a source of great concern for the emir), began to scribble with his reed pen.
“But to you,” the emir continued, turning to the courtiers, “we, on the contrary, declare our displeasure, for your ruler, in addition to all the troubles caused by Hodja Nasreddin, was also in danger of death, and yet you did not lift a finger! Look at them, Hussein Huslia, look at these dunces, look at their snouts, which quite resemble those of asses! Truly, no other sovereign has ever had to deal with such stupid and negligent viziers!”
“The illustrious emir is completely right,” Hodja Nasreddin said, looking over the silent courtiers, as if taking aim for his first blow. “I can see that the faces of these people do not bear the stamp of wisdom!”
“Exactly, exactly!” the emir approved. “That’s exactly right – do not bear the stamp of wisdom!”
“I will also say,” Hodja Nasreddin continued, “that I, likewise, do not see any faces bearing the stamp of honesty and virtue.”
“Thieves!” the emir said confidently. “All of them, thieves! Every last one! Would you believe it, Hussein Huslia, they rob us by night and by day! We must personally look after every little thing in the palace, and every time we inspect palace property, we find something missing. Only this morning, we forgot our new silk belt in the garden, and, half an hour later, it was no longer there!… One of them managed… you see, Hussein Huslia?”
At these words, the eyes of the sage with the twisted neck drooped in a particularly meek and meager fashion. At any other time, this would have gone unnoticed, but today all of Hodja Nasreddin’s senses were sharpened: he noticed everything and guessed everything at once.
He walked up to the sage confidently, thrust a hand into the bosom of his robe, and extracted a richly decorated silk belt.
“Was this, perchance, the belt the emir regretted losing?” The courtiers froze in amazement and horror. The new sage turned out to be a truly dangerous opponent, and the very first man to challenge him had already been crushed and reduced to dust. The hearts of many sages, poets, officials, and viziers skipped a beat in that moment.
“By Allah, it is the very same belt!” the emir cried. “Hussein Huslia, you are truly an incomparable sage! Aha!” the emir said triumphantly to the courtiers, his face expressing a most sincere, lively happiness. “We have got you at last! Now you won’t be able to steal a single thread from us; we have suffered enough from your thievery! As for this contemptible thief who has stolen our belt, pluck out every hair on his head, chin, and body, give him one hundred cane blows to the soles of his feet, sit him naked on a donkey, facing the tail, and parade him around the city, announcing everywhere that he is a thief!”
At Arslanbek’s signal, torturers seized the sage and pushed him outside; they set to work right there on the doorstep. Two minutes later, the torturers pushed the sage back into the hall – naked, devoid even of hair, indecent to the extreme. Now everyone saw at once that, up until now, only his beard and enormous turban concealed the wretchedness of his mind and the mark of vice stamped on his face; that a man with such a crooked face could never have been anything but the most inveterate scoundrel and thief.
The emir wrinkled his face:
“Take him away!”
The torturers dragged the sage away, and soon his screams came from the outside, accompanied by the juicy sounds of a cane hitting his feet.
Then he was placed naked on a donkey, facing the tail, and taken to the bazaar square, accompanied by the terrifying roar of trumpets and the banging of drums.
The emir conversed with the newly arrived sage for a long time. The courtiers stood motionlessly, which was quite painful for them: the heat was increasing, and their sweaty backs were itching unbearably beneath their robes. Grand Vizier Bakhtiyar, who feared the new sage more than anyone else, was preoccupied with thoughts on how he could draw the courtiers to his side in order to crush his opponent with their help; the courtiers, who could already guess the outcome of such a battle, were thinking of the most profitable ways to renounce Bakhtiyar at the crucial moment, betray him, and thus earn the trust and favor of the new sage.
Meanwhile, the emir kept asking about the caliph’s health, about news from Baghdad, and about the journey. Hodja Nasreddin had to invent answers on the spot. Everything was coming off well, and the emir, tired from the conversation, ordered a bed to be prepared so he could rest, but then voices came from the open windows, followed by someone’s scream.
The palace overseer walked quickly into the hall. His face was shining with joy. He announced:
“Let it be known to the great ruler that the blasphemer and disturber of the peace Hodja Nasreddin has been caught and brought to the palace!”