Read Ebook: Debits and credits by Kipling Rudyard

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1496 lines and 92414 words, and 30 pages

PAGE

THE ENEMIES TO EACH OTHER

THE ENEMIES TO EACH OTHER

It is narrated by Abu Ali Jafir Bin Yakub-ulisfahani that when, in His determinate Will, The Benefactor had decided to create the Greatest Substitute , He despatched, as is known, the faithful and the excellent Archangel Jibrail to gather from Earth clays, loams, and sands endowed with various colours and attributes, necessary for the substance of our pure Forefather's body. Receiving the Command and reaching the place, Jibrail put forth his hand to take them, but Earth shook and lamented and supplicated him. Then said Jibrail: "Lie still and rejoice, for out of thee He will create that than which is no handsomer thing--to wit a Successor and a Wearer of the Diadem over thee through the ages." Earth said: "I adjure thee to abstain from thy purpose, lest evil and condemnation of that person who is created out of me should later overtake him, and the Abiding be loosed upon my head. I have no power to resist the Will of the Most High, but I take refuge with Allah from thee." So Jibrail was moved by the lamentations and helplessness of Earth, and returned to the Vestibule of the Glory with an empty hand.

After this, by the Permission, the Just and Terrible Archangel Michael next descended, and he, likewise, hearing and seeing the abjection of Earth, returned with an empty hand. Then was sent the Archangel Azrael, and when Earth had once again implored God, and once again cried out, he closed his hand upon her bosom and tore out the clays and sands necessary.

Upon his return to the Vestibule it was asked if Earth had again taken refuge with Allah or not? Azrael said: "Yes." It was answered: "If it took refuge with Me why didst thou not spare?" Azrael answered: "Obedience was more obligatory than Pity ." It was answered: "Depart! I have made thee the Angel of Death to separate the souls from the bodies of men." Azrael wept, saying: "Thus shall all men hate me." It was answered: "Thou hast said that Obedience is more obligatory than Pity. Mix thou the clays and the sands and lay them to dry between Tayif and Mecca till the time appointed." So, then, Azrael departed and did according to the Command. But in his haste he perceived not that he had torn out from Earth clays and minerals that had lain in her at war with each other since the first; nor did he withdraw them and set them aside. And in his grief that he should have been decreed the Separator of Companions, his tears mingled with them in the mixing so that the substance of Adam's body was made unconformable and ill-assorted, pierced with burning drops, and at issue with itself before there was strife.

This, then, lay out to dry for forty years between Tayif and Mecca and, through all that time, the Beneficence of the Almighty leavened it and rained upon it the Mercy and the Blessing, and the properties necessary to the adornment of the Successorship. In that period, too, it is narrated that the Angels passed to and fro above it, and among them Eblis the Accursed, who smote the predestined Creation while it was drying, and it rang hollow. Eblis then looked more closely and observing that of which it was composed to be diverse and ill-assorted and impregnated with bitter tears, he said: "Doubt not I shall soon attain authority over this; and his ruin shall be easy."

Afterwards, by the operation of the determinate Will, there arose in Adam a desire for a companion, and an intimate and a friend in the Garden of the Tree. It is narrated that he first took counsel of Earth his body. Earth said: "Forbear. Is it not enough that one should have dominion over me?" Adam answered: "There is but one who is One in Earth or Heaven. All paired things point to the Unity, and my soul, which came not from thee, desires unutterably." Earth said: "Be content in innocence, and let thy body, which I gave unwillingly, return thus to thy mother." Adam said: "I am motherless. What should I know?"

Then the somnolence fell upon him, as is narrated; and upon waking he beheld our Lady Eve . Adam said: "O my Lady and Light of my Universe, who art thou?" Eve said: "O my Lord and Summit of my Contentment, who art thou?" Adam said: "Of a surety I am thine." Eve said: "Of a surety I am thine." Thus they ceased to inquire further into the matter, but were united, and became one flesh and one soul, and their felicity was beyond comparison or belief or imagination or apprehension.

Thereafter, it is narrated, that Eblis the Stoned consorted with them secretly in the Garden, and the Peacock with him; and they jested and made mirth for our Lord Adam and his Lady Eve and propounded riddles and devised occasions for the stringing of the ornaments and the threading of subtleties. And upon a time when their felicity was at its height, and their happiness excessive, and their contentment expanded to the uttermost, Eblis said: "O my Master and my Mistress declare to us, if it pleases, some comparison or similitude that lies beyond the limits of possibility." Adam said: "This is easy. That the Sun should cease in Heaven or that the Rivers should dry in the Garden is beyond the limits of possibility." And they laughed and agreed, and the Peacock said: "O our Lady, tell us now something of a jest as unconceivable and as beyond belief as this saying of thy Lord." Our Lady Eve then said: "That my Lord should look upon me otherwise than is his custom is beyond this saying." And when they had laughed abundantly, she said: "O our Servitors, tell us now something that is further from possibility or belief than my saying." Then the Peacock said: "O our Lady Eve, except that thou shouldst look upon thy Lord otherwise than is thy custom, there is nothing further than thy saying from possibility or belief or imagination." Then said Eblis: "Except that the one of you should be made an enemy to the other, there is nothing, O my Lady, further than thy saying from possibility, or belief, or imagination, or apprehension." And they laughed immoderately all four together in the Garden.

But when the Peacock had gone and Eblis had seemed to depart, our Lady Eve said to Adam: "My Lord and Disposer of my Soul, by what means did Eblis know our fear?" Adam said: "O my Lady, what fear?" Eve said: "The fear which was in our hearts from the first, that the one of us might be made an enemy to the other." Then our pure Forefather bowed his head on her bosom and said: "O Companion of my Heart, this has been my fear also from the first, but how didst thou know?" Eve said: "Because I am thy flesh and thy soul. What shall we do?"

Eve then put out her hand to the fruit, but Adam said: "It is forbidden. Let us go." Eve said: "O my Lord and my Sustainer, upon my head be it, and upon the heads of my daughters after me. I will first taste of this Tree, and if misfortune fall on me, do thou intercede for me; or else eat likewise, so that eternal bliss may come to us together."

Thus she ate, and he after her; and at once the ornaments of Paradise disappeared from round them, and they were delivered to shame and nudity and abjection. Then, as is narrated, Adam accused Eve in the Presence; but our Lady Eve accepted all that had been done.

It is further recorded by the stringers of the pearls of words and the narrators of old, that when our pure Forefather the Lord Adam and his adorable consort Eve were thus expelled, there was lamentation among the beasts in the Garden whom Adam had cherished and whom our Lady Eve had comforted. Of those unaffected there remained only the Mole, whose custom it was to burrow in earth and to avoid the light of the Sun. His nature was malignant and his body inconspicuous but, by the Power of the Omnipotent, Whose Name be exalted, he was then adorned with eyes far-seeing both in the light and the darkness.

When the Mole heard the Divine Command of Expulsion, it entered his impure mind that he would extract profit and advancement from a secret observation and a hidden espial. So he followed our Forefather and his august consort, under the earth, and watched those two in their affliction and their abjection and their misery, and the Garden was without his presence for that time.

But to those two, Adam and Eve, the alleviation was permitted, till Habil and Quabil and their sisters Labuda and Aqlemia had attained the age of maturity. Then there came to the Greatest Substitute and his Consort, from out of Kabul the Stony, that Peacock, by whose contrivance Eblis the Accursed had first obtained admission into the Garden of the Tree. And they made him welcome in all their ways and into all their imaginings; and he sustained them with false words and flagitious counsels, so that they considered and remembered their forfeited delights in the Garden both arrogantly and impenitently.

Then came the Word to the Archangel Jibrail the Faithful, saying: "Follow those two with diligence, and interpose the shield of thy benevolence where it shall be necessary; for though We have surrendered them for awhile they shall not achieve an irremediable destruction." Jibrail therefore followed our First Substitute and the Lady Eve--upon whom is the Grace and a Forgetfulness--and kept watch upon them in all the lands appointed for their passage through the world. Nor did he hear any lamentations in their mouths for their sins. It is recorded that, for a hundred years they were continuously upheld by the Peacock under the detestable power of Eblis the Stoned, who by means of magic multiplied the similitudes of meat and drink and rich raiment about them for their pleasure, and came daily to worship them as Gods. . Further, in that age, their eyes were darkened and their minds were made turbid, and the faculty of laughter was removed from them. The Excellent Archangel Jibrail, when he perceived by observation that they had ceased to laugh, returned and bowed himself among the Servitors and cried: "The last evil has fallen upon Thy creatures whom I guard! They have ceased to laugh and are made even with the ox and the camel." It was answered: "This also was foreseen. Keep watch."

The historians assert that on such occasions it was the custom of the Peacock to expand his tail and stand beside our First Substitute and to minister to him with flatteries and adorations.

Then came the Peacock in the likeness of Jibrail to the Lady Eve and said: "O Lady of Light, why is thy Altar upon the left hand and the Altar of my Lord upon the right?" The Lady Eve said: "It is a remediable error," and she remedied it with her own hands, and our pure Forefather fell into a great anger. Then entered Jibrail in the likeness of the Peacock and said to Adam: "O my Lord and Very Interpreter, what has vexed thee?" Adam said: "What shall we do? The Woman who sleeps in my bosom has changed the honourable places of the Altars, and if I suffer not the change she will weary me by night and day, and there will be no refreshment upon earth." Jibrail said, speaking in the voice of the Peacock: "For the sake of refreshment suffer the change." So they worshipped at the changed Altars, the Altar to the Woman upon the right, and to the Man upon the left.

So restitution was made without fraud or dishonour and they returned to the temple each in his proper shape with his attributes, and listened to the end of that conversation between the First Substitute and his august Consort who ceased not to reprehend each other upon all matters within their observation and their experience and their imagination.

When the steeds of recrimination had ceased to career across the plains of memory, and when the drum of evidence was no longer beaten by the drumstick of malevolence, and the bird of argument had taken refuge in the rocks of silence, the Excellent and Trustworthy Archangel Jibrail bowed himself before our pure Forefather and said: "O my Lord and Fount of all Power and Wisdom, is it permitted to worship the Visible God?"

Then Adam entered, and the two looked upon each other laughing. Then said Adam: "O my Lady and Crown of my Torments, is it peace between us?" And our Lady Eve answered: "O my Lord and sole Cause of my Unreason, it is peace till the next time and the next occasion." And Adam said: "I accept, and I abide the chance." Our Lady Eve said: "O Man, wouldst thou have it otherwise upon any composition?" Adam said: "O Woman, upon no composition would I have it otherwise--not even for the return to the Garden of the Tree; and this I swear on thy head and the heads of all who shall proceed from thee." And Eve said: "I also." So they removed both Altars and laughed and built a new one between.

And it was answered: "Enough! It shall stand in the place of both Our Curse and Our Blessing."

SEA CONSTABLES

A Tale of '15

THE CHANGELINGS

Or ever the battered liners sank With their passengers to the dark, I was head of a Walworth Bank, And you were a grocer's clerk.

I was a dealer in stocks and shares, And you in butters and teas, And we both abandoned our own affairs And took to the dreadful seas.

Wet and worry about our ways-- Panic, onset, and flight-- Had us in charge for a thousand days And a thousand-year-long night.

We saw more than the nights could hide-- More than the waves could keep-- And--certain faces over the side Which do not go from our sleep.

We were more tired than words can tell While the pied craft fled by, And the swinging mounds of the Western swell Hoisted us Heavens-high....

Now there is nothing--not even our rank-- To witness what we have been; And I am returned to my Walworth Bank, And you to your margarine!

SEA CONSTABLES

A Tale of '15

The head-waiter of the Carvoitz almost ran to meet Portson and his guests as they came up the steps from the palm-court where the string band plays.

"Fair to middling, Henri," Portson shook hands with him. "You're looking all right, too. Have you got us our table?"

Henri nodded towards a pink alcove, kept for mixed doubles, which discreetly commanded the main dining-room's glitter and blaze.

"Good man!" said Portson. "Now, this is serious, Henri. We put ourselves unreservedly in your hands. We're weather-beaten mariners--though we don't look it, and we haven't eaten a Christian meal in months. Have you thought of all that, Henri, mon ami?"

"The menu, I have compose it myself," Henri answered with the gravity of a high priest.

It was more than a year since Portson--of Portson, Peake and Ensell, Stock and Share Brokers--had drawn Henri's attention to an apparently extinct Oil Company which, a little later, erupted profitably; and it may be that Henri prided himself on paying all debts in full.

The most recent foreign millionaire and the even more recent foreign actress at a table near the entrance clamoured for his attention while he convoyed the party to the pink alcove. With his own hands he turned out some befrilled electrics and lit four pale-rose candles.

"Bridal!" some one murmured. "Quite bridal!"

"Who's your friend?" Maddingham asked.

"I've forgotten her name for the minute," Portson replied, "but she's the latest thing in imported patriotic piece-goods. She sings 'Sons of the Empire, Go Forward!' at the Palemseum. It makes the aunties weep."

"That's Sidney Latter. She's not half bad," Tegg reached for the vinegar. "We ought to see her some night."

"Yes. We've a lot of time for that sort of thing," Maddingham grunted. "I'll take your oysters, Portson, if you don't want 'em."

"Cheer up, Papa Maddingham! 'Soon be dead!" Winchmore suggested.

"Did you get those new washboards of yours fixed?" Tegg cut in.

"Don't talk shop already," Portson protested. "This is Vesiga soup. I don't know what he's arranged in the way of drinks."

"Pol Roger '04," said the waiter.

"Sound man, Henri," said Winchmore. "But," he eyed the waiter doubtfully, "I don't quite like.... What's your alleged nationality?"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet