Читать книгу Oriental tales, for the entertainment of youth - Anonymous - Страница 6

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Schacabac being reduced to great poverty, and having eat nothing for two days together, made a visit to a noble Barmecide, in Persia, who was very hospitable, but withal a great humourist.—The Barmecide was sitting at his table, that seemed ready covered for an entertainment. Upon hearing Schacabac’s complaint, he desired him to sit down and fall on. He then gave him an empty plate, and asked him how he liked his rice-soup. Schacabac, who was a man of wit, and resolved to comply with the Barmecide in all his humours, told him it was admirable, and at the same time, in imitation of the other, lifted up the empty spoon to his mouth with great pleasure. The Barmecide then asked him if he ever saw whiter bread? Schacabac, who saw neither bread nor meat, If I did not like it, you may be sure, says he, I should not eat so heartily of it. You oblige me mightily, replied the Barmecide, pray let me help you to this leg of goose. Schacabac reached out his plate, and received nothing on it with great chearfulness. As he was eating very heartily of this imaginary goose, and crying up the sauce to the skies, the Barmecide desired him to keep a corner of his stomach for a roasted lamb, fed with pistachio-nuts, and after having called for it, as though it had really been served up, Here is a dish, says he, that you will see at nobody’s table but my own. Schacabac was wonderfully delighted with the taste of it, which is like nothing, says he, I ever eat before. Several other nice dishes were served up in idea, which both of them commended, and feasted on after the same manner. This was followed by an invisible desert, no part of which delighted Schacabac so much as a certain lozenge, which the Barmecide told him was a sweet-meat of his own invention. Schacabac at length, being courteously reproached by the Barmecide, that he had no stomach, and that he eat nothing, and at the same time being tired with moving his jaws up and down to no purpose, desired to be excused, for that really he was so full that he could not eat a bit more. Come, then, says the Barmecide, the cloth shall be removed, and you shall taste of my wines, which I may say, without vanity, are the best in Persia. He then filled both their glasses out of an empty decanter. Schacabac would have excused himself from drinking so much at once, because he said he was a little quarrelsome in his liquor; however, being prest to it, he pretended to take it off, having before-hand praised the colour, and afterwards the flavour. Being plied with two or three other imaginary bumpers of different wines equally delicious, and a little vexed with this fantastic treat, he pretended to grow fluttered, and gave the Barmecide a good box on the ear; but immediately recovering himself, Sir, says he, I beg ten thousand pardons, but I told you before, that it was my misfortune to be quarrelsome in my drink. The Barmecide could not but smile at the humour of his guest, and instead of being angry with him, I find, says he, thou art a complaisant fellow, and deservest to be entertained in my house. Since thou canst accommodate thyself to my humour, we will now eat together in good earnest. Upon which calling for his supper, the rice-soup, the goose, the pistachio-lamb, the several other nice dishes, with the desert, the lozenges, and all the variety of Persian wines, were served up successively one after another; and Schacabac was feasted, in reality, with those very things which he had before been entertained within imagination.