searched your medicine chest for a remedy for stomach trouble. The Greek gardener is ill. But I dared not take the African drug that you brought from Tunis, for you told me that an overdose might be dangerous. I don’t want to harm the man through ignorance.”
I disliked her habit of ransacking my chests while I was out, and I told her so. But my mind was on other things and I gave her a drug that Abu el-Kasim had warmly recommended, warning her against administering too much at a time. The same evening I was attacked by pains in the stomach after eating fruit, and Giulia told me that besides the gardener, one of the boatmen had also fallen sick. Such disorders were common in Istanbul and I paid no heed to my own pains. I took a dose of aloes and opium before going to bed and in the morning was fully recovered.
Next day I learned that the Sultan had suffered the same thing after an evening meal taken with the Grand Vizier. Suleiman at once succumbed to a mood of depression-a common enough thing among those suffering from stomach disorders.
As a result of the Sultan’s sickness the Grand Vizier at last had his evenings to himself, and at sunset after the prayer he sent for me. I hastened at once to his palace, but that lovely building, usually brilliant with countless lamps and surrounded by crowds, now stood dark, empty, and silent, like a house of mourning. Only a few pale slaves stood idly in the great hall, which was lit by a few faintly burning lamps, but between the slender columns of the audience chamber the German clockmaker came hurrying toward me. With him, to my surprise, was the Sultan’s French clockmaker, whom King Francis had sent to Suleiman after hearing of his weakness for clocks. Both these masters were examining with solemn physicians’ airs the unevenly ticking clock, made by Niimberg’s most famous horologist, that should have indicated unerringly the hour, date, month, year, and even the position of the planets. The German fell on his knees, kissed my hand, and said, “Ah, Master Michael, I am lost-I have forgotten my cunning. Thanks to my skilled repairs this unlucky timepiece has gone perfectly for six years, and now it has begun to lose. I cannot find what is wrong, and have had to beg the excellent Master Francois to help me.”
The clock ticked heavily, its hand pointed to seven, and the little figure of the smith came out and began jerkily striking the silver belL But he managed only three feeble strokes, the clock resumed its uneven ticking and the smith, his hammer still raised to strike, turned and disappeared. I looked searchingly at the two men and noted that the Frenchman guiltily thrust a wine jar behind the clock with his foot. Both men averted their eyes in some embarrassment, and then Master Francois said boastfully, “All clocks have their little ways, or we clockmakers would be out of work. I know this one inside out and to take apart so complicated a mechanism would be laborious and risky. So we have been content to refresh our memories and compare our pre-eminent knowledge, and so perhaps discover what the fault may be. It is not worth dismantling so costly a toy without good reason. The Grand Vizier is-forgive my candor-somewhat eccentric to regard this little irregularity as a bad omen.”
In his drunkenness he continued to speak so slightingly of the Grand Vizier that I grew angry and raised my hand to strike him-though I doubt whether I would have done so as he held a hammer in his hand and had the look of a testy man. But the German flung himself between us and said, “If the clock is sick, the noble Grand Vizier is more so. No man in his senses keeps his eyes constantly on a clock and loses sleep because of it. At night he often gets up to look at it and in the daytime he will break off in the middle of a sentence before the assembled Divan and stand staring at the dial. Each time he holds his head in his hand and says, ‘My clock is losing. Allah be gracious to me, my clock runs slow.’ Is that the talk of a sensible man?”
I left the fellow and hurried to the brightly lit chamber where the Grand Vizier was sitting cross legged on a triple cushion with a reading stand before him. I am not sure whether he was really reading or pretending to do so; at any rate, he turned a page calmly before raising his eyes to mine. I prostrated myself to kiss the ground before him, stammering for joy and calling down blessings upon him on his happy return from the war. He silenced me with a gesture of his thin hand and looked me straight in the eyes, while a shadow of ineffable sorrow stole over his face. His skin had lost its youthful glow and the roses of his cheeks were faded. His soft black beard made his face seem ghostly pale in the lamplight, and as he had removed his turban no diamonds sparkled over his brow. He had grown so thin that the rings hung loose upon his fingers and seemed too heavy for them.
“What do you want, Michael el-Hakim?” he asked. “I am Ibrahim, lord of the nations and steward of the Sultan’s power. I can make you vizier if it pleases me. I can transform beggars into defterdars and boatmen to admirals. But though I hold the Sultan’s own seal I cannot help myself.”
He showed me the Sultan’s square seal hanging on a gold chain about his neck under the flowered kaftan. I uttered a cry of amazement and pressed my face to the ground once more in veneration for this most precious object that no one but the Sultan might use. The Grand Vizier hid it beneath his kaftan once more and said in a tone of indifference, “With your own eyes you have seen the boundless trust reposed in me. This seal exacts unconditional obedience from high and low in all the Sultan’s dominions. Perhaps you knew that?”
He smiled a queer smile, stared before him with a twitching face, and went on, “Perhaps you know too that the Sultan’s square seal opens even the doors of the harem. There is nothing I cannot do as easily as if I were Suleiman himself. Do you understand what that means, Michael el-Hakim?”
I could only kneel before him, shake my head, and stammer, “No, no-I understand nothing-nothing!”
“You see how I pass the time in my solitude. I read-I tell the chaplet of words. On the golden shelves of my treasury stands the assembled wisdom of all lands and all ages. I read and let the words flow past my eyes. On lonely evenings I can hear the sages speak together-famous generals, great rulers, cunning architects, and inspired poets, besides all the holy men who in their way are as possessed and inspired as the poets. All this wisdom is at my disposal-but how can it profit me now? I am Ibrahim the fortunate. My eyes have been opened and I see through all human prejudice. All this wisdom-hear what I say, Michael-all this wisdom is but words beautifully strung together. Chosen with taste, no doubt, but words only-strings of words and nothing more. I, Ibrahim, alone of all men, have in my possession the personal seal of the Ruler of the World. And what do I do, Michael el-Hakim? You see me. In my lonely room I read words that have been beautifully strung together.”
He drew off the magnificent rings, irked by their looseness.
“He knows me and I know him. Twins could not divine one another’s thoughts more swiftly and completely. Last night when he fell sick he handed me his seal, thereby delivering himself and his power into my hands. Perhaps it was to show me his unshaken trust. But I know him no longer and cannot read his thoughts as I used to do. Then he was a mirror, but another has breathed upon that mirror and I cannot see what is in his mind. I can do nothing-I cannot save myself. His trust has stolen my strength and my will.”
Though he strove to master himself I saw his tremulous hands and twitching face, and as a physician I knew how sick must be his heart. I said soothingly, “Noble lord, the month of Ramadan has begun-a month as trying for rulers as for slaves. When the fast is over you will see all with other eyes and laugh at your hallucinations. You would do well to eat and drink your fill, visit your harem, and linger there until the new day of fasting and it is light enough to distinguish a black thread from a white. Experience had shown that pious vigil among the women of the harem has a soothing effect on the mind during Ramadan, and is prescribed by the Prophet himself.”
He looked at me from out of his despair. “How can I eat or drink when because of his sickness my lord must fast? He is not my lord, he is my heart’s brother, and I have never felt it so strongly as at the beginning of this Ramadan. My heart’s brother and my only true friend on earth. For years I forgot this, arrogantly enjoying his gifts and his infinite favor. While his cruel father Selim lived we rode side by side and the dark wings of death hovered over our heads. He trusted me then-he knew I was ready at any moment to die for him.
But now his trust is gone. Were it not so he would not have given me this seal. He did it only to convince himself. He is a singular man, Michael. But why speak of that? It is all too late. My clock loses more and more and I have nothing to do but read words that have been beautifully strung together. For my eyes are still alive-”
He could sit still no longer, but rose to pace back and forth restlessly, the sound of his steps muffled by the gorgeous Oriental rugs. He cried out in despair, “My clock is losing! It has been slow from the first hour. The clocks of Europe tick more quickly than the best clocks of the East. Whatever I dreamed, desired, hoped, and even achieved, I heard only the answer of my dragging clock-’Too late, too late.’ It was too late before Vienna. Too late in Bagdad, too late in Tabriz. Khaireddin came too late. Whatever I have done or decided-all has been too late.”
Blood was mounting to his head and his eyes were suffused with it as he stared at me. “Allah, what can one man do! What armies of prejudice have I not had to fight, every moment! Everything I have achieved, every law I have made, has been met with hatred and ridicule. Yet when at length all opposition was vanquished the answer was the same-’’Too late!’ Only yesterday in my foolish conceit I could fancy no greater bitterness than this. But now at the beginning of Ramadan, as I sit reading words, I no longer care to defy my destiny.”
His arms fell limply and his face, beautiful in its pallor, became calm and peaceful. An almost mischievous smile
